Modern cinemas are so clinical, but they used to be wonderful places to socialise.
When I was at film school, we had our own cinema, which was very atmospheric. It was like an old flea pit – dark and curtained, with creaky old orange plush seats. I saw all these incredible films with other people and was blown away. I fell in love with watching films that way.
A few years ago, someone I knew was running a fortnightly DVD night for friends and it caught my imagination. It occurred to me that it would be wonderful to take that idea of watching films together and broaden it to include more people.
1. Getting started
I wanted to do something bigger than a film night in my house, so I joined forces with a friend and used a school hall for the first screening. It was Christmas and we transformed one corner of the hall into a front room. We had a tree, we strung up lights, borrowed sofas and chairs, and brought cushions and rugs.
We spread the word through people involved with community arts and put a message in the local paper that said: “Do you fancy watching a film with people you don’t know in a friendly setting?”
It was a gamble but, to my amazement, about 40 people turned up – people from the local Somali and Pakistani communities, families, students. Everyone understood this idea of watching a film together in a building that wasn’t a cinema. We sat in a semi-circle and, of course, with it being Christmas, we showed It’s a Wonderful Life. We used a borrowed projector on a rubbish screen with speakers rigged up to a laptop. It was very tinpot, but afterwards people asked when we were going to do it again.
2. The nitty gritty
You can start a film club anywhere – in a school hall, a pub or at home.
The best resource for getting started is Cinema For All, run by the British Federation of Film Societies). It can tell you where to borrow equipment and put you in touch with a huge network of film societies that you can ask for advice.
Most importantly, it will help you navigate the knotty waters of licensing. Licences are expensive and you might need to buy one, but there can be ways to screen films without having one – just do your research properly.
When we began, we wanted our film club to be free but as we got bigger and needed a licence, we decided to charge £5 to watch a film. For that, you will often get some food and drink, and some themed entertainment as well. Compared with what you’d pay in one of the big cinema chains, it’s good value.
It definitely helps to have a team to support you, so think about starting a club with friends. I run Magic Lantern with two of my friends, Jenny Sutton and Alison Geldart, and we all have other jobs. We split the workload between us. One of us does administration, another looks after the Facebook page and another finds the venues for our screenings.
3. Dream big
One of the best aspects of running a film club is picking an amazing venue. We’ve put on screenings all over the place, which has been a real adventure. If you spot a building you like the look of, try to find out who owns it and ask if you can use it. We try to get our venues for free, or at a low cost, and to mutual benefit, so the owner could run their own bar, for instance.
We try to be creative with our venues and also think about adding atmosphere to the screening. We showed Jaws by a canal and had a remote-controlled shark fin circling in the water, with a huge shark mouth around the screen. It was great because everyone had seen the film and there were big roars of appreciation for the bits that everyone knows and loves.
One of the most exciting screenings was Alien. We showed it in a cavernous warehouse in the middle of January in the snow. We brought heaters in, which blew the electrics, and the emergency generator could only power the projector.
Amazingly, everyone stayed and watched the film. Because Alien is set in a space station, the fact that we were freezing added to the effect.
4. Roll up, roll up
After you’ve picked your film and venue, you need to make sure people turn up. We use Facebook, Twitter, and a website, but a lot of our publicity is word of mouth. People say: “Ooh, have you heard about this?” That’s what keeps it fresh and exciting. Our audience don’t always know where to find us because we don’t have a regular venue.
We get such a mix of people turning up. For a recent screening of Creature from the Black Lagoon, we had a complete hipster explosion – I don’t know where they all came from.
But then we also get sensible older couples with their picnics and pac-a-macs. There’s an amazing character in Sheffield – an 80-something cinema and theatre historian. When he turned up to a screening, I thought: we’ve arrived.
When we first started, we tried to have formal discussions after the films but found it never really worked. The atmosphere is so informal, it’s better just to have a drink afterwards.
We often plan something before the screening to warm everyone up instead. When we showed The Ladykillers, in a beautiful old Victorian theatre, we dressed up as mad old ladies and we all played film bingo. It got everybody talking.
5. It’s worth it
We have kittens every single time we do a screening. We think: is this going to work? Are we crazy? But even on the rare occasion when things go wrong – if, say, the venue lets us down – we give a refund and usually people are nice about it. And, of course, every time someone comes up to us after a screening and says they loved it, that makes it worthwhile.
A lot of the fun comes from the three of us sitting around, having a cup of tea and planning crazy things. A lot of the time they’re ideas we could never actually pull off – but then sometimes, we do.
For details of Magic Lantern’s events, visit magiclanternfilmclub.org
The best film clubs around the country
Cigarette Burns
This club harks back to the days of mechanical projectors and rolls of film. Catch it on 18 September at Hollywood Spring, a new addition to London’s independent cinema in London, and watch Highlander on 16mm as part of a Scottish independence special.
Torbay Film Club
If big screens aren’t for you, a church in Devon might be a more romantic venue for a movie. Films are shown monthly, with a glass of wine beforehand. The autumn season kicks off this month, with films including Blue Jasmine, and European classic Bicycle Thieves.
Kneel before Zod
Organisers Richard Dundas and Ali Smith started showing films during house parties in Nottingham, followed by triple bills projected on Dundas’ front room wall. They took their name from a Superman 2 quote and show “lost classics”, often on VHS.
Newcastle Community Cinema
Voted the UK’s best film club for two years in a row, this community cinema in Northern Ireland claims to “put the old-fashioned excitement back into Saturday night at the movies”. It even has an original popcorn machine at every screening.
Silkscreen Film Society
As people turn their backs on the stink of multiplex nacho cheese, old-fashioned cinema has returned to Macclesfield. Silkscreen Film Society shows international films at the Heritage Centre, on vintage wooden cinema seats.
Films illustrated in the main picture
Did you get them all? Clockwise from top left: Alien, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, King Kong, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Birds, Rear Window and Jaws
