VIRTUAL VIEWING Film fans take part in online clubs to fill void of going to theater
APRIL 12, 2020
“It’s preserved part of the experience of being at the office when you talk to someone in the kitchen about, say, the Keanu Reeves movie you watched the weekend before.”
There are 44 people in the Social Distance Movie Club’s Slack channel, where co-workers at Crooked Media have had discussions about everything from a Dwayne Johnson earthquake film to Faye Dunaway’s turn as Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest.”
It doesn’t have anything to do with the work that’s done at the Los Angeles company, which produces podcasts such as Pod Save America (it’s also helped raise over $1 million for coronavirus relief ). But for the past few weeks of working from home, it’s become a way for the staff to pause the news and escape into the world of film together.
With theaters closed and most of the country staying home, virtual viewing parties are surging
— Michael Martinez, Crooked Media’s executive producer for news and politics
in popularity. They simulate the experience of going out to the movies, and you don’t even have to pass the popcorn.
Michael Martinez, Crooked Media’s executive producer for news and politics, got the Social Distance Movie Club going with The Rock in “San Andreas.” Since then, they’ve viewed “National Treasure” and “Road House.”
“It started as a funny thing to do,” Martinez said. “But it’s preserved part of the experience of being at the office when you talk to someone in the kitchen about, say, the Keanu Reeves movie you watched the weekend before.”
It’s not just friends and co-workers, either. Movie studios, actors and even some publications are bringing people together online around the shared viewing of a film through Twitter hashtags, long a staple of appointment television.
MGM Studios two weeks ago held a “Legally Blonde” watch party, streaming the beloved Reese Witherspoon comedy for free on Facebook on a Friday morning.
Stephen Bruno, chief marketing officer at MGM, said they were looking for ways to entertain and decided to mine their library for joyous titles. “Legally Blonde” was an obvious choice.
When they reached out to Witherspoon to see if she’d be on board, Bruno paraphrased the star: “She said something to the effect of, ‘Everybody could use a little Elle Woods positivity right now.’ ” Witherspoon and co-star Victor Garber helped views spike with social media mentions.
And people turned out, with as many as 1.1 million tuning in over the course of the film, with a peak of 22,300 simultaneous views.
about older people,” a fact that has led to further cancellations for the two.
They planned to interview two veterans, one who witnessed the Hindenburg disaster as a child and later served in the military, and another who served on the beaches of Normandy. Both had to be called off. “They’re starving for companionship, a lot of these people. It’s sad, they’re already so lonely,” explained Suwak.
Abruzzese has also seen a substantial amount of freelance work evaporate. “We’re talking thousands [of dollars]. This is the busy season, too. March and April are where I would get the most video gigs,” including work as a camera operator for corporate video shoots as well as commencements at Drexel University. “That’s thousands [of dollars] worth of work for like a week and a half, so that’s all gone.”
Even with the setbacks, the pair are still trying to stay active creatively and work on other work.
Suwak is also an assistant professor at Kutztown University, but is focusing on personal projects this semester. She has begun sculpting again, noting she used to use stop-animation in films and hopes to experiment with learning to animate digitally. They’re also spending their time filming anything and everything, from drone shots to round out their short film to mini-clips of their Australian cattle dogs.
A planned documentary about mental health they planned to shoot in Easton is also being held up.
Personal and professional projects elsewhere have been suspended. Gene Connelly, board chairman and a founding member of Fade In/Fade Out, a non-profit filmmaking consortium in the Lehigh Valley, said two commercial gigs that he was pursuing are up in the air.
“Once the restrictions of travel happened on March 20th, both jobs were put on indefinite hold,” said Bill Hartin, founder and CEO of Fade In / Fade
Out. The group canceled its April meeting which is usually held at Two Rivers Brewing Company in Easton. With two feature films he’s involved in, he added, “Like many other organizations, we are relying on online communications and teleconferences to move things along.”
One of those projects is Bethlehem native Daniel Roebuck’s new film, “The Hail Mary.” The project kicked off with an announcement at Northampton’s Roxy Theatre on March 10. Just a few days later, the coronavirus began to shut down communities across the state.
In an interview from his home in Burbank, California, Roebuck said his crew is, “excited and grateful for this mission we’re on together and everybody understands that God’s timing is always perfect. Mine? Not so much.”
God plays an important role in Roebuck’s films. He explained that his goal for A Channel of Peace — a new nonprofit supporting the work — is to offer “family movies where characters solve their problems through the prism of faith.”
With his new project being filmed on location in the Lehigh Valley and with local actors, some adjustments have been required. With casting slated to begin this month, Roebuck is working towards utilizing technology to offer remote castings through video chat. So far, he’s hopeful that “The Hail Mary” timeline will not be greatly affected. However, some of his other projects have been delayed.
One of these is a feature film called “My Brother’s Crossing,” in which Roebuck stars. It was scheduled to debut on April 10 and has been pushed back. Another shoot in April has been delayed, and yet anotherventure he described as “top secret” and the “part of a lifetime” set to film in Europe, has been postponed.
Still, Roebuck remains positive and continues to focus on his book “The Audition is the Job, and Other Truths That I’ve Learned in the Land of Make Believe.” He hopes to examine his career as a writer, actor, and director to share his insights.
For Roebuck, temporary shutdowns aren’t necessarily new. In his 35 years in Hollywood, he’s seen two lengthy writers strikes — in 1988 and 20072008. “As an artist, I learned a long time ago to save some money,” he mused. “I’m not a guy who sits around and waits for the phone to ring … I’ve always had a documentary or a play to write, I’ve always had something to keep me busy.”
With social distancing and stay-athome measures to continue until at least the end of April, there will be plenty of time to fill. Some filmmakers worry about the future of their subjects and their ability to tell their stories.
Abruzzese noted that “before all this happened, we had an urgency” to capture the stories of their subjects. “Now, it’s such a change in narrative.”
Given the dire nature of the health crisis, Roebuck offered that, “We should be learning every moment we have here, and we should be doing something good and positive to make the world better … Now, more than ever, artists must be prepared to stay positive and keep creating.”
Readers can find more about Suwak and Abruzzese’s film at roamingdingo.com and more about Roebuck’s movie at achannelofpeace.org. Glenn Koehler is a contributor to The Morning Call.