I'm Rose O’Donovan and I'm here at the BFI [Stephen Street, London] with Marc Brown and it's the 19th of June 2024. Marc, I wonder if you could introduce yourself and briefly explain your relationship to Riverside.
Marc Brown: Yes, of course. Riverside Studios is very important to me. I'm Marc Brown. I was a part of Riverside for the last...sort of...five years of its existence in the old building and also helped with the transition to the new building, working a further three years. So, yeah, Riverside is very close to my heart.
Tell me a little bit more about your role there.
Certainly. So, to talk very briefly about myself, I was a projectionist working mainly in the Multiplex circles and because I had been working since the late 90’s, I did have experience with handling 35 millimetre [mm] film and the transition to digital cinema. For listeners unaware, cinema now obviously is digital, and it's mainly sort of files very different to the photochemical 35mm handling process. So, I’d kind of done a little bit of both. I’d done my time in the trenches in the Multiplexes, which wasn't much fun for me because it didn't have the attention to detail and whatnot, that I was trained up in, though [I was] lucky enough to meet a lot of projectionists very early on in my life that shaped me - Derek Dorking being one that I definitely want to name drop. A meticulous showman. Wealth of experience. So yeah, definitely an inspiration to me.
And yeah, I think my time had come to an end working with a certain cinema chain. And luckily, as is always the nature, in work and in your life, one of my last jobs working in a cinema in Kingston, I met a young guy called Roger Holland who wanted to become a projectionist, and it was all 35mm back then. And I really did just show him the basics, I just showed him little things. I talked about problems and whatnot. And Roger had taken that, in the time that I had left that cinema, and just rolled with it. And by the time I'd met Roger again, he was now a BFI IMAX projectionist. So, we can't ignore Roger's role in all this because Roger also worked weekends at Riverside Studios. He assisted Richard there who was a projectionist and had been there a very long amount of time, he'd been there [about] 20 years. He knew the machines inside and out. He knew all their little quirks and all the crazy little things they did, and Richard was really working very hard during the weekdays, he was covering a lot of ground.
So, Shira MacLeod, who was our booker and our film programmer I should say, actually bought extra help in for him. But Roger was getting more tied up with his external work and he said, “Would you like to come work at Riverside Studios?” And I was incredibly excited. I had a very brief interview with Shira, who was more interested in my film knowledge and whatnot as well as my projection knowledge. And at that point, she handed me over to Richard and I had a lovely kind of training session with Richard teaching. He taught me all about their 35mm process, because the thing that was very different in this 35mm environment is something called ‘changeovers’. And changeovers are referenced in films like David Fincher's “Fight Club”. They're basically little cue dots that prompt the projectionist to change a reel because films come in 20-minute sections or at least they did back then. And they still do when they're on 35mm because they're very big, you're dealing with 24 frames, each frame a second, each frame is the size of a postage stamp. So basically, to get a reel film of about 17 minutes, you're talking about the size of a large dinner plate.
Now, I'd worked with Cinemeccanica platters before, not really applicable to Riverside, but you can Google that and look up how that works. And I wasn't familiar with the changeover process. The changeover process means that basically you get one set of cue dots, to ‘start your engine’, so to speak, and then a second set that basically means you change your reel over now. And the idea is for the audience, that you shouldn't see that transition. So that made me very nervous, I was very nervous indeed and I remember one of the first films I trained on was a Hunter S. Thompson documentary called Gonzo. And that was an interesting one, because it was an older print and for anyone who's ever seen 35mm projection, they'll know that each print has got personality, depending on how well it's been looked after. This one was okay but it had been around the block. So, Hunter S. Thompson, obviously the photojournalist, had a very complicated life. And the point of my changeover was when a woman was basically describing how she found him when he passed away. And so, she's telling this heartfelt story about Thompson, again, this is from [my] blurry memories. And so, she says, “yes, and it was very hard because…” - the first changeover dot appears, “Start my engine” Roger says, and I do. She goes “...because when I looked at him, I suddenly thought…”, second changeover dot! And Roger’s going “Start, change, change, change, change, change!” And I didn't change and then all of a sudden, I changed over, and you had a moment of black in between. And Roger said, “Why didn't you press the button when the changeover came?” I said, “Because it would have cut off the last thing she said.” And he said, “The last thing she said wasn't on the print. That changeover is your cue to change over, that footage would be lost”. And I went, “Wow, that's not good”. And he said, “Yeah but you get prints like that.”. I had a print of “Annie Hall” where, unfortunately, I don't think Woody Allen knew what that film would become. So, a lot of great one-liners were on those changeover bits. They were lost on the print because, with each handling of the print, a frame had gone. And even at 24 frames a second, you can lose footage.
So, yeah, so I learned changeovers with Roger and Richard. Basically, transitioned to being a projectionist there and I was covering a lot of holidays as well. Richard was by that stage nearing retirement. And, as things were moving more over to digital, it's very interesting, and it's very true of the BFI, a lot of older projectionists have a relationship, a loving relationship, with 35mm and digital is kind of this new kid on the block that's a bit cocky and a bit show-offy and they're a little bit dismissive of him. Even so, Richard didn't have that, Richard always put his attention in his shows, but he definitely felt more at home with 35mm and its character than he did digital, which coincided with his retirement. You know, as more shows are moving over to digital, to talk to you about that “Annie Hall” problem, what was happening is those kinds of prints were getting retired and getting replaced with digital versions where all those imperfections were gone. So more and more classic films that he'd run over the years on 35mm, we were running digitally, and he was fine with that, but it wasn't quite where his heart was. He retired and that basically left a huge hole, particularly as Roger at that point was still getting more and more work, still getting a lot of work with the BFI.
So, I became the full-time chief [projectionist] for the last six to three months of Riverside's history in the older venue. Not a very long time, but I'd been working there, as I said, a good couple of years [before] basically. And what Richard had done, Richard was very gracious, he’d wound down anyway and a lot of the operational running, not so much the planning, he was slowly handing over to me. He wasn't a territorial fellow at all, we were very collaborative, I like to think so anyway, about what we were doing. And you know, the fact is it would always come down to Richard.
A lovely memory that I'll share, which shows how invaluable these older projectionists are, is I was showing a digital show of I think “Lawrence of Arabia” and that finished. And then my next show was “Lady Vengeance”, which was showing on 35mm. I had a beautiful print of that which had been very well looked after. But to my horror, as I went to lace one of the projectors, there was a huge bang and a puff of ‘Mission: Impossible’-style smoke coming out of the bottom of the projector which, I thought, “This can't be good” and this awful smell and that's basically the smell of 20-year-old dust burning and it wasn't good. But more importantly, it wasn't good because I was supposed to be showing a film on this in the next twenty minutes. So, I panicked, and I rang Richard. I said, so it's just done this, done that and I can't see anything wrong, I don't know what to do! And he said “Well, don't worry, it does occasionally. It's probably a capacitor blown”. You know, because I've got no delusions of grandeur, people like Richard and Derek, who I mentioned earlier, the Young brothers who worked at the screening room at BFI, which is where I am now - they knew these machines like cars. They could look in them and they could say that's doing that and that's doing this. Because I came in in the late 90’s and there was definitely a pecking order in place in the Multiplexes to push people like me away from that. I am nowhere near as skilled or, or knowledgeable on that kind of running. You know, I could open a projector up, a 35mm projector and I could actually tell you what's wrong with it. I could go, “that's doing that, it's not moving correctly”. And they’d say “Oh, can you fix it?” I'd be like, “I can try but really you want a Roger or a Derek for this because they will fix it in seconds”. So, yeah, so I rang Richard and said it’s done this and this and this, what do I do? He said “Nothing, it should run okay”. I went, “Really?” It's done this, I don't think you understand, and I told the story again and he said “Try and see what happens”. And I did and it ran absolutely fine. And that's why there is the phrase for that and that killer: “there is no school like the old school”. You're talking about experience-based skills there. You know, I've got no, again, mistake about my role in this. My knowledge all comes from experience and working with the Richard’s and the Roger’s and the Derek’s and learning things.
So, yeah, so, and then to finish, I moved over to the new Riverside Studios when they re-opened. They were very gracious to bring me back. I'd gone off and worked for the Institute of Contemporary Arts for 3 or 4 years and they wanted me to open the site and use that knowledge that I gleaned to basically make sure that the presentation in both the screens was of an optimum standard with an option to bring 35mm in later. I must mention Ian Dixon Wilkinson here who basically pioneered that build along with the existing team there, Nik Whybrew, there was a lot of people who worked very hard on that installation and wanted to make sure it was future proof to bring 35mm back into the fray at Riverside. And they'd done an excellent job and I kind of came along at the eleventh hour and just dealt with the snagging and the things that needed perfecting and work with Ian [Dixon-Wilkinson] and Nik on that. So that, by the time we opened - we opened with Parasite and The Lighthouse - the presentation was very good, and we got it even better as the weeks went on. So, yeah, it was lovely. It was a really lovely collaborative effort and what's really lovely for me is walking back into the new building, it felt like I had come home back to the old building. There was a wonderful architectural blueprint there which kind of wanted new Riverside to not be dismissive of old Riverside. They wanted to use the look of the old and mix it with the technology of the new.
[11.41] So, thanks Marc. Okay. I'm just gonna take a pause.
[00.01] Marc, what would you say is either distinctive or unique about Riverside Studios?
It's a tough one for me, because if you've seen our heritage film, then the talent on screen, Brian Cox and co. do cover that very well. And it's quite interesting to hear their recollections and to think, yeah, that's the nerve it touches. It is, you know, to quote Mr Cox, “ramshackle bohemian and kind of, you know, has a collective”. But, and that’s the weird thing, it was quite jarring for me coming from a corporate background because corporate backgrounds didn't really have any, a belief in kind of listening to individual voices. It wanted a collective voice that represented the company. So, when I came into Riverside, I was very nervous and kind of, you know, wanted to toe the line and make sure that I wasn't upsetting anybody. And it become very evident from early on, talking to our front of house managers - Daniel Thurman was one of our managers back then, and we had Lindsey Bowden, and obviously Nik Whybrew was definitely around, and Shira herself, they just was kind of, you know, and it's that thing of which I really recommend to anyone listening out there who runs a company of always been professional and having a standard but not taking everything so seriously that you basically create situations and precedents where they're not needed. So, that was very refreshing to me and jarring at the same time. And it meant that when you create that kind of dialogue with your team, then you're just more relaxed and you get to know each other more, you feel more like a family than you do a workforce. And that was definitely the case with Riverside Studios. People there become very firm friends of mine, people who I sadly miss like Dan Eagleton and whatnot. He was just a front of house guy and Kevin and there was a lot of brilliant front of house people there. And the other thing that Riverside did, which is, I don't know if it's unique for an arts venue, but it definitely had a…I definitely felt that the first time I saw it work properly was at Riverside, was that these guys would move around. They would do theatre one day and cinema the next and they might do television. There was a television studio at old Riverside as well as the very impressive one at the new.
So yeah, so these guys would move around and it meant they had to be a kind of a jack of all trades. And unfortunately to paraphrase it, not a master of none, a master of all. So, you know, you had guys who would share anecdotes and stories. We had wonderful anecdotes about quiz shows. I mean, there was a very famous moment in Never Mind the Buzzcocks history where one of the talent [Huey Morgan] threw a cup. Never Mind the Buzzcocks being the famous kind of panel show that was filmed in the TV studios. And because that happened that night, we were all just talking about it in the office, you know, and wisecracking about it to a degree, but also that wide eyed kind of like, because I'd been up in the cinema and I come down and heard this crazy story about, you know, Buzzcocks, and that's probably a very popular YouTube clip now.
You know, and it was that kind of culture, that kind of conversational and camaraderie that become part of Riverside's DNA long before I ever set foot in the building. It was very evident when I came in that this was in full flow, and it was the way the place worked, you know, and it was definitely part of its heart. Which is why everyone did have that huge kneejerk panic when Riverside Studios closed for redevelopment because they worried that, you know, what would come back would be different, if it came back at all. You know, obviously, no one could predict COVID, which was a huge complication in early Riverside history, you know, in terms of the new building.
So, yeah, it was, the fact that it was, a really beloved thing. And if you look at the pictures from the party we had when we closed the building, you know, we put all of our handprints on the wall, you know, as part of our... kind of...you know, we were here and we were part of this and, you know, and I'm still very new, you know, I think in Riverside's wide and varied history for me to be part of that cinema a couple of years really is just a blip. When you're looking at Doctor Who episodes and Hancock's Half Hour, when you hear that the Dad's Army theme was recorded at Riverside Studios, you realize that this is this vast tapestry of history and it's that and those people who came along before me, some of which probably sadly aren't with us anymore. They basically created that thought process and that way of working, so people like I, coming in decades later, were lucky enough to inherit that. And it is what makes Riverside special having...you know...taken on different career opportunities as they've presented themselves to me, I do still miss that from Riverside. I'm very lucky to work with the BFI at the moment, and luckily the BFI works off a very similar model, but the fact that I had those relationships with people at Riverside means I will always be tied to Riverside Studios and very protective of it.
[5.00] What impact has Riverside had on your life and your career?
Unbelievable impact. I am sitting here in Stephen Street as a result of the opportunities awarded to me at the BFI.
It's a very weird ladder for me and it's got a few broken rungs. The first steps on the ladder were definitely meeting people like Derek Dorking, working in the ABC Cinema circuit at that time. And then, with each kind of rung, I climbed up and then I got to, like, the broken rungs on the ladder which were like mainstream multiplex running. Not really much beneficial there other than the fact that you were running a lot of poor-quality stuff, being time constrained and being told not to worry about it. When digital cinema came in and it wasn't right, I was told not to worry about it and it was very unhappy for me. I left the industry for a short spell because of that. And then thanks to the opportunities awarded by Roger, I was brought back in at Riverside Studios and basically, I'd worked out that everything had been a thorn in the side of my previous employers in terms of my attention to detail and meticulous arguing over a reel, arguing whether a reel of a kids’ film...a teen comedy...you know...appealing to like younger kids who were not cineastes, because it was scratched, it needed to be replaced. You know, these kinds of things were a thorn in the side of my Multiplex employers, you know. “Why is he doing this? Why is he stirring up all this nonsense over rubbish?”
And, you know, and then at Riverside Studios, it was like, no, no, no, that's, that's exactly what we do. The people paying to watch the films are here because of Shira McLeod's brilliant programming, wanted a high-quality experience. You had to deliver on that. And it was….for me…it was music to my ears. I mean, another anecdote very early on, you know, to talk about Richard. We talked about the bane of my existence and hopefully some of the listeners, the dreaded light queue. If you've gone to see a film at the cinema, and there are scenes during the credits or it has an emotionally jarring ending, we do not want the lights flooding the room as soon as that film is finished, we want a little bit of chewing time. And, you know, and Rich…I was talking to Richard about this having come from a Multiplex where I got into arguments weekly about light cues. I was showing one of the Toy Story films which included a huge, long sequence through the [end] credits.
And I was told to bring the lights up immediately because of health and safety. And I was saying, “the audience don't leave, they're watching these scenes. I don't wanna do this”….da da da da da - you know, a lot of arguing. And when I first started, I talked about the lights to Richard and he said, “Yep, you don't bring the lights up to the very last credit”. And I went, “Oh”. I said “On all films?” He went “On all films”. I went, “So if I'm showing a kids film, like, say a Despicable Me type film half of audience has left, so I obviously bring the lights up? I mean on those rolling credits when all the [accompanying] scenes are finished?” He went, no. And he paused and he said, “I'm sorry if you don't agree with that, but that's the way we do things here”. And I said, “It’s not that I don't agree with it, it's that every figure in my career at this point has been telling me to not do that.”
So, you know, to…to open that door of, this is how real projection is, and you've been basically driving the wrong car for all that time was huge for me. And it just meant that I was able to instil the kind of presentation standards that I always wanted to in my previous jobs, but were told to not do. And Richard, Roger and Shira all encouraged that. And it meant by the time we closed old Riverside that I learned a lot more skills through presenting older films with entr’actes and intermissions and overtures. You know, I'd basically kind of took that ball and run with it and to bring the…to bring it back on point, these are all huge assets in my working career. This is why David Powell took me on at the Institute of Contemporary Arts because he saw what I was doing at Riverside Studios and said, “That's who I want in my team”. It's the same reason why Shira who had moved on to the Regent Street Cinema at that time, brought me into the Regent Street team because she saw what I was doing at Riverside Studios.
And it is the exact reason I'm sitting here now in the BFI Stephen Street because Dominic Simmons, the technical manager from BFI, knew of my reputation and the work I had done at Riverside, cemented...you know, with ICA and all the work after that, to see that…you know, I would be an asset to the British Film Institute. And that could not have started without either the opportunities that Riverside Studios gave me, but more importantly, the skill and knowledge and the support I had from the team there that's integral to everything in my career. I owe Riverside Studios more for my career than any other opportunity [I’ve had]. Even though the [multi] plexes started me on the shaky road to basic projection, it was those cinemas that, you know, I joined after that, that basically shaped me into the projectionist that would become an asset to a…to an employer, which is lovely. I can't thank them more for that. I can't find the words to thank them for that.
[09:56] What films particularly stand out for you during your time at Riverside?
Oh, there's a few. It was very sa—…very kind of sad showing [one] towards the end of its run. There's a very [big] misconception for projectionists that you always hear a few films mentioned. One is Fight Club, which I mentioned earlier, because [there’s] a sequence in that where the two characters in it are basically messing around with prints and putting things in prints that don't belong there - I'll let you discover what for yourself via the film. But there's also Cinema Paradiso, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso to give it its Italian title. That is a film about, I'm sure most of your listeners are familiar with …it's a film about an older projectionist who eventually loses his sight, and he takes a young boy under his wing and trains him to be a projectionist. And it's basically the misconception that everyone who had become a projectionist probably saw that film and wanted to become a projectionist because of it. I'd never seen that film (laughs). I'd never ever, not for avoidance, I just, it was on my list. I never got round to it. Shira programmed it very early on in my Riverside history And I saw it there and I was in love with it as everybody else was, and realized that that particular director of that film had really done his homework with projectionists in Italy and, you know, learn about all the little nuances of 35mm projection. That's a 1986 film, so obviously, it doesn't cover digital and it's a period piece as well, a reflective piece with an older man telling a story about the past.
But that film was shown again towards the end of Riverside Studios old building history. And you know, there's the last act of that film – spoiler, spoilers – to do with the fact that VHS has come and it's replaced cinemas and, you know, there's a lot of teary-eyed people going into the last shows at the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso cinema in the film, you know, watching those shows. And I stood at the back with only probably a week or so to go with Riverside history in the older building, you know, watching the characters on screen get teary-eyed and of course, I got teary-eyed. You have this beautiful sweeping Ennio Morricone score and it just reminded me of how important cinema is, and how each cinema, if it has personality, has a place in the hearts of the people sitting watching these films. That one was a real kind of, you know, emotional moment for me.
And we did a lot of strange shows as well. Shira loved the eclectic; Shira wasn't aloof or elitist in our programming at all. We did something called the Bad Film Club, which basically meant that they'd run anything from…they got quite ambitious actually with their selections, cos there was the obvious Howard the Duck’s and Showgirls, but they started putting quite well-loved films like the Die Hard sequel, “Die Hard 2 - Die Harder in there. And you know, and that was a weird one because the audience had come to watch the film, not understanding what this meant, because what this meant was that they were going to heckle the film, throughout the film. And you know…and the Bad Film Club guys had people complaining at the end, Oh, you didn't like that film. Well, the ticket says ‘The Bad Film Club- Die Hard 2 - Die Harder”, it's not gonna be a celebratory screening (laughs). So, yeah, so the Bad Film Club guys were like, “Why are they complaining? What did they expect the screening to be? “So, yeah, that was a memorable one. I showed them Showgirls and the audience whooping and cheering at every kind of bad one liner. Yeah, and I showed a lot of great 35mm there, a lot of old school Catherine Deneuve films, you know, and a lot of French cinema. French cinema was very close to my heart. And luckily Shira’s programming and, you know, continued by Owen [Van Spall] at the new Riverside, allowed me to see a lot of great French cinema.
So, yeah, that was wonderful. We closed with The Third Man and we had programmers and people from Riverside’s past deliver, you know, a speech about it, and then we run “The Third Man” on 35mm. It was available digitally, but Shira honestly wanted to make sure that we, you know, honoured our 35mm roots in showing that. And yeah, we, we sold it out. A little-known fact about Riverside's history and where my holes in my memory are going to show is – and this isn't in the record books – The Third Man was not the last film shown to an audience at Riverside Studios. I hate to break that romantic bubble, but it's true because what was supposed to happen was, on a Saturday, on a day I can't remember, Riverside Studios was to run that film, close its doors and then me and the team would start dismantling and taking out the equipment, which is exactly what did happen with one big asterisk.
We had, long before we had a date for closure, booked in a hire, to show a 35mm feature on changeovers which they had long paid for, and which was very important. And I said, “Well, we're obviously gonna have to cancel that cos we can't do it” And Shira said, “Well, no, we can't because they're tied in” and whatnot. So, Roger Holland ran that 35mm show to a closed audience about four days after The Third Man show. Wouldn't it be lovely now, if I could remember the name of that film (laughs), and can I? Of course, I can’t! It would have been a student-type film or a lower budget film, probably an older film from the last ten years because it was on 35mm. But yeah, that showed – a five-reel of film. And then after that show, which was playing to a closed audience, we closed its doors...you know.
So yeah, that, that's kind of the thing that was lost even in the Wikipedia annals, is that we did have that little, small show. I think the one thing I can offer is the last image I saw on the screen, as Kevin and I believe Dan were dismantling it, was from Les Miserables, the Hugh Jackman Les Miserables. I was…kind of wanting to just put a digital image up and that trailer was sitting on the servers. It's a very nice trailer because it's basically a compilation of different kind of stirring moments from the film. And, you know, Riverside Studios recently reshowed that as part of its anniversary, you know, in the new Riverside. So yeah, that was kind of the last images projected on the old cinema screen before we took it down. And for all you 35mm guys out there, I'm sorry, it was digital. But by that stage, our 35mm projectors had long been dismantled, the digital was kind of the last thing to go.
[16:15] And do you think Hammersmith changed during your time at Riverside?
Well, what's really interesting to me, for those of you who have seen Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, that's David Bowie's concert film, is that starts in old Hammersmith. And you look around old Hammersmith outside, what's now currently the Hammersmith Apollo, and you just [go] “Wow, this has completely changed, there’s like cafes and things around and whatnot”. But yes, majorly long before my time, I'd have been a little boy when, when that film was shot. But yeah, what was interesting coming back, because I kind of...I had such a love for Riverside Studios that, even though my friend and colleague at the ICA, David Powell, lives in Hammersmith, I didn't really go back there. I would go and see Daniel Thurman and maybe meet for a coffee and hear about the progress of new Riverside. But I didn't want to look at the flat ground where our beloved old Riverside was until there was a bright shiny new building on it. So, I hadn't really been to Hammersmith much, so it was quite revealing for me that when I went back, a lot of it was the same but changed…there was…definitely the real change, which was very sad and it became even more so after COVID, was a lot of the smaller run business and eateries that I used to basically frequent on the high road folded or were folding. And when COVID came, they folded, they had gone. But, there was this lovely – I've got to give a shout out to my favourite cafe in Hammersmith...whose name I can't remember..it's the Half Moon I think, I think, I’m sure it’s the Half Moon. I can't believe I've forgotten as it's a favourite cafe and I can't remember. But yeah, the Half Moon Cafe. It was kind of, what was lovely ….because I walked in there and that hadn't changed at all! Basically, in the four years that Riverside was being redeveloped, it was still the same. You know, I think some of…the guy who ran that cafe, the older family member, the kids had now grown up and they were helping him in the cafe.
But yeah, there's a…that's what's wonderful about Hammersmith and Elephant and Castle as well, which is obviously getting redeveloped, again, is that you go back there and there's these huge shadows of the past. I'm a big 70s sitcom nut. You know, I watch all this “Man About The House”-style stuff. And when you look at the opening titles of those shows, you realise that a lot of that London is gone, it's not really there [now]. I mean, I work in central London now: finding what's called a “greasy spoon cafe’ to get something to eat is very difficult. I mean, you know, the area has completely changed. Eating habits, social habits have changed, people favour coffee bars now and the American style coffee experience more than a cup of tea in a cafe or even a drink in a pub.
So, yeah, definitely changed. But Hammersmith is quite lovely because it's half-and-half still. I bought flowers for my partner from a florist, you know, which has been running years. And the echoes of Hammersmith are all...old Hammersmith...is still there. And I think that's because of the river, you can redevelop an area so much, but that river and the beloved Hammersmith Bridge is part of its DNA. And you know, that kind of means that you will never, ever fully redevelop or rebuild Hammersmith to the point of those memories [vanishing]. You won’t look at older footage and go “Oh, I don't see any of this anymore”, because of that bridge and because of the views from that bridge; you will go, “Oh, I know where we are”.
And you know, the wonderful thing about the redevelopment is the river was a closed off...definitely from Hammersmith’s...from Riverside’s I should say...side of the building. It was something that you can only see if you went out to the balcony in the restaurant. And that changed in the redevelopment. It was part of the council's agreement that that would open that up. So now we've got this beautiful setup where Riverside Studios is by the river, you know, ‘river-side’, it's living up to its name, but, you know, people can walk alongside it and walk that wonderful river and all of that, so the redevelopment definitely, you know, took something and built on that. But yeah, so it has changed, to bring it back. But it still has those echoes and reverberance of the past, because of the bridge and the stories and because Riverside Studios, you know? The fact that they brought me back when it [re-opened] meant they wanted to reinvest in older memories and older voices. It's part…you can't have a place like Riverside Studios built on its history, and disregard it, and so that's definitely been part of the flux of new Riverside as well.
[20:35] Do you get a sense that the local community and younger people were involved in Riverside?
If I'm honest towards the end, it was a strange one for me in the cinema block, because the cinema block, it's kind of flipped [now]. So, the older cinema was based upstairs, so I would go to the top of the ivory tower and that's where I would work. Those familiar with the newer Riverside will know you go down the stairs, you go down to the basement and that's where that is. So, there was definitely a slightly different vibe going on in older Riverside, if I'm honest, for the main space. You know, I read a story recently, Simon Pegg thanked Edgar Wright, the filmmaker Edgar Wright, because he met him at Riverside Studios and they had a conversation and that basically began Simon Pegg’s kind of breakout career starring in things like Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. So, when you hear those stories, you realise that the theatre and the television and everything going on on the upper levels had this thriving buzz, and this pulse in the community and whatnot. That was definitely true.
So, the thing you're all wondering now is “Okay, but was that different in the cinema?” And it was and it wasn't. What was very different about Riverside was because of Shira's programming and the old school double bills, is people would come huge distances to watch maybe a David Lynch double bill or, you know, see a Q&A of a screening. You know, we did a lovely Q&A for a film where an older gentleman – I wanna say it's called Irwin & Fran….Irwin & Fran, I hope so – and the older gentleman was, you know, delivering a Q&A via Skype in America. You know, Shira was the only one programming, that kind of thing, you know, back then. So people were travelling long distances. But yes, we did have that community. It was mainly an older community, because at that point we were playing films mainly for older audiences, and Shira would open that out. Shira was wonderful in the respect that she would watch something like “Ill Manors” which is a Plan B kind of urban drama - the singer Plan B, I think Ben Drew’s his real name. And yeah, that was a very urban kind of cutting-edge film, like rap soundtrack and whatnot, but Shira saw it and liked it. So she booked it and you know, that film probably would play slightly less than if you played Jean de Florette or Madame D again, but she wanted to open those opportunities up. We played Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America, which is a film you just couldn't make now. It's kind of a poison pen letter about a guy who's had enough of American cultural society and goes on a killing spree, and it sounds like a horror but it's not – it's a dark comedy. So, she played edgy stuff and different stuff. She would always keep playing films for younger audiences and if they heard about them, they would come.
But yeah, it was that real thing that, it was kind of like Riverside in terms of its programming. It was kind of like a Masons-type secret: if you knew about it and you were part of that pulse and you were lucky enough to pick up one of those pamphlets with all the films listed on it, you would find a lot of gold there. But if you were a kid used to going to the multiplexes watching what would have been, then early Marvel films, you probably didn't know about Riverside Studios. And, you know, and it would take somebody to take you in. What was very successful with younger audiences were our children's shows. We would do children's shows during the half-term. Shira would mix this up by playing cutting-edge new sort of films from Disney, with older titles, you know, we played Bugsy Malone and whatnot and yeah, they were very successful.
What was really lovely about new Riverside, which is what Owen Van Spall and Rachel have been working towards as well, is trying to basically cross that divide, to make sure that, you know…it…I think, you know, I have to tip my hat here to those guys. Two films in new Riverside’s history, Top Gun: Maverick and Barbie, two films that I said would not play well at Riverside Studios based on what I knew of the old Riverside Studios. Shira would have booked them anyway, but Shira would have played them to dissipated audiences [and on single shows]. I think it's a real testament to the current management team, you know, Tony and whatnot, and their belief in their programmers, that you know, Owen saw Top Gun: Maverick and thought it was something really special. He thought, you know, he saw it and said, “Look, I really believe in this film, I think it's gonna capture a generation of people who grew up with the first one, I think we should book it”. And I went, “on your head be it, I don't think it will fly.” It did fly. It flew for many weeks, so much so that Owen brought it back. And Barbie, which actually commenced after I left, you know, was enjoying the same toe-to-toe business that “Oppenheimer” was, you know, which is a real testament to the fact that...you know, there's a lot of...you know...redevelopment: it's a scary thing. It's knocking something down and paving over it, getting rid of the old and bringing in the new and, you know, you don't have to do that. I think Riverside Studios showed that you could complement both, you know. Owen had a very successful double bill recently showing Scala!!!, which is a documentary about an older cinema in London. I recommend it. And he showed films that were played at the Scala. We showed Eraserhead and that was incredibly successful. So, you can have both. You know, it's very important that new Riverside did identify that crack, and they paved through it, you know, and so it crossed over. I don't think in terms of theatre, Riverside had any cracks to pave over. The theatre team were already doing wonderful work establishing, at old and new Riverside, youth-orientated plays which definitely complemented older productions as well, and so that was always fluxing. The cinema struggled with younger audiences, but it definitely sold out on the older classics.
[25:46] And what elements of the old Riverside do you think we're missing today?
Well, double bills is one that constantly crops up. What's changed in the booking space, so to get all technical and boring, but very briefly, to book a film is a complicated procedure. I think there's a misconception from the public that if you want to play Barbie, you just go, I wanna play Barbie at five o'clock, opening week, every day and the company that own that film will say, “Yep, that's fine”. They do not say that, they say “if you wanna play this film, you gotta play X amount of shows, you've gotta, you know, put it in the largest screen”, you know, and basically it's about a back and forth that the film programming team Shira and now Owen have to deal with, to secure certain films. And that's why if ever you've looked at our programming and gone, “why is that film not there? I really wanted to see it, it's really weird they're not playing it” It's because that communication’s broken down. They've, they've tooken – tooken? (laughs) - taken a children's film, like say Inside Out 2 which Riverside are playing later and said, “well, we want it on every day”. And the realistic thing is, is that to put that film on at eight o'clock every day when another film is, you know, out that week, say a bigger film that's more interesting, is a block, you know, it's in the way. So, it's a very delicate dance and, and battle which is a very long way of answering the double bill question. Owen is a big believer in double bills. And as we've seen with our repertory shows and things like Doctor Who and Hancock, the older audiences definitely want the opportunity to watch, you know, three episodes of Hancock rather than just one. And in terms of double bill cinema, we tried it, we played both the Quiet Places when we opened and A Quiet Place 2 was coming out – very successful sci-fi film from John Krasinski. And it just, it didn't work back then. We needed kind of, you know, whenever a cinema goes away and comes back, whenever a building goes away and comes back, you need to tap everybody on the shoulder who used to go to it and say, “So, you remember that site you loved four years ago that you've just forgotten about? Well....you moved on from it as your cinema knowledge and your theatre was continuous and....well, it's back again. So, could you make time for it again?” Because a lot of people by that stage had filled the hole left by Riverside with films, like, with venues like the ICA and BFI and Regent Street. So, you know, you had to go, “Well…we're back”.
And so, Owen and Rachel and the, and the team have been working, Jason Wood as well – a special shout out to Jason who booked us very early on – have been working very hard to make sure that the program constantly evolves and moves with the pulses. But yeah, the double bills are…are…are ones that uh you know, I know we're working hard to bring back, but without having to shut out newer films that people wanna watch like Top Gun: Maverick which is a film that Owen never could have booked if other films were playing in the cinema with it. The distributor of that film wouldn't have liked that. So yeah, it's delicate. It's a…it's a complicated process.
And the big one for everyone probably listening is 35mm. Again, there are films, new releases being distributed on 35mm. Kinds of Kindness is one that's very recent, as of me recording this interview. But the problem we have there again is that there's not many prints: the distributors will always favour larger West End sites that will sell those out every show. So, it will be more difficult for Riverside Studios to commit to an expensive 35mm installation, which I know is definitely ‘in the post’, that [for] Riverside it’s definitely something they do want to bring back at some point.
Because, you know, you wouldn't be able to get that film on release anyway, then you'd have to get it much later. You know, would the audience have seen it by that stage? Would they want to watch it again in 35mm? Christopher Nolan's films have definitely succeeded in repertory showings. But it's not always true that if, even Poor Things, which is another Yorgos Lanthimos film that had a 35mm release that was quite successful and limited amount of sites have brought it back now.
So, yeah, I think those two things - that the double bills and 35mm were definitely part of its DNA. They would be, you know, welcome at some stage. But it's something that the guys, even though I haven't worked at Riverside for some time, I know the programming team there is always trying to work that into the program, with the landscape changing from when Riverside closed to when it reopened. You know, the landscape is a lot more led by a film studio now, so it's a bit more complicated.
[29:54] Do you think Riverside has made a difference?
Most definitely, I think Riverside, you know, it's interesting – and if you haven't watched the heritage film, I do recommend it – that you talk to people talking about their careers. So, let's break it down. You're talking about the people who were talents at Riverside Studios, or not even talent, they may have worked there in some capacity. Steve McQueen, the director of Shame and 12 Years a Slave worked there, I believe as a barman. I think David Mitchell worked there as a barman. These are people who are starting out in the industry trying to find out what their creative voices were. And, just took a job at a wonderful creative building, thinking it would nurture that. And you know…and…by God did it, in the case of 12 Years a Slave, you know….that…that you know, McQueen, uh, took an Oscar for…I can't believe, I can't fail to believe, without [me] meeting those two people themselves, even without that, that the part of the creative community that would have been Riverside, would have helped shape those stories that they wanted to tell and the comedy of David Mitchell and, you know, and all of this.
So, it's, there's that side of it, in terms of the talent and the opportunity it opens. Kenneth Branagh talked about this. I've name-checked Simon Pegg earlier…he talked about this…you know, so there's that side of it. But there's also the people who frequent that building and have shaped memories from films they saw there, you know, a lot of talent comes from Hammersmith. So, actresses like Imogen Poots and filmmakers, they would have seen films there and they would have, you know, I think Richard Ayoade mentioned to me that he'd seen films at Riverside Studios and he obviously became a filmmaker, with the fantastic Submarine and then The Double.
So, you know, he…you know…these people watching films at Riverside, they were looking at the programming that was going on there. It's a really interesting question – without Riverside Studios out there in the world, would there be a lot of holes in the creative community? And, you know, and one thing’s for sure, I certainly [feel] from my perspective, just one voice here…you know one random voice…I wouldn’t be sitting, you know, in a prestigious organization now without that groundwork at Riverside Studios. So, you know, it is incredibly integral to the community and, you know, even more so as multiplexes and streaming and viewing habits change, that Riverside Studios is still maintaining quality. The current projectionist there is Lee Bourne who is, you know, maintaining the standards there that go back to old Riverside, you know, by making sure that people come in and have that experience, whether they're watching a play or whether they're watching the TV studio, you know. We don't want to phone it in for them or go “well, we'll get you out and move you in.” We want…you know…the seminal memories. The reason why I became a projectionist is because I have memories as a kid watching films that I now love, and thinking I wanted to be a small part of that community making that happen, you know. And so Riverside, you know, it is incredibly important in that.
[32:50] So, Marc, obviously, we couldn't do this interview without asking you your favourite cinema and your favourite film?
Oh, I've got a couple actually. But Riverside Studios, the old Riverside, is my favourite. And that's not to take away from the new Riverside because I'll mention that again in a moment, because it just had, it had a wonderful sound in there. I remember showing The Great Beauty in there and the, and the way the sound filled the room and the image filled the room was very unique and it was lovely because, to move on to new Riverside, that was definitely something in Nik Whybrew and Ian Dixon Wilkinson's DNA when they created the new Riverside. So, anyone who's watched a film in our Screen 1, or attended one of our Pitchblack Playback events, will know that…you know…you get a wonderful kind of viewing experience in there, in terms of sound and vision.
But yeah, it was the first time I'd seen it at Riverside and obviously your memories are tied to sites as well as the presentation. So, I can definitely say old Riverside, and just to mix it up a little bit, there's a lovely cinema, it's controlled by the Everyman circuit now, out in Esher in Surrey. It was an Odeon when I was working there. But the Everyman in Esher is a lovely old-style auditorium, that's kind of battled the changes of time, because when a lot of corporate companies took over older cinemas, they started chopping them up and making different rooms, because cinema audiences didn't really ever exceed 500 seats, you know, anymore for, not even for a very big film like Barbie or Oppenheimer. Once that had quietened down, you were mainly playing to a hundred if you were lucky. So, a lot of those screens were chopped up and turned into [smaller rooms]. But the Odeon Esher, now the Everyman, has maintained a lot of that. So, yeah, a lot of love for that, and a lot of cinemas I love that are gone. The ABC in Romford is where I started. That's where I met Derek, you know, incredibly beautiful turning point in my career, back then showing things like Titanic on release and, you know, Men In Black and that cinema was an older cinema with a lot of personality: grand staircases and, you know, beautiful old-style auditoriums and a lot of that's gone now, it's kind of a decor that's not favoured anymore, because unfortunately, I understand, because it's down to practicality. You don't need a large seat auditorium because you're rarely gonna fill it. But, yeah, so that's basically, you know, two of the old cinemas.
In terms of favourite film, I don't know. I'm a kid, when I was a kid, it definitely was Back to the Future, Gremlins, Ghostbusters - the usual suspects. I went and saw, you know, the Indiana Jones trilogy again recently because I love those films so much. But yeah, I, as I got older, I moved over more to Arthouse, watching Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, which is a film I still think it's a beautiful piece of work, you know, the way it uses music and sound. Wonderful, wonderful film. Discovered David Lynch, you know, very early on -thanks to my friend Paul Perkins, another projectionist on the circuit who works for the Picturehouse - you know....so Blue Velvet. And it's really wonderful, there are a lot of these filmmakers now like Yorgos Lanthimos, I saw all his early works at older Riverside and whatnot. You know, Shira knew her stuff, she knew what filmmakers would go on and she would make sure those films were programmed.
So, yeah, a lot. I've got to say, Trainspotting as well, Danny Boyle. I was a Britpop kid, so yeah, big one. But the older films, I mean, it's interesting. I saw Lawrence of Arabia and really loved it. But I saw Dr Zhivago [and] that, and don't attack me here, dear listener, I loved even more. Maybe because I wasn't told about Dr Zhivago as much as I was told about Lawrence of Arabia. There's a lot of wonderful, beautiful old big screen films like Carol Reed’s Oliver! and whatnot, which are just made for the cinema screen. So, yeah, too many to name.
[36:30] So before we finish Marc, is there anything else you'd like to share about your experience or memories at Riverside?
Just huge heartfelt thanks to everybody. I mean, to anyone listening, you are shaped by the environment around you, to state the obvious, and I think there's a…with the way public transport is now, and the pressures of life, you can disregard work. You know, a friend of mine used to say “Work isn't your life, it pays for your life”. What's lovely is, if you could crack the code and do what Riverside Studios does, and that's make sure that your work is part of your life. It's not something that you do, you know, a 9 to 5 job and then disregard it, it becomes part of your…you know…you enjoy being there, it's a home away from home. You enjoy putting on the shows and interacting with different people there. And I would say to anyone listening, if you can bottle that and find that environment, there’s plenty out there [of] smaller companies who favour that kind of interaction and that's cracking the code guys. That's, you know, it means that when you're getting up each morning and getting on that train, you are walking into a workplace that you love and believe in. And I am incredibly protective still of Riverside Studios. Needlessly, because they've got an excellent team there and they continue to flourish. But yeah, I mean, I could not thank Riverside Studios enough for its place in my heart and my memories.
Thank you so much, Marc.
Thank you.
