“We only need two people to set up the screen.”
Antoine Manier, Rencontres Audiovisuelles, Lille (FR)
AIRSCREEN user since 2014
To begin with, can you tell me something about your company?
Our organisation is called «Rencontres Audiovisuelles». We have been working on the promotion of animated movies, short films and digital arts for about 15 years now. We organise two festivals: the «International Short Film Festival» and «La Fête de l’anim’», both of them are located in and around Lille. Beside our research and development in cinema we also own a movie theater and offer our services in the north of France.
What is your connection to outdoor movies?
We bought the AIRSCREEN last year because we wanted to overcome challenges with our «International Short Film Festival»: Our priority was to enlarge the audience and make the ceremony, the heart of the festival, more attractive.
Often it’s mainly cinema lovers who attend our events but thanks to our night projections outdoors we were able to diversify the audience. Moreover, by working on our screening solutions we also broaden the number of viewers. The AIRSCREEN really helped us to solve this problem.
Did you get good feedback from your viewers?
Yes, absolutely. We achieved our goals and our events were crowded on several days. It was really a success. We’ve got an increase in both the diversification and the number of spectators. Now our new challenge is to use our AIRSCREEN beyond the festival in September and rent our material this summer in the north of France.
Which model do you have to realize this project?
AIRSCREEN classic 9,15m x 5,15m.
Why did you contact AIRSCREEN in the first place?
We have made our own online investigation about different providers. The contact that we had with one of your colleagues was really good. It took us a short while to get used to the product but once we got into the habit it has been perfectly fine.
How do you operate the system?
We only need two people to set up the screen and more or less four others to set up the extras for the event like chairs, audio system, etc
For one event we placed it in the middle of a French fine art institution in Lille. It was big enough to fit 500 people in and as a matter of fact it has been fully packed several times. The screen size was ideal for this location and the number of viewers.
Which types of events do you organize most of the time?
We do many types of projections in movie theaters, media libraries or reception halls. We’ve just started to discover all the opportunities with outdoor projections. Pretty soon we will see if we can integrate outdoor movies in events apart from the festival. The concept is relatively new to us but we are looking forward to rent our outdoor movie equipment and services to partners.
Why did you choose outdoor screenings as a new alternative?
In comparison to regular cinema, outdoor movies are always nicer as people come together to share a nice evening together watching movies under the stars. This way you can address more people and open up new horizons like showing short films for example.
What are your plans for the future?
It would be nice to get a lot of inquiries for outside projections in the upcoming year. For this we could use a great summer and we look into buying another screen then.