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So Secret Cinema: When Independent Immersive Cinematic Events Go Mainstream
Paper presented at SCMS conference, Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, Montreal, QC, Canada, 28th March
2015
The work that we’re presenting today originates as part of a wider project about immersive and
experiential cinema; -‐ today’s focus is upon one particular instance of immersive cinema – the UK-‐
based organization Secret Cinema’s recent Back to the Future event.
Secret Cinema, founded in 2007 – with Paranoid Park -‐ delivers live, immersive, participatory cinema-‐
going experiences and is shaping a new and highly profitable event-‐led-‐distribution-‐
model. Shawshank Redemption is the most well-‐known. Prometheus made more money as a Secret
Cinema event than at the premiere and Grand Budapest Hotel’s No1 box office position was largely
attributable to the £1.1m generated by the Secret Cinema event.
These commercial successes mark a notable shift in both the organization’s approach and the type of
audiences they are starting to attract. The events, which have previously been marketed in a highly
clandestine way via word of mouth and social media where knowing participants are instructed to
‘tell no one’ are now being launched through high-‐profile press releases. This has inevitably led to
tensions between the expectations of an early adopter ‘hipster’ elite (of Secret Cinema) and this
much broader public of Back to the Future fans, affectionados & aficionados.
During the lead-‐up to the Secret Cinema Presents…. Back to the Future event a compelling conflict
played out between the creators and the audience in public social media space. Today we re-‐tell the
story of how the drama unfolded in the lead-‐up to the opening night of the event, how the
surrounding social media communications became a site of audience engagement and participation,
and in which fan and anti-‐fan practices and viewing pleasures proliferated.
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The Back to the Future event was unprecedented in many ways – the venue had the capacity for
3,000 audience members per night – all of whom were willing to pay £50 for a ticket -‐ over the
months of July and August, 2014, in total -‐ 45,000, tickets were sold, which generated a final box
office gross of £3.37m – and all this for a film that’s 30 yrs old.
This event began – as do all Secret Cinema experiences -‐ via online social media channels weeks
before the live event and it is these online spaces (and not the event itself) that are the key site of
our analysis today. Crucially, it is these spaces that both the audience members and organisation
sought to shape, control and influence in contradictory & conflicting ways.
This talk illuminates the conflicts, tensions and re-‐negotiations of control embedded in both the
experience and surrounding fan & anti-‐fan discourses, in which the event and organization is
dismantled in public view and we argue that the audience reclaimed both the social media spaces
and the filmic text of Back to the Future as their own.
The Back to the Future experience was to operate under the same ‘secret’ rubric as all the preceding
Secret Cinema events – whereby participants are playfully instructed to ‘Tell No One,’ with the
location of the screening event being withheld until the very last minute, and cameras/phones and
This event also spawned an unprecedented extension of the film’s storyworld into these online
spaces in which the fictional community of ‘Hill Valley’ was recreated in meticulous detail across
social media and in numerous in-‐fiction websites, as well as physical pop up shops that accompanied
The Back to the Future event began its life like any other -‐ using the same methods and infrastructure
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that
had
been
deployed
in
previous
campaigns
–
characteristic
of
an
independent
organization.
However, the infrastructure proved to be insufficient to cope with the audience demands -‐ within 10-‐
minutes of the hotly-‐anticipated tickets being released for sale – the ticket providers servers crashed
and no-‐one was able to buy a ticket. The tickets were then re-‐released two days later with a new,
larger and shinier, well-‐known provider. Customer anger quickly bubbled up through the social
media channels, with comments related to the film text – about the organiser’s being able to travel
back in time to sort out the problem, and needing 1.21 giga-‐watts of power to fix their servers. This
anger quickly subsided when customers were able to secure tickets, with more screening dates being
In the following weeks, email communications started to flow from Hill Valley – these were multiple,
detailed and frequently confusing. ‘Real-‐world’ instructions were buried in ‘in-‐world’ fictional links,
and dense (fictional) textual detail about Hill Valley Town Fair confused and frustrated the recipients.
Audience members used Secret Cinema’s Twitter and Facebook sites to call for practical information
such as transport links and nearby accommodation – people were travelling from all over the UK,
A dichotomy emerged as Secret Cinema used these spaces to build audience narrative engagement
whilst also deploying these same sites to market, sell and instruct their audience in key preparations
for the event, as well as issuing requests for audience-‐generated content to be taken down. A
confusing communications strategy which interchanged between fiction and non-‐fiction registers
manifested, the type of which, Andrea Phillip’s would describe as a “badly-‐drawn play space” (2011).
Participants were addressed across a number of confusing and potentially conflicting registers. As
knowing ‘players’ of Secret Cinema experiences, as devoted fans of Back to the Future, as customers
to be provided with precise and demanding ‘joining’ instructions & frequently enough as ‘unruly’
bodies to be controlled through orders & commands. We can see already in these examples the
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extent
to
which
assumptions
of
audience
technicity
(their
tastes
and
their
adoption
of
specific
technologies) are governing the dissemination of information. Embedding links in emails and
assuming a certain technoliteracy is just one key example of this – this made it easy for many to miss
critical information producing confused flurry of tweets & facebook postings asking for clarification.
The slide shows the secret location on Google maps – which is hidden behind the ‘Hilldale, California’
There were of course many other assumptions around taste and disposable income which played in
to the participant discontent as time went on. The organizers who clearly wanted to establish
audience relations in what Henry Jenkins (2006) describes as “Collaborationist” mode did not appear
to appreciate the complexity of operating across the ‘transmedia storytelling’ register whilst also
engaging with fans schooled in the use of social media for community building and personal display
of textual expertise. Certainly, at minimum they played out a lot of channel confusion with a blurring
This was the first time that a Secret Cinema Presents… event engaged with a pre-‐existing and well-‐
formed fan community. Back to the Future has highly visible formal and informal fan communities
both of which have intensified their activities in the run up to the films 30th Anniversary this year.
A key challenge Secret Cinema faced was the expansion of their audience & this new diversity of
participant subjectivities. “In these conditions of intermediality our responses to such texts will
crucially be dependent upon our technicity – that combination of taste and competence that
determines our ability to access a storyworld as well as our individual style of interactions with it.
Technicity can therefore be seen as a key marker of a subject’s ability to exercise the flexible
repertoire of interpretive responses demanded by increasingly intermedial cultural landscapes”
(Dovey & Kennedy, 2006). The critiques that emerge came along a number of different axes of
participation. Many fans used the social media channels to display their virtuoso command of the
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communication
channel
itself
and
the
filmic
text
as
they
made
their
criticisms
very
public.
In
this
sequence we also see one of the fundamental rules of Secret Cinema is broken. As we can see the
Back to the Future location was photographed and revealed in an act of defiance and exposure, an
activity that can be aligned to the fannish behaviour of a “set tracker” – which according to David
Brisbin (2009: 55), is the industry name, given to fans who locate film sets to photograph and share
The conflict between Secret Cinema and its audience continues to manifest as Secret Cinema
attempts to openly exert its control with ‘cease and desist’ -‐type tweets couched in its playful Tell No
Fan-‐to-‐fan conflict starts to emerge at this stage between the core Secret Cinema audience and the
newer Back to the Future contingent which might also be articulated as a conflict between devoted
Back to the Future fans and newer Secret Cinema fans. The incidents further highlight the ways in
which the social media channels might need careful managing in relation to different kinds of fan
address. In terms of the complexities of audience subjectivities we might want to signal at least two
key axes of distinction here – one axis is about an engagement first and foremost with the novelty of
an immersive experience of any cinematic text. This, we might argue is the subjectivity occupied by
the hipster elite/early adopter/Technorati, who have been driving investment in ‘new’ experience
design that expands our engagements (and crucially our financial commitment to) with a particular
intellectual property. The other axis is aligned with ‘collection’ and ‘completion’ and deep
engagement with a particular story or text – this is the participant who will buy the book of; the
making of; collect the merchandise; take the fair ground ride; watch the reruns; play the board game
etc. etc. What these fans share is the complex and profound commitment to a particular text or
storyworld. These complexities are clearly not well understood in the design of the Secret Cinema
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The
growing
dissatisfaction
and
annoyance
is
illustrated
here,
these
comments
continued
to
be
met
with criticism and disdain by the Secret Cinema fan community – an example can be seen here
As participatory cinema practices have already taught us, even the most dedicated and knowing fans
need guidance, here shown in relation to the timed instructions and specific prop list provided to the
participants of the Rocky Horror Picture Show which given that it has been running for around 40
Conflict for control manifests once more when one adept fan puts an FAQ together to support the
participants and receives an immediate very positive engagement. It received 7,000 hits in the first
day, and Secret Cinema requested its immediate take-‐down as it was “confusing the audience”.
Secret Cinema appear now to be adopting what Jenkins (2006) described as the prohibitionist stance.
The Secret Cinema response shows a further contradictory position in relation to this level of
participant engagement – this command is clearly at odds with their earlier invitations to contribute.
They are attempting to own and control a social space that they set up specifically for fans to engage.
This fannish productivity – an attempt to ease understanding and provide translation across
participant subjectivities -‐ is discredited by Secret Cinema as they try to secure and maintain control.
A perfect storm had been created which fuelled the tidal wave of fan/audience responses that
followed at the point of a the final breakdown in communication relations. The event hit delays and
launch and the opening night of the show are cancelled, with audience members (who don’t have
their mobile devices with them) being given just 60 minutes notice.
In response, the audience immediately begin to manipulate and re-‐appropriate the Back to the
Future text as a mechanism through which to critique the producers, clearly highlighting that Secret
Cinema are not really the auteurs of Back to the Future -‐ they are themselves appropriators &
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Initially – this re-‐appropriation is through the use of text-‐based tweets and facebook posts which
incorporate famous lines quoted from the Back to the Future script that are embedded and
interwoven within the complaints and vitriol. The resulting textualities are subverted from their
original meaning, taken from the context of the Back to the Future film and placed within the
emergent storyline of the Secret Cinema cancellation debacle. The audience voice now takes
prominence in the social media realm as they enact critical cultural production practices.
This criticism is a pleasurable form of engagement – a mechanism through which to express anger
and frustration at Secret Cinema, but also to flex subcultural prowess, we see fans engage in these
practices whenever a remake or adaptation is afoot . Again these fans are displaying what we have
referred to as their virtuoso command of this text/storyworld and their technicities.
The textual manipulation and re-‐appropriation quickly advances to the practice of visually
manipulating still imagery taken from the Back to the Future film, when a controversial image is
shown of the unfinished set of the event on the opening night. This is quickly taken and re-‐
contextualised within the text of Back to the Future and then rapidly continues with newly
manipulated image after image As Jonathan Gray has observed “Fans live with in-‐built, intricately
detailed memories of their text(s)” (Gray, 2003: 67), and so these responses – demonstrating the
audiences affective involvement and investment – in the Back to the Future text -‐ came thick and fast.
Many of these images are taken and reproduced in blogs that are documenting the seeming demise
of Secret Cinema – and are also printed in mainstream press as the cancellation makes national
headline news. This is perhaps the ultimate destination for the handy-‐work of a textual re-‐
Perversely, these emergent critical paratexts, which could be seen -‐ not so much flame-‐bait, but
flame-‐fodder -‐ actually diffused the situation, providing moments of humour and a release of tension
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This particular comment hints at a darker side in which audience viewing pleasures is taken from
looking on at a serialised disaster. The cancellation thus became a media spectacle in its own right -‐
This is supported through mainstream media reporting which helps to both escalate the visibility of
the debacle and failures of Secret Cinema but also provides others with the mechanism to caution for
a sense of proportion. The high profile coverage prompted a critique about the banality of the Secret
Cinema backlash as the cancellation was trending on twitter alongside bigger news stories, and the
This results in manifestations of anti-‐fan critique-‐ the anti-‐fan being a useful mechanism with which
to reverse the lens of fan studies to consider other equally intense relationships to content, as
Jonathan Gray (2003) and Cornel Sandvoss (2005), have argued -‐ to fully understand what it means
Within the Secret Cinema string of events, the anti-‐fan discourse emerges at several places on a
spectrum from outward displays of hatred, anger and vitriol (most of which we decided not to show,
apart from this milder example) where the events organizer and Secret Cinema founder Fabien, is
presented as emblematic of a hipster cultural elite. In this instance, held up as a folk-‐devil figure -‐
he is ridiculed as a ‘trustafarian’ i.e.: “a rich young person who adopts an ethnic lifestyle and lives in a
non-‐affluent urban area”. (urban dictionary) Hatred or ‘hateration’, is conceptualised as an anti-‐fan
activity by Kimberly Springer (2013) who has connected haters to anti-‐fandom, making a distinction
between that and ‘trolling, flaming, and other undesirable web-‐based behaviors’.
At the other end of the spectrum are much milder attacks by the emergent anti-‐fans of Secret
Cinema, people critiquing Secret Cinema–goers as middle class, cultural elite. Poking fun at the
hundreds of lost, costumed participants & their indistinction from Hoxtonites in general.
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Concluding
thoughts:
Fabien Riggall, in a quotation about his initial ambition, speaking positively during the development
of the event, acknowledges both the agency and the authority of the fans:
“At the event, each audience member is getting their own unique character and story, so they're
written into the script. It's turning out to be a pretty intense summer. But you can't do Back To The
Future and not aim high. We've been infected by the spirit of the movie: this strange, innocent
optimism. Which is dangerous, because it means we think that we can do anything!” .. “ I'm shitting
myself because this film is so well-‐loved, so if we mess up anything we're in trouble!” A deliciously
prescient moment.
At the outset it is clear that as producer fan himself Fabien well understood some of the risks that lay
As an aside, we also saw some intriguing dark marketing as those adept at using ‘trending’ metadata
responded to these Secret Cinema cancellations and capitalized on this to reap very specific rewards
in relation to their own profile, publicity & new participants. – Crate Brewery, Rufus Hound, Madam
Taussauds etc offering discounted entry rates and/or free beer. This was an incredibly canny use of a
high trending fan/creator debacle being played out in the highly visible spaces of twitter and
facebook.
But, crucially, there was of course a happy ending.. Fans across the spectrum swiftly asserted their
And so finally, we mentioned earlier this reference to what Andrea Phillips describes as the errors
attendant to a ‘badly drawn play space’ (2011), what we have shown played out here is the battles
for agency and authority that can play out between audience and producer when the communication
strategy is inadequate to the complexity of the engagement afforded. The lack of clarity and
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distinction
between
channels
was
the
fissure
that
allowed
the
adoption
of
a
critical
stance
from
the
participants. It also became the site of the contestation that demonstrated that this is a space where
fans (and anti fans) can swiftly overtake and dominate through their virtuoso technicities. Secret
Cinema believed their audiences loved them enough to go with the sprinkling of info &
inconsistencies. but their audience were not ‘their’ beloved there were those who were primarily
Back to the Future fans with passions not strictly aligned with Secret Cinema.
Producers need to understand, revere/respect and accommodate these positions if they want to
keep fans onside in the collaborationist mode. In a battle for control over the beloved text of Back to
the Future. Who owns the text? The fans of course.
References:
2010: 54–59.
Dovey, Jon & Kennedy, Helen W. (2006) `Playing the Ring: Intermediality & Ludic Narratives in the
Lord of the Rings Games’ in Ernest Mathijs ed., The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global
Gray, Jonathan. (2003) "New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-‐Fans and Non-‐Fans." SAGE 6.1: 64-‐81.
Jenkins, Henry. (2006) “Prohibitionists and Collaborationists: Two Approaches to Participatory
Culture” [online]
Phillips, Andrea. (2011). Hoax or Transmedia? The Ethics of Pervasive Fiction (Austin, TX:
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Phillips,
Andrea.
(2012).
A
Creator's
Guide
to
Transmedia
Storytelling:
How
to
Captivate
and
Engage
Sandvoss, Cornell. (2005). Fans: The mirror of consumption. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Springer, Kimberly. (2013). “Beyond the H8R: Theorizing the Anti-‐Fan.” The Phoenix Papers, Vol.1,
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