These past months have been very busy and exciting for the Gothic Season team, of which I was a part. November finally saw our project come to fruition with a series of 3 late night Friday screenings, and an immersive cinema event hosted by the Watershed at the end of the month. Such events were made possible by funding provided by the BFI for events connected to their Gothic Season to be hosted by the Watershed.

The Brief
Our initial brief for the project was to ‘create an immersive Dark Arts cinema event at the end of November. Through the event we want to appeal to and engage 18-25 year olds who would not normally attend Watershed’ as a part of the nationwide celebrations for the BFI Gothic Season. This brief since expanded to include a series of late night screenings of Gothic films, leading up to an immersive cinema event.

Deciding Upon the Programme of Films
As our experience with this year’s FreshFlix programme for the Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival proved, selecting a programme of films can be a challenging and time-consuming process. Initially, the group and I bandied around various Gothic film suggestions of ranging tone and content, with the original intention of maintaining the BFI Gothic Season’s umbrella theme for the month of November; Dark Arts. However, as we delved into films concerning witchcraft and the occult, such as the classic The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby, it became apparent that there were few films that would truly lend itself to an immersive event hosted in the ex-warehouse setting of the Watershed building. The decision was thus made by myself and the group to broaden our field of Gothic films beyond the confines of the Dark Arts, and it soon became apparent that selecting a choice of four films (3 for late night Friday screenings, and 1 for the immersive event) amongst a team of such a large size was more strenuous and time consuming than it needed to be. I therefore took on the task, along with fellow Gothic Season team mates Varun and J, of selecting our final programme.

Our most important and key decision was in choosing the film that would inspire and feature in our immersive event. My fellow team mates and I felt this film would set the tone for the films that would feature in the late night Friday screenings leading up to the event at the end of November. As a whole group, we decided upon Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a choice that I was immensely happy with. I felt that such an atmospheric film with the iconic setting of the Overlook Hotel would be perfect for an immersive event within the Watershed building, with plenty of scope within the film’s plot that could be used as immersive features and performances during the event.

With The Shining in mind, it became a somewhat more guided task in selecting the 3 films that would lead up to the immersive event, as I was keen to have a programme that explored the various themes in The Shining such as isolation, claustrophobia, psychological and physical haunting. After much deliberation, Varun, J and I decided upon the classic Japanese horror film Hausu, Roman Polanski’s disturbing psychological drama Repulsion, and Dario Argento’s iconic Suspiria. Such a cinematic selection adhered to my hopes for the programme, as well as being unusual enough films that would draw movie fans to the cinema, rather than films that audiences may already own on DVD.

Our Roles Within the Team
With the programme of films selected, the team was able to move forward with the project. At this point, we were able to more clearly define roles for individual members of the group that would work to their existing strengths while at the same time broadening their experience. Roles within the group were as follows:

• Zoe Horn-Haywood: Project Manager, Marketing Visuals and Evaluation Planning
• Florence Fitzgerald: Artistic Liaison and Character Developer (providing briefs on the roles of performers).
• Varun Raman: Liaison with professional musicians and sound manager.
• James Staynings: Head of Health and Safety assessments for the events.
• J Gibbs: Budget and Props Manager.

Due to my commitments at university (University of Warwick), and the difficulty in frequently travelling from Coventry to Bristol, I chose to take up the role of developing and producing online promotion for the events, particularly for The Shining immersive event. Promotion and advertising is somewhat of an interest of mine, and as someone who is a keen writer (mainly of prose), I was keen explore the writing style of promotional copy and how this differs from my usual writing style. I was intrigued to see how promotion can function, not only as a tool for selling tickets, but as a tool for social media interaction and garnering wider awareness amongst the general public of what the Watershed can do.