Blogs

As a filmmaker, I typically spend a few months on the road every year for various productions. Each is divided up between one- and two-week shoots. The rest of the time, I am in McGillivray Freeman’s beautiful offices in Laguna Beach, California—sitting behind a desk working on preproduction, which involves administrative work such as phone calls, scheduling, budgeting, research, and project organization. It’s tedious occasionally (after the 10th phone call discussing permitting minutia) but rewarding, as I know it’s all working towards the same goal—securing locations [...]

2018 was the 40th anniversary of the formation of an association for the giant screen industry, and Mary Jane Dodge at MacGillivray Freeman Films, as a member of the GSCA Member Services Committee, is helping GSCA with a video series to share stories about the association and the industry. In this video Mary Jane interviews Dave Duszynski, President of Mercury Museum Services, a subsidiary of Cincinnati Museum Center. In 1990, along with the opening of Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, Dave assumed responsibility of the [...]

2018 was the 40th anniversary of the formation of an association for the giant screen industry, and Mary Jane Dodge at MacGillivray Freeman Films, as a member of the GSCA Member Services Committee, is helping GSCA with a video series to share stories about the association and the industry. In this video Mary Jane interviews David Keighley, Chief Quality Officer and Executive Vice President at IMAX, who has been involved in the theatrical, film and digital large-format post-production of more than 450 films released in IMAX [...]

2018 is the 40th anniversary of the formation of an association for the giant screen industry, and Mary Jane Dodge at MacGillivray Freeman Films, as a member of the GSCA Member Services Committee, is helping us with a video series to share how it all began. Here's her first interview, featuring award-winning producer/director Greg MacGillivray.    

The IMAX® Dome Theater at The Tech Museum in San Jose, California, opened in 1998. In 2003, we began to offer traditional movie concessions. I know that some institutional giant screens are just dipping their toes into the concessions world. As we approach our twentieth anniversary, we feel we have achieved a balance that works for us. But when it comes to concessions, the only right way to do it is the way that fits comfortably into your institution’s operating model. Let’s explore the world of [...]

The GSCA’s Production and Post Production Workflow (P3W) resources were designed to provide filmmakers with technical guidelines on how to produce content for the Giant Screen. There are workflow resources for both picture and audio, and both include a diagram, textual document in PDF form providing more detailed information, and an interactive Wiki page that allows users to comment and add their thoughts and perspectives on specific elements.  The GSCA Technical Committee created these documents to help ensure films brought to our giant screens meet our historically high standards [...]

The GSCA Marketing Symposium held during the 2017 International Conference in September yielded plenty of great insights and recommendations. I heard many attendees, including myself, leaving with visions of putting into practice what they learned upon their return home. What I’m curious to know is, did anyone actually implement what they said they would? During a recent GSCA Twitter Chat, that question was posed to those participating and largely went unanswered. This brings up an important institutional question. How do we take that stoked feeling that [...]

As we begin the new year, I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on how the GSCA Board of Directors and staff are working on behalf of its members and share our action plan to meet members’ needs in the coming year.   You may recall, at the 2015 conference in San Francisco, the GSCA Board worked with facilitator Lynn Luckow to frame GSCA’s strategic plan and update our mission, vision, and values. In 2016, we continued our work on developing and implementing the [...]

In an early morning session next Wednesday, October 5th, we are going to engage in a creative exercise together as part of the GSCA Marketing Session "The Road to Success: Creativity, Strategy, and Execution: Marketing Workshop" at the GSCA International Conference and Trade Show. Rather than simply learning about four successful marketing campaigns launched by four of our institutional theaters this year, we are going to see how the experienced marketing professionals from these theaters approach the creative challenges when promoting a film. The session panelists [...]