Cumberland 12 Cinemas

I made some spots for Cumberland 12 Cinemas recently.  Three that will play on local cable TV and one that is a policy spot for playing before the movie about cell phone use.  They were a lot of fun to make.  As the budget was tight, we had to get people to be in it in exchange for a few movie passes.  My friend Todd Brunner and his wife Jodi and daughter Tia were the perfect family to be featured in the policy spot.  Todd has done some acting for TV shows like NYPD Blue when he lived in NYC and he ad libbed most of his “annoying chatter”.  One thing I really wanted to do was an homage to GOODFELLAS, when they freeze Ray Liota laughing and continue the voice over.  It worked out well here too!

Other spots included this one for their birthday parties they offer at the cinema.  My neighbors were perfect candidates for this one and they helped secure other family and friends to be in the “party” as well.  The challenge here was to shoot it all while the theater was open, thus we had to do the red carpet scenes inside the same room where the birthday parties take place.  I changed the lighting for the red carpet shots to look more dramatic, like at a movie premiere, even having the back light appear in the scene.  In reality it’s the same room as the other party scenes.  Finally using 120 frames per second as a shooting rate made it all look more glamorous when played back in slow-motion.

The theater does 10am shows on Wednesday for just $5!  Not second run films but whatever is currently playing at the time.  I thought a clever way to promote this was with a 1980’s theme as that is what a premium ticket used to cost back in the 80s!  Again, the talent was some friends and neighbors.  They really embrassed the theme and went all in with the look of the 80’s including big hair, spandex and a fanny pack and mullet!

Finally we wanted to do a spot that promotes the C12 “Experience” of their large curved screen, surround sound and 3D!

Overall, we all had a blast making these and it’s fun to go to the movies now and see them up on the big screen!