The newest bucket in the family show business is turning your favorite movies into a live experience. And CineConcerts has one of the hottest properties going — the Harry Potter Film Concert Series.
“We’ve seen with these shows that they’ve completely changed the acceptable demographics for a concert hall,” said Brady Beaubien, concert producer for the series. “We see very, very young children to grandparents. I saw 50-60-70-year-old men and women coming themselves without their kids.”
The show combines the live, local orchestra and the film, synching the live show to the movie presentation. The audience gets to hear their local orchestra play some of their favorite music while watching the film and, hopefully, they will come back to hear the orchestra again. “People like the model,” Beaubien said. “Orchestras that draw 30-40 percent capacity average for the classical music concert are seeing 90-100 percent capacity for these shows.”
“In my lifetime, there are not many properties like Harry Potter. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t read the books. The movies are an all-inclusive event and make it better,” Beaubien said.
The tour started June 23, 2016 at Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, which drew 17,000. But the model is to use concert halls, preferred by the producers for the added value of exquisite architecture. That kind of setting helps set the tone for Harry Potter, making it a more unique experience, Beaubien believes.
The show is bought by the venue or a local promoter. Live Nation promoted the show at the Mann and at Radio City Music Hall, New York. CineConcerts brings the conductor and the audiovisual team. The conductor rehearses two or three times with the local orchestra prior to the performance.
“We take the music very seriously. We take the responsibility of re-creating John Williams’ music live very seriously,” Beaubien said, praising the quality of musicians worldwide.
The audience sees the entire movie, frame to frame, start to finish, exactly as they saw it in the theater with one big exception: the music is completely replaced in the film with the live orchestra. “It’s a really compelling,” Beaubien said. “It’s a combination of familiar and unfamiliar. It heightens the experience.”
The audiovisual crew live mixes the show. “You never know the acoustics of the hall and idiosyncrasies of the musicians; we have to mix the sound effects and dialog track with the music,” Beaubien explained.
CineConcerts is much more efficient today than they were with the Star Trek tour they produced, when they toured the entire orchestra, a total of 100 people, all over the world. The format started with Gladiators Live, one show in 2014 at Royal Albert Hall, London. From there, CineConcerts toured and is still touring "The Godfather", "It's A Wonderful Life", "Breakfast At Tiffany's", Dreamworks Animation in Concert and Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, a montage of all the Star Trek films and their only original creation, called"Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage".
“There are a couple of things you look for in film — it has to be a big movie in terms of its presence on screen and has to have a wonderful score. And it has to be something familiar and beloved in culture on some level,” Beaubien said.
The format is exciting and full of potential, he added. “It can be many different things utilizing the philharmonic and concert halls to present media. It’s a new way of getting people out of the house, enjoying other people. It has great energy. Shared memories. Shared experiences.”
For Harry Potter, CineConcerts is partnered with Warner Bros. Consumer Products, which owns the film rights and does merchandise for the show. They have partnered with Paramount and Dreamworks on the other shows.
It is not limited to concert halls. Besides Mann Center, they have played the Hollywood Bowl and Microsoft Theater, Los Angeles, and Royal Albert Hall in London, which seats 5,000. It does require a good view of the screen.
Booking agent is Alex Rabens, William Morris Endeavor. There are no tour sponsors.
This year, CineConcerts will produce over 325 concerts. “In 2014 we had one show,” Beaubien said. Growth has been phenomenal and there is more, he promised, teasing that they are about to launch yet another form of film/music/live presentation.
Were they the first to do this? No. “The first was the guy on the piano during the silent movie days. I’d give that guy credit,” Beaubien said. — Linda Deckard
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BRINGING MOVIES TO LIVE
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