Central Cinema: Q&A with founders William Mahaffey and Nick Huinker

 

After a lengthy process of fundraising and volunteer construction, Central Cinema has officially announced its opening festivities. Self-described as “a community movie house located in the heart of North Knoxville’s Happy Holler neighborhood”, the theater will be hosting a First Friday Open House and Preview this Friday, August 3, 5-8 PM. The big opening comes on Friday, August 10 with a weekend lineup of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, and Wild At Heart.

Central Cinema is located at 1205 North Central Street near the corner of Anderson.

I sat down with Central Cinema founders William Mahaffey and Nick Huinker for a wide-ranging talk about their vision for the theater.

Startup Obstacles

Andrew Swafford: I think it’s worth acknowledging that this interview has been a really long time in the making. We originally discussed doing this in January, when it looked like the theater might open in January. There have been a lot of setbacks with construction in trying to get this place open. I imagine that opening a fully independent theater is really challenging, so give me a sense of what obstacles your team had to overcome to make this happen?

William Mahaffey: You know, we didn’t totally understand building codes and all that–and we knew we were gonna run into stuff that was more complicated than we imagined. First it was just getting architectural plans submitted to the city and getting them back, and we did it close to the holidays and that slows what is already a slow process down even more. And then just getting to where construction actually started–I don’t think it really started until…March?

Nick Huinker: April. It was naïveté on our parts. We played in bands for years and everything, and DIY means a lot to me, personally–and that was the approach with which we did the Horror Fest. We said, “hey, let’s do a horror film festival,” and that’s grown and we found out we were good at it, so we were like, “hey, let’s do a movie theater” taking that same approach. But there’s just a lot more involved with that.

Andrew: Real estate is more complicated.

Nick: Yeah, exactly. And financing and things…and just because there were things that we didn’t know not to do ourselves, or things we decided to do ourselves just made things take a lot longer.

Andrew: What were some of the things you decided to do yourselves?

William: As much as we could … And you just realize that sometimes you hire people for a reason because they’re really good at something. And once we accepted that more, we hired somebody who helped us seek out loans and we hired somebody who has been helpful in finding good contractors. Contractors were another problem. We got a good deal because of some connections we had, but it ended up being a little sour towards the end just because of how much time they were taking–and they were obviously doing it at a very leisurely pace. I really think we could have been open by June if that wasn’t the case.

Nick: But in these last few weeks, we’ve also realized, now that it is so close to done how much work there remains. Basically any real goalpost we set for ourselves, it wasn’t ever realistic.

Crowdfunding

Andrew: The amount of manpower that has come together to make this happen is the next thing I wanted to ask you about. People reading this might not know if they’re not following the theater’s development on social media, but in these final stages, you guys have relied heavily on the assistance of supporters on Facebook, just corralling people on an almost daily basis to haul furniture, paint, etc–and people have been pretty enthusiastic in their willingness to help out! This is such a crowdfunded project: the supporters are putting the theater together, you guys did the GoFundMe and raised like $30,000…So can you talk a little bit about the support you’ve gotten from our local community and how you plan to make this feel like a community space?

 

Nick: That’s always been kind of central to the idea that we want to make this a very easygoing, unpretentious thing that people are going to feel very comfortable and at home at, and to try to welcome in people who wouldn’t think that, trying to outreach to all audiences.

William: It’s the same approach that we’ve done with the Horror Fest. We want it to feel like you’re just coming over to our house and watching movies that we picked out. And we want it to be like that at the theater too, as much as it can. It’s a different kind of thing, so it’s gonna be a little harder to get that effect all the time, but…

Nick: We also have a broader canvas to work on now. The idea of a horror film fest appeals to some people and it doesn’t appeal to others.

William: Yeah, it’s a very niche genre and there’s not a whole lot of people who are gonna go watch 10 horror movies in a weekend. But that’s been one of the most rewarding things. First of all, doing the GoFundMe and finding out that there are that many people interested that we don’t know–cause a lot of those people, we don’t know, but we’ve gotten to know them. And yeah, the volunteers–last night, for instance, we went down there to paint and clean floors and I thought one person was gonna show up and then we had six people show up and stay with us until after midnight cleaning floors and painting. We’ve been really lucky with that, and some of the people doing contracting work…One of the guys from Sitara [Electric Company] named Craig–he has been super helpful. He built a Dutch door for us and he’s been going above and beyond what somebody should be willing to do, but it’s just because he loves cinema too. That part has been super rewarding–that people care enough about what you’re doing to give money or time.

The Moviegoing Experience

Andrew: Going back to the idea of wanting this to feel like people are coming into your home, this is clearly going to be a very different kind of moviegoing experience than what you might see at the Regal Rivera, right? And I think it’s kind of funny that the Regal corporate headquarters is right here in Knoxville, about 3 miles from y’all’s theater. So aside from just the kind of movies you’ll be showing, what is gonna be unique about the experience of watching a movie at Central Cinema as opposed to a corporate cinema?

William: Well, we value the cinematic experience a lot, and part of the reason that we wanted to do this is because we’re kinda sick of the mainstream moviegoing experience. Not just presentation–because a lot of Regals have really good presentation, but…it’s just a job for people, especially since film isn’t projected anymore. Projection is almost kind of an art, and now there’s no art to it–it’s like pressing a button. And some managers probably really care about it and some don’t, and some don’t bother to take the 3D filter off when you’re watching a movie and you end up watching a really dull picture. Or they don’t bother to check the speakers beforehand and make sure they’re all working.

…And because we’re kinda DIY, obviously it’s not gonna be the most amazing experience ever, but we’re gonna put out front that texting and talking are not cool during movies.

Andrew: Are you kicking people out?

William: Yeah, we’re gonna give three warnings and then you’re out.

Nick: Three warnings? That seems time-consuming.

William: Well, maybe two. [Laughs] I would imagine that with most people, it won’t be an issue. After they get talked to once, usually people quit. That’s not the case when you go to AMCs or the Riviera–which is a really nice theater, but the clientele is horrible. I saw the first Unfriended there and that was one of the worst screenings I’ve ever been to in my life because we went on opening night and it was just packed with kids. And I guess they just get dropped off there and their parents pay for the tickets? They don’t care.

Andrew: Especially horror movies.

William: Yeah, especially horror movies. So that whole thing–it’s not gonna be like that. And we want it to be really welcoming, like we’d said, and we want to make it more like not just seeing a movie–we want to make it more fun than that. The stuff we used to do at Relix, we want to try to bring back, here.

Andrew: What kind of stuff were you doing at Relix?

Nick: We had a wrestling show one time.

William: Yeah, we showed a movie called Monster Brawl, which is about monsters wrestling, and we had a make-up artist that we knew make up these wrestlers and we had a local wrestling group to come up and set up a ring in Relix. And so, before and after the movie we had monster wrestling! And then, we showed this movie, The FP, which is about gangs who battle via Dance Dance Revolution, and we set up Dance Dance Revolution pads and had a dance-off.

Andrew: So you’re imagining a lot of event screenings like that?

William: …We want to try to get guests. Say, we’re showing a martial arts movie—there was actually a martial arts place that reached out to us recently and I told them about that. I think little things like that make it special.

Nick: I remember I saw a karate demonstration the opening night of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in El Paso, Texas–I’ll always remember that because it was a unique thing to see.

Local Synergy

Andrew: You’ve mentioned a few examples already, but I know you guys have reached out to a lot of local businesses and organizations to try to make Central Cinema a part of the Knoxville community, right? You’ve even reached out to my podcast [Cinematary] about leading some post-movie discussions, and I think you guys are trying to sell beer from local breweries, if I’m not mistaken? So what else are you hoping to do in order to intersect with other Knoxville businesses and organizations?

William: Well, two of the ones we have pretty solid plans for is a record store night–we’d show a concert film or a music doc and have a local record store (or a combination of them) come and set up and sell records in our lounge. And then, a similar idea: a comic book movie night. Because we have a lot of comic book shops now, too. We’re actually pretty lucky with record stores and comic shops here–there’s quite a few. So we’d have them come out and set up comics. I mean, we’re not gonna show the brand new Marvel movie…

Andrew: Yeah, not Thor: Ragnarok, but maybe Blade II or something.

William: But Blade II! [Laughs]

Nick: Or Tank Girl.

William: Yeah, something like that–or Ghost World! Stuff that isn’t as popular. And also, we have Kelly Robinson who works at Raven [Records] and does Knoxferatu–she’s an expert on silent film and we’ve got plans for her to have a night.

Nick: She’ll have a silent film night, and TAMIS [Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound] will be doing pretty regular presentations.

William: And we’re gonna try to do some 16mm stuff with them.

Celluloid

Andrew: Yeah! That was actually my next question, because I’m very curious about the fact that you guys can do celluloid projection at Central Cinema!

William: Well, we can’t do 35mm—even though we have a 35mm projector there, we can’t do it yet.

Andrew: Why is that?

William: Well, it’s a lot more construction—it requires ventilation and a power upgrade.

Nick: The story behind the projector is that…Raven Records have been great to us—Jack and Jay—and Jack found this projector for a great deal, and it was a very interesting ordeal retrieving this projector.

Andrew: How interesting?

William: Well, it was owned by an older guy who—I guess he’s an older film fan, maybe he used to work in theaters—but somehow he got a projector and it look two or three tries to go out and get it. It was up a hill…

Nick: It was this very muddy…

William: Hill with craters!

Nick: Trees had grown together over it.

William: It looked like the path to his place had just been made by him driving up and down through the woods.

Nick: So first we showed up with our friend’s pickup truck, which couldn’t make it up the hill–and we had to go bring a U-Haul up there. It was super heavy, but we finally got it in the theater, but somehow, acquiring the 35mm projector–even with that extra trouble–might be the easiest part of making that work in that theater.

Andrew: So it’s still something that might be a possibility in the future–just not right this second?

William: Yeah, I wouldn’t expect it anytime soon, but I have been talking about it with people, and I think it might not be super complicated, but it is gonna be a little hard.

Nick: Best case scenario is that we succeed very much with Central Cinema and expand our space and are able to arrange something specifically to what the projector’s needs will be as far as lenses and how far it throws…

Andrew: How would you expand?

Nick: That’s all just daydreaming.

William: Yeah, that’s all daydreaming—we have ideas, but…

Andrew: Gotcha. Well, you mentioned you could do 16mm, and TAMIS is going to help you guys out with that–how often do you imagine using that stuff? What kinds of things do you think you might screen?

Nick: That’s a good question.

William: Part of the issue with film is…Originally, we were gonna put our projector in a little office. We were gonna get a much bigger digital projector, but it would have been over half of the money we had. [Laughs] So we opted to go with a pro-sumer one, though it’s a really nice projector. It’s not something cheap at all. It’s just cheaper than a $50,000 projector. [Laughs] But we mounted it in the theater instead of cutting a hole and projecting from the office. So with film…I think 16mm will work, but we might have to have the projector in the auditorium, which will be logistically a little weird to figure out. And we can maybe cut a hole and do it that way, but there’s gonna be a lot of logistics. But at Relix one time, we did a Roger Corman themed event—Bradley Reeves, who used to be with TAMIS, helped us out with that–and we showed Death Race 2000 and Battle Beyond the Stars on 16mm. And they also sent us a bunch of Corman TV trailers on 16mm–it was one of my favorite events we’ve ever done.

Programming Goals

Andrew: I want to talk more about programming. Rather than offering a lineup of new films that could be found at any old Regal theater, you guys are primarily showing older films–classics, cult movies, indies that may not get distribution other places. The films in your opening lineup all have pretty big name recognition (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Clueless, Pulp Fiction, etc.)—and I may already know the answer to this question—but I’m also wondering about how your programming goals compare to an organization like The Public Cinema, which seems to exist mostly to expose people to and educate them about movies they may never have heard of. So what do you see as your primary goal here: mostly celebrating movies that people already love, or introducing them to things they may not have seen? 

William: I think it’s half-and-half. We’re just starting out; we aimed broad with the opening weekend. We deliberated a lot over what the first movie would be.

Andrew: I think that was the right choice.

William: Yeah, Raiders was my initial idea. Sometimes stuff gets overplayed, but that movie’s a classic and it just made sense. But we might also be adding an indie movie the first weekend–we’re just still working that out. We want to bring independent stuff here too, and I think–like you said—Public Cinema’s goal is to show off more stuff that’s not on people’s radar quite as much. And we do want to do that as well, but I don’t know how much our programming will cross over with theirs. There’s definitely stuff they’ve shown that we wanted to show: we would have done The Love Witch for sure.

…

Nick: Yeah, there’s stuff that we’ll hopefully get to screen. Part of what we built is hopefully to appeal to them and other people who would put on a screening series–just giving them a venue to do that, because we spent years looking for the ideal place to do that on, again, a more DIY basis. And we ended up building our own.

October

Andrew: You guys have been programming films for such a long time in the Knoxville community, both with the Knox Horror Film Fest and the Ijams Nature Center, where you show a lot of horror as well. And with all that in mind, it’s kind of a lucky accident that one of your very first months of operation is going to be October. That’s really gonna allow you to work in your wheelhouse in terms of programming. You probably can’t tell me much, but what can you tell me about what seasonal attractions you have in store for the October season?

William: Honestly, programming right now…We’ve been so tied up with getting the space ready, I’m behind on that. I have a lot of ideas for it, but right now I’m really working on the festival a lot and the first couple of weeks at Central Cinema. Every now and then it will pop in my head: “we have a whole month to show horror movies!”

Andrew: And the horror fest is longer this year than it has been in the past, right?

William: We added a day–the 18th through the 21st. But honestly, there’s gonna be a lot of stuff all month long.

Nick: We’ve been so focused on getting this finished that we haven’t really indulged ourselves into what specifically we can do to expand Horror Fest, but I’d expect there will be some sort of month-long Horror Fest pass. We’ll be showing horror stuff all month, for sure.

Andrew: It just won’t all be new horror stuff, which is kind of the focus of the horror fest.

Nick: Yeah, the horror fest being stuff that is, for the most part, pre-release screenings. And that’s part of the fun of the festival–I like going into a movie and not knowing what it is. That’s my favorite type of screening. 

Audience Demographics / Indies on VOD

Andrew: Here is a concern I have–and I hope you won’t be offended by the question.

William: No, please.

Andrew: I only ask because I’m a big supporter of the theater and I want it to be the best it can be. It seems like genre movies and cult classics are going to be a big draw for this theater, which is great–I’m a horror enthusiast myself–but in a lot of cases, the kind of community that forms around those movies tends to be a bit of a boys club–it tends to be all white, as well. We could be seen as evidence of ourselves. I’m also thinking —about the fact that the theater is opening in a neighborhood that is currently in a top-down process of gentrification. And in your opening lineup, you guys have included a couple of staples that I hope will attract a less homogenous crowd–you have Clueless, you have Do The Right Thing—but I am wondering: is making sure you’re catering to a diverse set of demographics a concern that you’ve been talking about, and if so, how do you plan to do that?

Nick: Oh yeah. That’s been part of the many things that we feel about the movies–going back to the question of why our theater is different—we want an audience to be together experiencing these things together, because that’s what we like about movies. That’s why we’ve transitioned from wanting to make movies to wanting to share movies with people. I am heartened by the fact that there are, very often, Indian films showing at Downtown West, which shows that there is obviously demand for that. And one of the things that I am looking forward to very much is reaching out to local minority groups and asking “what do you guys think would be a good screening?” And then putting that on and trying to get people out so they can feel represented on screen and they can watch that with an audience with their peers–and hopefully some people outside of their community who are going to understand it a little better. And that’ll play into regular programming choices as well as, hopefully, special events that we can arrange. Since we were originally planning on opening in June, we were going to do a lot of Pride-themed stuff then.

William: When I do programming, I try to think about what’s going on–Pride month was something we talked about, so I was trying to plan for that. We had Do The Right Thing on there, and that was the anniversary of it, in June—and we missed that. But we’re still gonna show it. But I try to time things…so if it looks like the stuff we’ve mentioned isn’t super-diverse, it’s just timing. And you know when you’re trying to tease the theater and get people excited, not a lot of people have a lot of indie stuff on their radar. We added a couple of things in the trailer [for the theater], like Low Life, which actually has a very diverse cast. Low Life, and this documentary Ramen Heads is on there.

Nick: It might be a little late for Ramen Heads.

William: We’ll do it anyway. The longer something is out, the more chance that it’s on VOD–which, we don’t care. Like Low Life, I’m still gonna show because I saw that at Chattanooga Film Fest and it’s one of my favorite movies I’ve seen this year—I loved it. And we’re showing it the same weekend we’re showing Pulp Fiction, and it pairs perfectly with Pulp Fiction. It’s obviously very influenced, but from a different viewpoint, which makes it feel very different even though it’s doing a lot of the same tropes that Tarantino and similar filmmakers might do. In that case, I feel like the movie looks so cool, and it didn’t come here—it’s fine that you can already buy the Blu-Ray. It’s whatever.

Andrew: And, for me, I’d be much more likely to see it if it was playing in a theater than if it was just sitting on a VOD platform somewhere.

Nick: We’re banking on there being people who understand that there’s value in seeing a movie not only on a big screen but with a good audience.

Andrew: And it’s a one-time opportunity to see it on that screen, whereas things have sat on my Netflix queue for years that I don’t get to because I think “oh, they’ll be there forever.”

William: And they just keep burying movies.

Nick: It’s probably better to focus on stuff that’s not available on streaming, but for instance Raiders is on all the services. We don’t care.

Andrew: Of course–a lot of the classics are widely available but people still want to see them.

William: People who understand cinema and really appreciate it know that these movies were made for a big screen. Like, back when Raiders was made, VHS was still in infancy. And you couldn’t just go out and buy VHS–if you did, they were like 80 to 200 dollars, sometimes. So I think we’ll have a core audience that understands that. And also, besides being on a bigger screen, the experience with an audience is different. Especially with an audience that gets film. That’s another thing about the festival screenings that I really appreciate–when you go and realize that everybody there is getting it in the same way as you do. As opposed to when you go to see Unfriended 2 at AMC and people don’t give a shit. [Laughs]

Andrew: And I think that’s one of the benefits of having a single-screen theater, too. You don’t get anything lost in the shuffle of multiple screens where there’s one that’s lower priority. Every movie is being celebrated.

Nick: Yeah, it lets us focus. Because technically, it’s not actually going to be the nicest theater in Knoxville, but we think it could probably be people’s favorite. We are going to care where it counts because we’re pretty picky–more picky than most.

William: We’re very picky. Even though our equipment isn’t as nice as Regal’s, our picture looks really good and our sound is awesome and it’s gonna be bright and loud like it’s supposed to be. If their equipment is functioning at 50%, then ours is better I guess. [Laughs]

Nick: Yeah, and if it doesn’t look good then I’m probably gonna spend like 4 hours the next day trying to make it look good.

Grand Opening

Andrew: I’ll end with what I see as the most exciting question: Central Cinema is opening very soon. So for Arts Knoxville readers to know: when will be people’s first opportunity to take a look around the theater and catch a movie? I understand there’s some sort of preview situation on First Friday?

William: Yeah, this First Friday is Open House Night, and from 6 to 9 we’ll be showing trailers and shorts and cartoons—just random stuff.

Nick: So people can come in, take a look around, experience it.

William: We’ll probably have wine and some beer. And we have the lounge and the back deck, so people can just hang out. And then the following weekend we’re opening August 10th—and that’ll be with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Wild at Heart and Willy Wonka and probably another showing. Also this Friday—you know we did the GoFundMe thing, and we have a lot of “Members” [who donated $150 or more]. Part of their reward is getting to go to these preview screenings, and that will be the first Member’s Screening, Friday night. But that’s gonna be a secret screening. And we’ll have a lot of opportunities the following week for members to come out and see the theater and see movies and give us their opinion on what they think of everything.

Nick: “The popcorn sucks, I can hear the construction…”

William: [Laughs] Yeah, I mean, we’re still gonna be working on it while they’re there in a lot of cases, but it’s just an opportunity for them to watch a movie and give us an idea of what they feel about the space.

Andrew: People could become members through the GoFundMe page earlier on–how can people become members now?

William: It’s still open on GoFundMe—and once we close that down, we’ll always have that option, and we’ll have it on our site.

Nick: Yeah, mostly we just haven’t really set up the retail end of our operation–we’re waiting for a few more steps to fall into place, but once we do, they’ll be able to buy memberships online or come in and get membership cards.

William: Oh yeah, we have little laminated membership cards.

Nick: They look like Blockbuster cards.

Andrew: [Laughs] Thank you guys so much!