Robert Livingston outlines the curious path that led to him becoming CEO of Regional Screen Scotland
1994 was a pretty good year for movies destined to be classics: Forrest Gump, the Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Leon, The Madness of King George. It was also the year I joined a small cultural development agency in Inverness called HI-Arts, and was first introduced to the idea of a mobile cinema.
1994 was also the year the National Lottery started, and that was part of the spur for a UK-wide exploration into whether the French Cinemobile service could be adapted to a British context. The Cinemobile was a marvel—a fully self-contained cinema in an articulated truck, which could open out to seat between 80 and 100 people in great comfort. Built by the wonderfully named Toutenkamion, Cinemobiles had been successfully touring central France for several years.
HI-Arts was set up and contracted by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the development agency for the region, and HIE were very interested in how a version of the Cinemobile could serve the more remote communities of the Highlands and Islands. Together, we brought one of the Cinemobiles over to Fort WillIam and, for a lot of people, it was love at first sight.
There was just one problem. Cinemobiles could draw on readily available 3-phase power supplies in any French community. A Highlands and Islands version would need its own on board generator. Moreover, at that time Cinemobiles had very limited disabled access, and not even stereo sound. Toutenkamion were reluctant to make major changes to what had proved to be a successful model, leaving the various interested parties in Scotland with little option but to take the concept and commission a new design that wouldn’t just be a copy of the Toutenkamion model.
I’ll draw a veil over the painful circumstances by which the first, prototype Screen Machine was brought into being. Sufficient to say that there are individuals across Scotland who still have nightmares about the process of getting Screen Machine 1 on the road—and keeping it there. But despite the technical and other problems (including the builders going bust before the Machine had been handed over) the Screen Machine proved an instant hit with audiences as far afield as Barra and Bettyhill.
But, as a prototype, SM1 was not likely to sustain a demanding touring circuit for many years. After it had been on the road for five years, at HI-Arts we took the bold decision to commission a second Screen Machine. But by this time, such had been the fame of Screen Machine 1 that Toutenkamion had been commissioned to build three other mobile cinemas—two for Ireland and one for the body that provides entertainment for British soldiers overseas (the story of how SM1 went to war-torn Bosnia twice should itself be the subject of a movie). The French builders were therefore very pleased to work with us to make Screen Machine 2 an absolute state of the art mobile cinema, and so it proved to be, and has remained, for 11 years now.
But HI-Arts was always meant to be a development agency, not a cinema management. It had originally been intended that the mobile cinema service would be run by one or more Local Authorities (there’s a natural parallel with mobile libraries, after all). But by the time SM1 was on the road, Local Government Reorganisation had taken place, and the new Highland Council had many more priorities to face than taking on an untried Screen Machine.
So, HI-Arts took on the task of providing a high quality cinema service across four Council areas and almost half the land mass of Scotland. It was never a comfortable fit—HI-Arts had a much wider remit to develop all the arts and to work closely with HIE’s own local development teams. The solution came in 2008, when Scottish Screen commissioned HI-Arts to set up a new body to develop access to cinema provision outside the major cities. This became Regional Screen Scotland and, once it was fully up and running, the ownership of SM2, and the remit for its operation, were passed over from HI-Arts.
This coincided with the arrival of digital projection, which meant that the Screen Machine could offer a much more flexible programme, now that it was not confined by limited storage space to a maximum of three 35mm prints films at any one time. When the service celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2013 it had its most successful year ever, with total ticket sales of almost 30,000, equivalent to an average of 45 people per screening.
Meanwhile, circumstances changed, and HI-Arts’ two major funders withdrew their support, and in 2013 the agency was wound up. I went on to set up a freelance consultancy, working for, among others the charity which owned the Campbeltown Picture House, the second oldest cinema in Scotland, and the oldest in continuous operation. When the post of CEO of Regional Screen Scotland came round, however, it was too good to miss. Instead of the frustration of freelance contracts, where so often you have to walk way and hope others will pick up what you’ve done, here’s was a chance to take a long and strategic view, and at a very interesting time, when RSS had just achieved three year Regular Funding from Creative Scotland. And I was back with the Screen Machine… When, at the end of my first month, I sat with my wife in the Screen Machine in Aviemore to watch Local Hero, I knew I’d made the right decision.