WELCOME
Scot Spencer
Good evening and welcome to the SNF Parkway Theatre, home of the Maryland Film Festival.
My name is Scot Spencer and I am the Chair of the Board of Directors.
Camille Blake Fall
And my name is Camille Blake Fall and I am the Vice Chair of the SNF Parkway Theatre and Maryland Film Festival – it is so good to see you all tonight. Thank you so much for coming out.
Scot Spencer
Tonight is a landmark in the trajectory of two institutions: the Maryland Film Festival, which has just celebrated its 25th Anniversary, and the SNF Parkway Theatre, which opened in 2017.
We are here to share with you our new vision for these two remarkable institutions – a vision that builds on the experience of twenty-five years of service to Maryland and Baltimore film communities, and a vision that has been affirmed and reborn over the past year, through serious planning, close listening, and careful study.
Camille Blake Fall
Tonight, Scot Spencer and I are going to share this vision with you on behalf of the SNF Parkway Board of Directors.
But, before we do, you may have noticed the QR code on the screen when you entered, and we’ll pull it up again here.
We welcome you to provide feedback in real time by clicking on the QR code you see, above. Yes, we want you on your phones tonight!
To get started, you can either scan the QR code up there or go to menti.com and enter that code, 6203 0189.
Both options will take you to the same place: a short series of questions about what you will hear tonight.
There is no rush. You can go through the questions at your own pace. However, you will only be able to answer each question once, and once you have submitted a response, you won’t be able to go back and change it. We hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity to let us know what you think.
And Scot Spencer and I as well as other members of the Board and team here at the Parkway will also welcome your questions following this presentation, in the lobby where we hope you will stay and talk with us about what you’ve heard tonight.
HISTORY
Scot Spencer
Before we talk about the future, let’s spend a minute reviewing how we’ve landed here tonight.
In our first season as a full-time cinema in 2018, we worked hard to build a path to sustainability.
In fact, we were on our way in 2019, with increases at the box office, improving membership and donations.
Camille Blake Fall
By the time the pandemic hit in early 2020, the SNF Parkway Theatre was in just its third year of operation. While it had the legacy of the Maryland Film Festival at its back, it was still finding its feet as a full-time cinema.
Scot Spencer
So, as the pandemic took its toll on cinemas nationwide, our young operation was not exempt. And as many of you here tonight know especially well, what took place en masse at the national level hit Station North, overall, hard. Nonetheless, after being forced to cease operations due to the health crisis – as we all were, in 2020 – we did our best to battle back in late 2021 and throughout 2022.
Camille Blake Fall
In 2022, the path to re-opening cinemas in particular was highly uncertain, and the pipeline of new films available to show had slowed to a crawl, as Hollywood and independent cinema production had also taken a major hit. We did our best to maintain expenses during that period; from 2018 to 2022, our expenses grew slower than inflation. While we were forced to close, we fought hard to attract pandemic-related government support like the SVOG, or shuttered venues operators grants, which were competitive grants issued by the federal government to thousands of institutions nationwide – designed precisely to help cinemas and other entertainment venues like ours, at a disastrous time for our industry, keep their operations afloat and their employees employed. We were far from unique in using that taxpayer resource, and we would do it again.
Scot Spencer
Some have observed that we also received $4.2 million in tax credits. Yes, we did, and we were proud to bring that resource home to Station North, for its designed and specific purpose of revitalizing this building, which had sat empty since the 1970’s. Those tax credits – a small sliver of the credits distributed to hundreds of communities as an established and longstanding means to help give distressed communities a boost – were not used for operating expenses, but to restore the building in which we sit today.
Camille Blake Fall
But – we won’t hide it – as 2022 ended, we realized this was going to be a long haul back to health. We put our heads together and after reflection took the sobering – but responsible and necessary decision – to put operations on hiatus until we could find a strong path forward.
Scot Spencer
We know this was disappointing to many of you. I can guarantee you, it was to us. Many of you here with us tonight were with us as we re-opened this theater in 2017. And many of you were with us in late 2022 when we asked for your grace as we sorted out how best to proceed.
Camille Blake Fall
But, then we got to work. And, with help from a lot of friends, we believe we have found a path forward that will bring renewed vitality and sustainability to this building, the Festival, to non-profit and independent film in our city, and to our work in support of a vibrant Station North, Baltimore, and beyond.
Scot Spencer
To assemble this plan, we talked with nearly 500 stakeholders – filmmakers, students, Station North neighbors, non-profit leaders, educators, city leadership, and philanthropies – discussing the Parkway within the context of Station North, Baltimore, and the wider filmmaking community.
As we listened, we heard several themes recur again and again.
Camille Blake Fall
We heard from many of you, and our colleagues in Baltimore and beyond, that collaboration and partnership are critical. We heard that expectations of the Parkway are high in this regard, and that those expectations have not always been met. The vision we’ll share with you tonight doubles down on the Parkway as a partner and a resource to this community, its artists, students, and those who call Baltimore home.
Scot Spencer
We heard that Baltimore’s filmmakers and creatives need and want more support, a place to gather – both during the Maryland Film Festival and throughout the year. So, our vision takes concrete steps in the direction of honoring and supporting the great filmmakers, creatives, and media-makers here in Baltimore, in partnership with collectives that have already formed and are doing great work, and by adding our own supports to the mix.
Camille Blake Fall
We heard that the Maryland Film Festival was beloved and should remain at the Parkway, and that film should remain at the center of our programming moving forward. But we also heard that you’d like to see other types of art at the Parkway. While this stage won’t facilitate Broadway shows or a 130-piece band, it can do more than film, and this vision explores that potential.
Scot Spencer
We talked with students and educators, and came to understand that they, too, want to see the Parkway as a place where their stories are told. Our vision more fully embraces student filmmakers, families, and the community of educators that has invested in them.
Camille Blake Fall
And we heard that while film is the most democratic of the art forms, engaging more diverse audiences than any other discipline, it was perceived that we’d not quite lived up to our own standard of “Film for Everyone”. Many of you wanted to see us continue to improve representation on screen reflecting the amazing diversity of cultures, experiences, and stories in Baltimore, nationally, and the world. And this vision takes that imperative to heart.
Scot Spencer
While we listened, we also studied.
We know that we cannot be all things for all people, and while we need to respond to what our friends expect from us, we also need to pay close attention to the environment in which we operate, and our own ability to thrive.
So, over the past year, we’ve studied the challenges and opportunities facing not just Station North and Baltimore, not just the Parkway, but non-profit cinemas and filmmakers nationwide.
Camille Blake Fall
We came to terms with the fact that in the golden age of television – of endless streaming and choice – brick and mortar cinemas must really lean into what only they can do, what they can do that television and the sofa cannot.
This is a serious question that is impacting cinemas nationwide. In fact, ticket sales at many non-profit, and for-profit, cinemas remain down – in some cases by between 30 and 40% when compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Some have observed that our sales declined in 2020, 2021 and 2022. That is true, and we were not alone. We all remember 2020 and 2021 – the world was closed, as were major parts of our city. We had very few opportunities in 2020 and 2021 to sell tickets.
Scot Spencer
And while we have to turn the page, these impacts – from streaming and the pandemic – linger at cinemas nationwide. In fact, according to imdb pro, box office sales in 2024 for all commercial and non-profit cinemas in the United States, year to date through two weeks ago, May 15, are down 24% compared with last year and down 43% from 2019.
In 2022, the year we had to go on hiatus, sales for all cinemas nationwide were down by 42% over 2019 highs. 2021 sales nationwide were less than 15% of sales in 2019. And sales in 2020, 2021, and 2022 combined were only 16% higher than the total in 2019.
So, as we studied, we thought long and hard about an existential question for ourselves and our field: how can we make going to the theater special, even surprising and enriching and useful? How can we dramatically expand the role of a building like this in a community like ours?
Camille Blake Fall
We took a close look at filmmaker services offered by leading non-profits nationally. We recognized the amazing talent and conveners already here in Baltimore. And we thought hard about our role in that ecosystem. We heard in our listening that there remains a desire for both increased connection between Baltimore’s filmmaker communities; and access to national support systems, financing, and networks. We observed that while we have great neighbors here in Baltimore, to our north in Philadelphia and our south in DC, the greater mid-Atlantic region lacks a unified hub for filmmaker support. Our vision takes a close look at that gap and opportunity.
Scot Spencer
And we learned a lot about the ways in which other media – including immersive digital projection, gaming, AR and VR – are building their own vibrant communities, as well as finding points of intersection with the world of film. We learned more about Baltimore’s rich history as a home for numerous game development studios whose work helped train healthcare professionals and educators and gave rise to indie game studios and grassroots gaming communities. And we heard from gamers, developers and new media educators that Baltimore could use a central hub for them, too, along with a venue for gaming exhibitions and competitions.
Credit: Signal Festival, Prague
Camille Blake Fall
So, in response, we’ve taken these two inputs – what you’ve communicated to us, and what we could learn from the world around us – and have shaped a new path forward, one that looks to deepen ways we engage with creators and audiences, responds to the needs we heard from you throughout this process, and balances those needs with what we believe we can do, and do well.
Scot Spencer
This vision focuses on 5 key areas. And now, we’d like to share these with you. We’re very mindful that, as we proceed, we must achieve a balance between aspiration and optimism on the one hand, and the practical realities of running a non-profit on the other.
Camille Blake Fall
So, as we lay out this five-year vision, we ask for your grace in understanding that we’ll be working as hard as we can to realize our vision, but that it will take time, partnership, and investment, to bring it fully to life.
FILM PLUS
Scot Spencer
First, this vision will honor our history and founding promise: film, and the Maryland Film Festival will remain the central pillar in our programming moving forward.
We remain 100 percent committed to film as a medium, as a vehicle for important stories that Baltimore, and the world, need to see and hear.
In fact, we are proud to announce tonight that the 26th Annual Maryland Film Festival will again take place right here, at the Parkway, in May of 2025.
Camille Blake Fall
We remain so grateful to the visionary Jed Deitz, Founder of the Festival, for his remarkable gift to the state of Maryland and to the sector. Our future vision doubles down on our cherished festival, one you can expect to see continue to grow in scale, duration, and scope next year and in the years to come.
Scot Spencer
For those of you who were not able to join us on opening night of this year’s 25th anniversary festival, a brilliant evening curated by the equally brilliant Festival Director KJ Mohr, we are additionally proud to announce that May 2, 2024 – and every May 2 to come – was officially proclaimed Maryland Film Festival Day by Governor Wes Moore. We take that seriously and intend to continue to strengthen the Maryland Film Festival as a major reason more filmmakers will want to call Baltimore home.
Camille Blake Fall
However, there will be two important changes to the way in which you’ll experience other film at the Parkway.
First, while there is going to be a lot of activity here in these halls, we won’t be showing films every day of the week, or every week of the year. We won’t seek to show every first-run independent film as it is released.
But, secondly, when we do show film, that film will be part of a larger conversation, a conversation with you, a conversation that’ll matter, and one you’re not going to want to miss.
Scot Spencer
Don’t be mistaken. We will show film often. But when you see film at the Parkway in the future, it will more often than not be presented part of a series of films on a topic or a theme, and in a format that invites you in to a discussion. It will often be in partnership with others – non-profit and for-profit organizations who are the best at what they do, whose expertise can help inform what we watch, and what we discuss, and whose communities will be part of a discussion that starts right here, in this room, with great film on that screen.
Camille Blake Fall
Why won’t we be showing film every day? In short, it doesn’t work for our business model, and there are others in town who do this really well.
And, to be honest, we’re not convinced this is the path forward for non-profit cinemas in historic houses like ours, which cost a whole lot to run and maintain, but which don’t have the cash to compete with the creature comforts and distributor deals locked up by the chain cinemas.
Scot Spencer
But, the primary reason we won’t be showing every first-run film is that we want to reserve our capacity to really lean into the superpower of a cinema with a mission – a mission to serve. To dialogue. To bring a community together and help make meaning from what we see. That is what we can do differently – provide context for conversation and community around film.
Camille Blake Fall
So, when you come to see film at the Parkway moving forward, most screenings will be part of a series and will feel more like a festival setting, paired with appearances by personalities that made the film happen – the talent, the directors, the production team – or shown alongside a panel of subject-matter specialists who can help us understand the content of the film – the questions it asks, the mysteries it explores – with more depth.
Scot Spencer
You will see directors and cinematographers talk scene analysis. You will encounter artists in other media respond with their own art. You will hear policymakers respond to tough questions raised by the film. And you will dialogue with innovators and problem-solvers about how we can work together to address questions raised by the films we see. Hey, you might just party along with a film, dance in the aisles with a film, dress up for a film, or talk back to a film.
Camille Blake Fall
In other words, when you see a film here, or a series of films here – and yes, you’ll be asked to come binge with us – it will be an event, an event designed to start a conversation. That is what we can do – film in context, film as sparkplug, film as provocation, film as community, film as conversation starter. And that is what our network of filmmakers, critics, scholars, students, and you – our brilliant and engaged audiences and collaborators – can do, that other cinemas cannot or will not. We may not get you to come see a dozen first-run films here each year. We know you’re busy. But we hope to get you to come for a handful, or two, of major moments here each year, and stay longer, and go deeper, when you do.
Scot Spencer
Some of you may be wondering: what kind of film will we focus on moving forward?
We’ve paid attention to the stories that matter most to you, and we’ll be building conversations around those stories.
And, first, our film events will celebrate Baltimore, its history, its people, its glories, its challenges.
Camille Blake Fall
We’ll go long with shorts, celebrating a form that has become a mainstay at the festival, all year round. And we’ll also continue to celebrate our home-grown talent.
Scot Spencer
We’ll screen with pride and celebrate stories from across the LGBTQ+ community.
Camille Blake Fall
We’ll get smart with film about science, our planet, technology and other topics that expand our consciousness and curiosity.
Scot Spencer
We’ll travel the world with the best of global cinema and independent cinema.
Camille Blake Fall
And we’ll travel through time, exploring key genres and movements in film history, and the history of film technology. While also exploring the best in emerging, experimental and avant-garde feature and documentary filmmaking.
Scot Spencer
All throughout, we’ll do this through a lens that honors and celebrates the incredible diversity of this city, of this audience, and the richness of history and experience you all bring here tonight. We will continue to strive to truly be a home of film for everyone.
FILMMAKER and CREATIVES SERVICES
Camille Blake Fall
We know that the extraordinary moments we experience in this room are not possible without years of hard work, training, and an ecosystem of creators that find and make a home, with each other, and in a place that works for them as professionals and people.
As we listened to you and the community throughout our work, we came to understand that there remains great opportunity, and need, amongst the filmmaker and creative communities right here at home.
Scot Spencer
So, the second pillar of our future vision will be a robust filmmaker and creative services program that seeks to connect the vibrant, independent collectives of filmmakers here in Baltimore, and that augments the incredible work they are doing with increased access to resources at the regional, national and international levels.
Camille Blake Fall
We’re working on financing to be able to support filmmakers in residence; to provide workshops and labs on directing, episodic, documentary, financing, marketing and other accelerators for creatives; rough cut screenings, and financier matchmaking. Some of this will be offered at free or reduced cost, and we’ll ask filmmakers and creatives to pay for some of it as well, so we can keep it going.
Scot Spencer
We know there are already great leaders here in the Baltimore filmmaking community, and we look forward to working with them to build a vibrant network of networks here at the Parkway. We don’t pretend to be able to do what they do, and we won’t try. But we do have a beautiful theater here – three in fact – and we want to be a place where filmmakers want to show their rough cuts, do their table reads, and, of course, premiere their films.
Camille Blake Fall
So we are proud to announce tonight that we have forged important and ongoing conversations with Crew Call, the JHU-MICA Film Center, the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund, and the Baltimore Filmmaker Collective to develop ways we can work together to create a sum greater than the parts here at the Parkway in service to the filmmaking community. And, in time, we’ll look to supplement the work of our colleagues here with gap-filling, additional supports that help connect filmmakers and media professionals to one another and to networks of resource, financing, talent, and distribution systems at the national and international levels.
Scot Spencer
For any of you who would like to be part of this discussion or would be interested to partner with us or join this growing network of networks, please leave us a note on Menti.com or introduce yourselves after tonight’s event. We want you involved, too. If we haven’t reached you yet, we’ll do our best in the coming weeks and months. But, do please reach out to us as well.
LIVE ARTS
Camille Blake Fall
The third pillar of our work moving forward will dramatically expand the way in which this building has been, and can be, used.
Scot Spencer
Some of you may know that this beautiful old theater opened in 1915 and was originally designed as a home for vaudeville performances and film, modeled on London’s West End Theater.
In the 1940s and 50s, it was also used to produce radio plays and poetry readings accompanied by pipe organ performances, most famously as home to a nightly radio show called “Nocturne”, broadcast live from this stage at 12am each morning, which was most famous for putting people to sleep more effectively than sleeping pills.
Camille Blake Fall
In the decades that followed, this beautiful theater was increasingly used as a home for live theater, hosting companies such as the Hilltop Theatre Parkway.
And since its reopening in 2017, thanks to the extraordinary leadership of Jed Deitz, and the strong partnership of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, MICA, the City of Baltimore, Station North leadership, and so many others, it has hosted a range of live shows, music video film shoots, orchestral performances – including as live accompaniment to film and experimental music concerts, such as those by Animal Collective.
Scot Spencer
So, as we listened to you over the past year, and as we contemplated our own business model, understanding that we would not be using the building every day for screening of film, we determined that we would also seek to position the Parkway as a home for new music, spoken word, comedy, and other forms of live performance, as well as to invite you, the creatives of Baltimore to imagine other uses for this beautiful building.
Camille Blake Fall
We’ve begun rigorous exploration of how to make the stage behind us more accommodating to live performance beginning with discussions with cinema and theatre planning professionals about how to enable alternative placements for the screen when we’re not planning to show film and need the space for other creative uses.
We’re also looking closely at our options with acoustics and reinforced sound, as well as how to use every available capacity of the vertical space directly above our heads and behind the proscenium, which would also enable many additional uses of the stage itself.
Scot Spencer
We’ve got a ways to go on this front, and some more money to raise to make it happen. But, we’re comfortable to announce this evening that the Parkway will be open for use by musicians, actors, comedians, new media artists, and adventurous movement artists in the months and years ahead. We know it won’t work for everyone, but we’re going to work to make it useable by as many artists as possible.
Specifically, we are proud to announce that we will be partnering with the Baltimore Comedy Festival to activate this stage as a venue for live comedy. As we grow, we will present a carefully-selected roster of live artists ourselves, but importantly we will warmly invite you and the greater Baltimore creative community, to use this space as well, in as many ways as you can dream up. Please get in touch and let us know how you can envision bringing this stage to life with your work!
EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY
Camille Blake Fall
Our renewed vision also doubles down on our commitment to the next generation of filmmakers and audiences, as well as to the communities we serve throughout Baltimore.
Everyone in this room has been touched by the power of story, of film, and the magic that happens here. As we think about expanding that conversation, we want to be sure as many people as possible – young, and of all ages – have access to that same experience.
To start, and as an indication of the role we hope to continue to play in service to youth and the community, we are proud to announce this evening that in partnership with BOPA the Parkway Theatre will again be home to three days of screenings, free to the public, as part of Artscape this August. We will be featuring films of student filmmakers at Wide Angle Youth Media; a collection of short films made by Baltimore-based filmmakers curated by the Baltimore Filmmaker Collective; and a return of “animated shorts curated by Phil Davis, director of the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival”.
Scot Spencer
We are also proud to announce a new initiative born from our planning process that will help create increased visibility and transparency regarding our function as a venue, and as a partner to other non-profits in Baltimore.
Camille Blake Fall
We realize that all non-profits in Baltimore face the challenge of identifying resources to pay for space. We want to be as inclusive and accessible a partner as possible. At the same time, we are mindful of the limits of our ability to subsidize usage of this gorgeous but expensive building. In fact, one of the elements that contributed to our difficulties in 2022 was a practice of offering more free and highly-subsidized space usage than, in the end, we could afford.
Scot Spencer
So, we have devised a three-part strategy for usage of this space by our friends and partners. First, we have developed a means for long-term, formal partnership between the Parkway and up to three non-profit organizations or collectives at a time. These partnerships will offer up to three non-profits – in the arenas of education, live arts, and filmmaking – fully-subsidized usage of the Parkway for select events each year in return for collaboration on programming that can be offered, in partnership with the Parkway, to the public.
Camille Blake Fall
We envision that these residency partnerships will take place over a two-year timeframe, allowing for deep collaboration between our team and the resident partner team, as well as thoughtful activation of the Parkway as a venue for their vision in service to the community. We will be working in the coming months to fully fund this vision and look forward to inviting our first proposals for collaboration in 2025.
Scot Spencer
In addition to these longer-term residencies, we are eager to make this building as accessible as possible to as many non-profits as possible. As we will no longer be exhibiting film every day of the week, we anticipate that this building will be able to be used, by others, throughout the year. We have developed a competitive rate sheet for subsidized usage of this space by our non-profit friends and we encourage those of you who make films, run workshops, create theater, dance, experimental performance, music, comedy and pretty much anything else that you can envision in this space to reach out to us at events@mdfilmfest.com to learn how to make the Parkway home for your next event. We want you and your magic here.
Camille Blake Fall
And, finally, we’ll welcome businesses, corporations, families and individuals to think of the Parkway as the ideal venue for their next convening, conference, employee engagement event, wedding, anniversary party, private screening, film shoot or product launch. We’ll ask our colleagues in the for-profit arena to pay fair rates based on the environment of unique, beautiful spaces here in Baltimore. In the end, we’re dedicated to providing a world-class experience for anyone who would like to use this grand theater as the venue for their next special event. We want your business, and we want you to think of the Parkway as home.
Scot Spencer
Our education programming for youth will take several forms. First, we will proudly partner with youth-serving film and media organizations in Baltimore to help make the Parkway increasingly accessible to their students, families, and caregivers. We envision hosting student film festivals and competitions, welcoming school groups for screenings and dialogue, and building an upper high school internship focused on administration and production. In the long run we’d like to be able to more intentionally pair high-school and college-age students with professional filmmakers and film production.
Camille Blake Fall
And, for adults, we will work over the next several years to create more opportunities to gather and learn from experts in the arena of film and critical studies about ways to approach film, how to analyze it, and what we can learn from different eras in filmmaking – the styles, the methodologies, the tools, the approaches, and the philosophies. These programs will ask participants to enroll and help us cover the costs, much as one would in a continuing education program.
Scot Spencer
These programs aren’t free to produce, and will take time to roll out. But we will continue to dialogue with our donors, funders, and partners at the city and state levels to make sure that the Parkway remains as accessible as possible, to as many people as possible, as well as a resource for career acceleration and lifelong education in the film and media arts.
NEW MEDIA AND GAMING
Camille Blake Fall
As part of the fifth and final pillar of our vision, we are proud to announce tonight that in the coming months the Parkway will be partnering with Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore-based Game for Good, and the JHU Graduate Film and Media program to begin activation of the Parkway as a center for new media performance and exhibition, as well as a home for the fast-expanding worlds of educational and competitive gaming.
Scot Spencer
During our planning, we encountered several factors that inform this expanded direction. First, intersections between filmmaking and gaming are quickly revolutionizing both industries. Advancements in technology, particularly in graphics and virtual reality, have enabled game developers to create cinematic visuals and narratives that rival those of traditional films, using motion capture and real-time rendering techniques to create more lifelike characters and dynamic gaming environments.
Camille Blake Fall
On the other hand, filmmakers are exploring the interactive possibilities of games, leading to innovative hybrid forms such as interactive films and narrative-driven games that provide viewers and players with agency in the storyline. As these industries continue to dialogue, they are redefining the boundaries of entertainment and storytelling, offering audiences new and engaging ways to experience content. We see the conversation between these two industries as a major developing trend.
Scot Spencer
We are aware that the ecosystem of independent gaming developers in Baltimore and the Mid-Atlantic region is growing rapidly, driven by increasingly accessible and inexpensive technology, a proliferation of new talent, and robust college level programs – such as those at MICA, Morgan State, UMBC, Stevenson, Johns Hopkins, and Towson.
Camille Blake Fall
The City’s recent opening of a new gaming center at Medfield Recreation Center, major events such as MAGFest and Baltimore Innovation Week, and the proliferation of game jams, meetups, competitions and conventions add to this ecosystem.
Scot Spencer
Now, we don’t pretend to be experts in this arena, but we sure do want to be a home for them, and a place for them to share what they are working on with you. We aren’t going into gaming production, just like we are not going into film production. We know our lane.
Camille Blake Fall
But we will be making our venue available for networking and convening amongst game developers and visual and graphic artists, just as we will for filmmakers. The line between the two is fading and we want to be a platform for the explosion of creativity and innovation that conversation will bring. Then, we’ll ask them to share their work with you – with rough cuts of games in development, just like you’d see rough cuts from filmmakers – and through large-scale exhibition events and competitions. To this end we are already in discussion with experts in gaming center design to consider how this theater can become a more ideal venue for gamers, and their audiences.
Scot Spencer
The other significant aspect of this, fifth, pillar is a deepening and expansion of what some of you had the chance to experience a taste of during the 25th Maryland Film Festival just a few weeks ago. Brought to you by the remarkable Q Ragsdale, the Festival’s associate programmer of new technology and CineTech, the Festival featured this breathtaking signal of the direction to come – the development of immersive, new media experiences and projection mapping.
Camille Blake Fall
In coming years, we’ll be exploring how to more fully activate this building through projection mapping technology, utilizing this rich architecture as a backdrop for high-quality, detailed activations through projected light and imagery. We want digital artists to find a home here, using this building as their palette through projected imagery and light. But we also envision that live performers, musicians, spoken word artists and others will want to use this technology to augment experiences for their audiences, filling in the walls around them with projected imagery, inviting you to encounter this immersive technology together with live performance. We want to make this happen with you, the artists and creatives we so admire, and our friends who’ve joined us on the journey – and see it as a natural, inevitable continuation of the frontier in visual media, opened by film over a hundred years ago. We were impressed by our friends at Cannes who announced just a week or so ago that they too will be recognizing immersive media as part of their festival this year for the first time.
TAKING CARE
Scot Spencer
We come before you tonight with great excitement about this future vision, but also sobriety and humility about the path ahead. We have negotiated internally about how much of this vision to share with you, knowing that the years ahead are bound to come with their triumphs and their disappointments. We also accept that no matter what or how hard we try, some of what we envision may not come to pass right away or even for the foreseeable future.
Camille Blake Fall
But we also know we’ve got to try. We know that what we had planned before the pandemic is no longer available to us – too much has changed.
Some have noted that in the past we’ve needed to fundraise a lot, perhaps more than other non-profits. This is true, although not to the extent some suggest. As different than the average non-profit arts and culture organization, which raises approximately 40% of their total revenues, the average non-profit cinema in 2019 raised 60% of their total revenue from contributed sources, and, in that same year, film festivals raised 63% of their total revenue from contributed sources. This is data from the experts in our field: the Arthouse Convergence and the National Center for Arts Research at SMU.
Why do we need to raise money? Take a look around you. This building, built in 1914, is special. It is also big, and it is expensive. Insurance and property taxes, security for every event, air conditioning, maintenance, leaks, equipment, repairs – repairs on the inside, and repairs on the outside, improvements to the building, improvements to the plaza. Taking on this building as a project was an act of courage, an act of love for Baltimore, and a statement of belief in Station North. No one had taken that step in nearly forty years. Did we have to raise a lot to get it here? Yes. Do we have to fundraise to keep it vibrant? You bet. Do we have to fundraise more than an organization preserving a building built in 2010 or 2015? Yes. Or more than the average non profit that does not own or operate a building, much less a building as big as ours in a neighborhood like ours? Yes. Do we have the benefit of showing commercial films that bring in huge ticket sales that would bouy our earned revenues? No, and that’s not what we are here for. Does this make our business hard? Yes, it is enormously hard.
Scot Spencer
But we believe this mission is worth fighting for. We believe independent filmmakers are worth fighting for. We believe that a platform for new media, for new conversation, for the tough questions, for students, for our diverse communiites and stories – we believe all of that is worth fighting for. Non-profits have a special role in this community: they are non-profit not because they don’t know how to make a profit. They are non-profit because they are often out ahead of the market, showing it the way, or offering experiences that the market wouldn’t touch because they can’t make money off of it, but are nonetheless vital to a diverse, whole, healthy, self-critical and thriving public sphere.
Camille Blake Fall
And we believe that this five-part strategy is the right one for us, and that it is carefully calibrated to both the extraordinary opportunities and tough constraints that lie before us.
But we also know we’re not alone.
In fact, we’re so pleased to be able to announce this evening four major developments that put a strong gust of wind in our sails as we set out upon this journey.
First, we’re thrilled to extend special thanks tonight to Central Baltimore Partnership and Station North Arts District for their commitment of $155,000 to underwrite new exterior lighting and greening improvements, creating an increasingly welcoming and well-lit approach to the Parkway. With this support from CBP and the Arts District, we’ll be working with Station North pros Neighborhood Design Center and Ziger Snead, building architect for the Parkway, to implement these improvements along Charles Street with a focus on making the footpath from parking to the Parkway increasingly accessible, well-lit, and convenient.
Scot Spencer
Secondly, last month, we were honored and encouraged to receive $250,000 from the office of Mayor Brandon M. Scot Spencert as part of its Diversity in Arts Grant. Made possible with American Rescue Act funds, this $250,000 was part of a total of $6.25 million dedicated to support diverse arts and culture organizations since September of last year. We were immensely proud to have received this gift and plan to use it to support the initial stages of several of the initiatives discussed this evening.
Camille Blake Fall
We are additionally proud to announce this evening that 100% of the members of the SNF Parkway Theatre Board of Directors have agreed to participate, individually, in financial support of the Parkway this year. This illustrates our personal commitment to developing a sustainable financial path forward for the Parkway and its programming.
Scot Spencer
And, finally, we are so pleased to be able to announce this evening that neighbor and long-time supporter and partner Johns Hopkins University has also offered support at this moment of extraordinary opportunity for the Parkway. Hopkins’ support of the Maryland Film Festival and the Parkway Theatre has been unwavering. Hopkins leadership has conveyed to me their confidence not only in this strategic plan for the Parkway, but also in all of us to lead and run with its implementation. They are really going above and beyond in this moment:
- completely forgiving a bridge loan they gave about a decade ago (to get through the post-pandemic strain)
- contributing significant funds for capital/facilities improvements needed for our new programs and activities, including those we discussed tonight
- providing two additional years of operating support and usage fees
- And they are forgoing a 5% equity stake that they could have insisted upon under the old agreement.
Altogether, Hopkins has committed several million dollars to the Parkway and MdFF over the next several years, which is on top of the more than half-million dollars they gave us this year. This runway is critical not only for the Parkway, but also for Baltimore and this neighborhood in particular.
Camille Blake Fall
As honored and excited as we are to share this news with you, we know full well that the path ahead will require ongoing diligence, focus and support. That’s why we’re opening these doors wide for the many more uses we’ve discussed tonight. It’s why we’re taking steps internally to calibrate our staffing to meet the exact needs of this building. It’s why we’re working to build our board, and engage thoughtfully with our loyal and new donors and funders.
Scot Spencer
The road ahead will not be easy but we’re going to work with optimism and focus, with an ear to the ground and our sight set on the horizon. We want to hear from you, either through menti.com tonight, in the lobby here in a few minutes, or via our website in the days and weeks to come, about how you can be involved to join us in this journey.
Camille Blake Fall
And, one more thing before we go.
Of course, we hope you’ll come here often relax, have fun, and enjoy yourself.
But, we’re also serious about offering you something here that you can’t get anywhere else, whether that be at home or somewhere else in town.
Scot Spencer
So, we plan to ask you questions when you come see a film or a performance, and encourage you to stay a while and talk with each other, with us, and with the most interesting and insightful people we can find, in that lobby, right out there.
Camille Blake Fall
We’ll keep the lights on, and the bar open after the show, and invite you to hang with us and with each other and talk. Talk about what that film or lecture or performance meant to you and if there’s an opportunity to carry the essence of whatever you experience here out into our communities.
Scot Spencer
We’re serious about film being part of the solution, to bring people together – even through differences of opinion and perspective and experience. To help us and our city find new ways to address the questions that face us as a community. And we’ll start tonight by asking you: what film made you think differently? And why?
Camille Blake Fall
When the lights come up, we want you to stay and talk with us. About what you’ve heard tonight – but also to talk with each other.
Scot Spencer
And with that, we thank you for joining us tonight, really. We would not be here without you, and we need you to stay with us on this journey.
Before we go, we have a short, special invitation for you.
We’ll see you in the lobby when the lights come up. Roll the film!