Foxtel has commissioned a documentary on the history of cinemas in Australia, evoking an era when audiences were entertained in giant picture palaces decades before the advent of television.
Graham McNeice Productions is shooting the 90-minute programme which has the working title Saturday Night at the Movies.
The docu will focus on the glory years of cinema when going to the movies was a glamorous event.
The crew has been filming at numerous historical theatres around the country, presumably including Sydney’s State Theatre and Hayden Orpheum, Melbourne’s Regent Theatre and Adelaide’s Piccadilly Cinema.
The docu will feature interviews with executives at the major cinema chains and independent exhibitors, filmmakers, and TV and radio personalities, politicians and sportspeople who recount their experiences attending the cinema as youngsters.
McNeice has produced numerous documentaries for Foxtel’s Crime & Investigation channel and Thanks for Listening: The History of Australian Radio.
The docu will air on Foxtel in 2014.