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Meet Chris Ayers of PHX Film Collective in Central Phoenix

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Ayers.

Chris, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My first job was working at a movie theatre in South Carolina. Despite making minimum wage, I still think it was the best job I ever had. Getting to see every movie that came out for free was quite the crash course in cinema, but beyond that I discovered that I really loved being in a movie theatre. I still see movie theatres as sort of a sacred and romantic space.

There are great movie theatres in lots of other cities that maintain that romantic ideal – we just don’t have them in Phoenix anymore. Everything is a corporate chain here. Other cities have great, indie nonprofit cinemas that keep that flame burning. It has been my goal since moving to Phoenix in 2007 to bring something like that here.

I’m a creative person and have worked in the television industry for 18 years, until this year when I opened my own full-time design studio. That career change was partly so that I would have the time to get PHX Film Collective off the ground. I initially started the collective with the idea of opening my ideal community cinema in Phoenix, but considering that I didn’t have the startup capital to do that, we had to take another approach. A friend of mine, who had been a film programmer at an indie cinema, advised me to just start doing film screenings somewhere and see if there was an audience for the kind of films we wanted to show. We found that there was. Nearly 100 people showed up for our first event, which was a screening of “Dr. Strangelove” at Changing Hands Bookstore.

The last sixteen months have been about building up our brand and an audience by holding film screenings at various central Phoenix locations. Last week we finally signed a deal with Phoenix Center for the Arts to become a resident organization, meaning that we will have use of their 210-seat Third Street Theatre. We’re happy to have a semi-permanent home.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It started off smoothly. Our first few months of screenings went great, mainly because we weren’t trying to be too ambitious. During our second year, we wanted to try some more difficult things. Finding a new partner of location every month has proven to be very difficult. We’ve had some things completely fall through. Some organizations are difficult to work with or are uncommunicative. Others are amazing. You just don’t know what you’re going to get until you are in the middle of it. Earlier this year we had to cancel an event because the venue’s entire management team was let go. Those kinds of things are out of our hands.

We’d love to hear more about your organization.
We are all about the passion of sharing cinema with the community. Our goal is to eventually become a nonprofit organization, but we still operate like a nonprofit. Every bit of money that we generate goes straight back into the project. There are no paid employees, everyone is a volunteer and is here for the love of movies. And we encourage involvement from anyone in the community. It’s not about me showing my favorite films – it’s about people bringing their passion to the project and we simply facilitate their ideas.

I’m a former film projectionist and a graphic designer with experience in television. I’m all about presentation and creating the best possible experience. And that experience starts when you first see one of our events online, all the way up through sitting in your seat as the movie is starting. I’ve been able to use my design skills to create memorable promo artwork in the form of movie posters for each of our events. I’ve always loved movie posters and this has allowed me to explore that format through my artwork.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
One of our biggest plans just came to fruition after about a year of planning and discussion – the partnership with Phoenix Center for the Arts to become a resident organization. It’s nice to finally have a home. We’re excited about making use of their 200 seat theatre, which really expands the capabilities of what we can do. We’re grateful to the City of Phoenix for supporting our mission and we hope that we’re a valuable service to the arts community.

Our big pie in the sky goal is to open our own two or three-screen independent nonprofit cinema. We’re always on the lookout for spaces that we could convert, even if we don’t have the capital to make it happen just yet.

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