BEHIND THE NUMBERS: Here comes the Sun

Michael Smith was already running a successful business when a chance discovery of a dilapidated Art Deco cinema – empty for 18 years - would change his life.

“There's no doubt that this project absolutely changed my life. It changed the entire trajectory of my life." - Michael Smith

Michael has always loved cinema – since the moment as a child when his parents took him to see Dumbo at the Belgrave Cameo Cinema. “I remember that the heating there were these metal foot plates that ran along under the seats and if you put your feet on them, that's how they stayed warm.”

“It was magical.”

While studying engineering at Melbourne University and living at Ormond College he found a way to keep busy by running the university film club.

Upon graduation he started a business - manufacturing cinema equipment.

“I was really enjoying that industry, and I was looking for a building to be our head office and I thought it would be really cool to find one of those old cinemas that was around.”

He was pointed towards Yarraville, in Melbourne’s then industrial west.

“I came and found this amazing old building that was pretty dilapidated in a very, very sorry state. But I crawled in through a hole in the back wall and just stood in the middle of what was frankly a wreck of a cinema, but all I saw was the potential. I just saw these amazing art deco details and fell in love with it.”

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Sun of the west

The theatre originally opened in 1938. Touted as “the most luxurious cinema in the West” when it was built by cinema operators, the Yeoman family.

“They'd been quite successful, and they really wanted to do something special,” Michael says.

“There was commentary at the time that it was too luxurious for the West.”

It ran as a theatre showing commercial Hollywood films until the 1960s when the advent of ubiquitous televisions in homes forced a change. It was purchased by a Greek Australian family who was running continental films for 15 years until, that closed as well.

A passion project

It was in less than perfect condition when Michael brought it.

“When we bought it, it had been closed since the Greek family shut it down. So it was 18 years of being empty,” Michael says.

“There were squatters living here. There was graffiti. Much of the roof had collapsed. So, it was open to the elements. And there were lots of little fires, which we were told was because the squatters were setting seats on fire to stay warm at night.”

But Michael was young – only 25 when he made the purchase – and had faith in his ability to clean it up. He had no intention of opening it as a cinema, only wanting to use it as a workshop for making cinema equipment.

“But not long after purchasing it people started knocking on the door saying are you going to start showing movies?”

“And because I'd always run a film club since I was at uni, it just seemed natural for me to start doing that here.”

“I sort of made the club open to anyone in the area and that just took off and people loved it.”

From there, Michael fully restored the old cinema and decided it was time to transform it back into a functioning cinema.

“There's no doubt that this project absolutely changed my life. It changed the entire trajectory of my life, I was happily running around the world doing cinema work for people and we were quite successful, feeling quite proud of ourselves. We were fitting out cinemas in 30 countries around the world.”

A community pillar, with Art Deco design

The cinema also transformed the Yarraville area.

“To see the way people love it is amazing.”

“It's so nice to have people tell you they moved to the area so they could walk to the cinema. I mean, that's a really, lovely thing to hear from someone.”

He said the growth of the cinema was linked to the rebirth of Yarraville as a community.

“As we expanded and added more screens, more restaurants and cafes opened. And that ratcheting up was very symbiotic.”

“It wasn't that just because the cinema was here that the village thrived. As some cafes and restaurants opened, it gave us the confidence to add two more screens. And then more open and all of a sudden, you just had this wonderful melting pot of a village.”

“I did research into the visitation rates of cinemas. But the one statistic that really jumped out was the average person goes to the movies in Australia around four times a year. But the average Sun Theatre patron comes 17 times a year. Now that's because you've got some people who literally come every week. And some people might only come every few months, but for an average of 17, that was a stratospheric number.”

The Sun also rises, across Australia

Since the Sun brand has become established, Michael has found another role in the nation’s wider cinema community by helping other independent screens get established around the nation.

At the same time, he has also brought other cinemas around the nation and helping them thrive – by using the Sun model.

Thus far he has cinemas in the Gippsland town of Bairnsdale, the high-country tourist town of Bright, a foreshore open-air cinema in Williamstown and now a cinema in Launceston in Tasmania.

“I must say I'm usually not looking for a new place. I mean, each of the others, I wasn't looking to buy a new cinema. They presented themselves to us.”

“We've been approached dozens of times to build a new cinema somewhere. What I always look at is what is that ecosystem around it? What is the village feel?”

“When we've looked at other cinemas, if there's Art Deco detailing, it's very hard not to just sort of, you know, fall in love with it.”

Expanding into Tasmania

Michael had always loved the community cinema in Launceston since he helped them set up several years ago.

“The old Star Theatre in Launceston had become a Brotherhood and for 30 years, it had just been there, not being a cinema, but it came up for sale. And these three guys basically got together and said, ‘let's buy the building and bring it back as a cinema’.”

The trio approached Michael to help, and he acted as a consultant on the project.

“But we helped them on that journey and we provided the back-end services for them to book their films and give them management advice and that's something we really enjoy doing because it's a way to help bring cinema to a community without having to actually put up all the money.”

But during the Covid Pandemic the trio of partners didn’t have the capital to keep going so they sadly decided to sell.

“It looked like it was going to become a Chinese restaurant. And we just thought, ‘all of that hard work, people love this place, we just can't let that happen’. And so, I very loosely ran the numbers, I'm not the best at actually doing a business plan, and I said ‘we just have to do this’.”

ANZ comes on board

To get the deal done though, Michael knew he had to double his current loan facility.

Which is when he talked to ANZ, who were not his bank at the time.

“I hate paperwork with a passion and just the idea of going through all of that paperwork made me nearly not bother.”

“They bent over backwards to make it as easy as possible.”

And Michael said the service from ANZ aided him in developing other projects.

“We were just at that point literally at the starting point of another project which was setting up a distillery at our farm in Little River.”

“And so we actually just put a little bit of money in that loan that allowed us to just get on with that project without having to come back and seeking another facility.”

“We've now got planning permits and everything in place. It's about to open to the public and that's been done with the minimum of fuss.”

A vision for the future

All this happened against a narrative in the wider society that “cinema is dying”. It is a narrative with added impetus at the moment as the nation endures a cost of living crisis and people flock to streaming services.

But Michael has his own philosophy which has driven the growth of his cinema company.

“I know it's a daggy analogy, but every time someone tells me that streaming, surely streaming is the end of cinema. But we've all got kitchens at home, we can go to Coles and buy pretty good produce, yet somehow restaurants have survived.”

Like the beloved restaurant that serves food to loyal patrons, Michael has found the alchemy to drive a growing cultural presence in neighbourhoods that desire being connected as a community, through a shared love of cinema.

Ross Duncan is Regional Executive at ANZ