Despite the threat of rain, the producer of the Cine-parc Orford’s new light show and short film festival “VROOM!” said that last Friday’s opening night went even better than he’d imagined.
“It went really well,” said Moment Factory’s Daniel Jean, “We had more cars than expected.”
Planned, designed and assembled in only eight weeks, “VROOM!” combines the whimsy and magic that has become the signature of the Montreal-based multimedia company behind Foresta Lumina with the drive-in movie experience offered by the Orford theatre. Using complex lighting systems, bilingual audio tracks, smoke machines, distinctive décor and a small group of actors, the show ushered roughly 150 vehicles’ worth of viewers through a magical forest path to a showing of several short films by the National Film Board of Canada.
“People really got into the adventure,” Jean said, noting that although visitors were encouraged to dress themselves and their vehicles up for the evening, he was struck by the number of families that took the opportunity to do so. “It was a perfect evening.”
The drive-in has currently planned for nightly screenings until July 12, and Jean said that after a slow start, publicity around the opening night saw a significant increase in ticket sales for the weeks to come.
