Talk:Secret Cinema/Archive 1

Archive 1

Mention the official url?

Is there any rule pro/contra mentioning the link of their official site [1]? We should "tell no one", right? :-) Srezz (talk) 20:02, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Surely this is just a PR piece? It's certainly written like one.

Notability

Just a quick note on notability (I missed the AfD and I'm sure it will come up again). Secret Cinema was thrust in the public spotlight following their large-scale Back to the Future event (and subsequent cancellations). Numerous national publications and TV reports followed, and the fact that a section of the London public was paying £50 ($75) for what was essentially a film screening sparked debate about the hipster crowd it attracted.

Some examples: [2] [3] [4]

217.156.212.1 (talk) 13:31, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Request edit on 8 August 2015

I agree with the above that this is written as a PR piece, and issues regarding this company's questionable ethics have been highlighted in national press. I have attempted to restore text left by a previous user that reads as follows:

'Controversies

Production Cancellations and Treatment of Audience

Secret Cinema has been accused on two occasions of not treating its audience well. The opening dates of its 2013 production of Brazil were cancelled at short notice, as was the first week of its 2014 production of Back to the Future. The first two Back to the Future dates were cancelled with only a few hours notice, leaving audience members who had travelled to the event and booked accommodation unhappy and out-of-pocket. The company offered a full refund or exchange for the cost of tickets, but not for any booking fees, and agreed to consider refunding any additional expenses incurred by ticket-holders on a "case by case" basis. The exact reason for the cancellation has never been made clear.[7]

Disingenuous statements from the company's founder, Fabien Riggall, have also caused some anger. Riggall told the BBC, in relation to the Back to the Future cancellation: "This is the first time in 10 years of doing these shows we've not been able to get there", though the first two weeks of the company's Brazil production had been cancelled hours before opening just a year previously, in 2013. [8]

Use and Treatment of Unpaid Workers

Secret Cinema has attracted some negative attention for its use of unpaid workers in its productions, as well as the poor treatment of and unacceptable working conditions for its actors and staff.[9][10][11][12] In March 2015 founder Fabien Rigall defended the company's use of unpaid workers, telling The Independent that "Secret Cinema has a volunteer scheme which gives key experience into Secret Cinema productions. This falls under government regulations. Many of these volunteers go on to work in paid positions in future productions."[13]

Again, though Rigall claimed that Secret Cinema does not employ unpaid workers in acting roles, telling The Daily Telegraph: "We pay our actors, and always have done", [14] a 2012 advertisement, posted on the website Student Job, requests unpaid volunteers for a Secret Cinema event. It reads: "We are recruiting Volunteer Front of House Assistants: we are looking for welcoming and enthusiastic front of house assistants to fulfill various roles at our event, including, but not limited to stewarding, box office assistance and performance."[15]

In June 2014, the Student Job advertisement was shared on Twitter by several people, many of whom expressed their disapprobation of its contents.[16] Secret Cinema responded to Twitter queries and criticism with the words: "This advert dates back to 2012. The team is paid. Our volunteer scheme is in place for those who would like to gain experience.'

In order for this page to be a balanced evaluation of this company, this text should be rightfully restored. I do not intend to get embroiled in an edit war in order to make this happen, the page is obviously protected and is perhaps protected for this very reason. Interestingly I notice the above text was edited the same date a Wiki page (albeit a very self promotional page) was created for the founder of this company - Fabien Riggall. 90.217.25.80 (talk) 15:54, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

•  Not done This is all already incorporated in the article, in the appropriate level of detail. Softlavender (talk) 16:30, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Here is the current sentence on show cancellations and such, in mainspace: "The first two Back to the Future dates were cancelled with only a few hours notice and the company offered a full refund or exchange for the cost of tickets, but not for any booking fees; the opening dates of its 2013 production of Brazil had also been cancelled at short notice.[5][6]"
  • Here is the current sentence on the topic of unpaid interns-who-sometimes-also-act, in mainspace: "In March 2015 the company and its founder were criticized on Twitter and other publications for using unpaid actors; the company defended its practice and described the volunteers as interns who benefitted from the experience.[14]"
  • These seem to cover the controversies; per WP:NOCRIT it is usually better to not *call* something a Controversy, nor have a big CONTROVERSY subsection. We just report what happened, as reflected in the WP:SOURCES. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 17:00, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
  • The only part that I notice as (potentially) not being covered, which seems (potentially) significant, is this sentence-fragment from the controversy-section above: "...poor treatment of and unacceptable working conditions for its actors and staff.[9][10][11][12]" That is not neutral phrasing obviously, since it is judgemental and also obscure (says it was poor&unacceptable but stays quiet about what 'it' exactly was). That said, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, if there are wiki-reliable sources that specifically say, in the journalist's voice, that the treatment of employees was SpecificAdjectiveHere because SpecificActionHere, then wikipedia should cover that. Are there such sources? The edit-history is mangled, so I could not figure out which actual URLs '[9][10][11][12]' were supposed to be. Here is an early criticism-section, about the cancellations.[5] Here's an editor deleting all the criticism, sigh.[6] Later, the same person added in a bunch of helpful refs, but those too, were deleted; I've added what I could scrounge back into mainspace, but more refs are prolly buried in the sands of the edit-history. So, does anybody know what 9,10,11,12 actually referred to? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

This is mostly covered, so I marked this "declined" Jytdog (talk) 00:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

additional sources

References

Need to be integrated into the article. User:jytdog and myself are too otherwise occupied to do the work. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 14:42, 24 August 2015 (UTC)