“Drive-In” the pandemic
The Novel Coronavirus pandemic has set the stage for societal changes that the world has never seen yet. Concepts such as social distancing in hopes of flattening the curve have ushered in an era of unprecedented changes. Historians, like Yuval Noah Harari, believe that pandemics push the fast-forward button on history by forcing changes that would have begged for lengthy discourse in normal times. We see people being confined to their homes everywhere, leading to people not being able to indulge in activities, namely movies, that they could freely before the pandemic, forcing them to adapt to the New Normal. Through this paper, I would like to focus on one such New Normal and provide possible innovative solutions to alleviate it through the use of Design Thinking principles.
The world has never been more connected, almost everything that one seeks can be found at the touch of a button. Humans, as a civilization, yearn the need to spend their time consuming content that keeps the boredom at bay — it is a way to de-stress by leaving behind our reality. It is not as if this phenomenon of craving for entertainment is new. It also does not mean that our hunter-gatherer ancestors yearned for a television set either — they did, however, tell each other stories. It is almost encoded in us as a biological race to seek some form of entertainment (Morley, Stromberg). Audiences have never consumed as much content as they do these days, in a nutshell, we humans just cannot seem to get enough content. According to a recent Nielsen report, an average adult living in a first-world country spends over 11 hours each day consuming some form of media (Nielsen). With this, we see that marketers have doubled down in their efforts to produce new content in the form of movies, television shows, podcasts to name a few. The power of the entertainment field cannot be denied.
Sadly, as the true extent of the pandemic becomes more apparent, conventional forms of entertainment and media were increasingly under threat due to new norms dictating how a society could function. Focusing on one subfield of entertainment, movies, we see how they could not be screened as theatres everywhere are shut. Billboard advertisements, which could have promoted a television show or short film, now had no effect as there were not as many people who were outside on the road passing them. In effect, it created a New Normal wherein people could not consume new media as easily as they did before the pandemic (Associated Press). The New York Times made an interesting inference in the way forms of entertainment have changed over the last 100 years — every three decades, we see that the industry itself experiences a seismic shift. The last change happened in the late 90s in the form of “I want my MTV”, which led to the advent of media being produced for consumption at homes, making the current time we live in due for another change. With the pandemic ensuing global-scale lockdowns, we find ourselves staring at the dawn of another seismic shift (Krueger).
The problem of this New Normal seems obvious — the lack of new content (movies and more), as production sets have gone on an indefinite hiatus. A plethora of content has been online for the better part of the decade so that must mean that the problem must not be in the way content is delivered. However, delving deeper into the issue and speaking to people paints a starkly different picture. An article written by The New York Times, along with some of the most influential figures in cinema, finds that more than 57% of people like the idea of going out more than watching a new movie (Buchanan) itself. Despite the omnipresence of movies through the internet, people still prefer watching films in a movie theatre (Buchanan). This forces us to switch up our perspective and get a better look at the issue (IDEO) — the social aspect of going out to watch a movie comprises a major part and begs more of our attention than the problem of the lack of new content. Empathising with the demographic allowed us to define our problem aptly (IDEO), rather than focusing on what one presumes to be obvious (Woolery).
Looking at this New Normal from the perspective of a consumer, we see that wanting to watch a movie, or even a concert, involves going out to the theatre along with our loved ones, who have their hands full with popcorn and beverages. After the movie finishes, the consumer, in most cases, discusses the movie along with the people that went with them probably over some more food. When the New Normal was put into effect, the consumer was left with only the movie, bereft of everything else. Thinking about a possible solution to the New Normal begs the question — how might we make consuming entertainment, and in turn movies, during the pandemic, more social? We need to focus more on trying to recreate what people lost than trying to come up with ways to produce new content. Using the problem defined, the correct way to go ahead would involve prototyping to better understand the constraints of the product and the problems inherent to it (Woolery).
Solutions to combat this problem have been implemented in various scales, though none of them being able to truly solve it. Netflix Party is one such solution that has become immensely popular in the post-lockdown world. Through an extension on the Google Chrome web-browser, people all around the world can connect with their friends and watch the same thing on Netflix at the same time, with a small chatbox on the bottom allowing you to talk while the movie is playing . By creating a product that emulates the social aspect of watching a movie, Netflix Party has surged to popularity by riding the wave of thousands who seek to recreate their world as it was before the pandemic hit . To those that like to watch each other while watching something have resorted to using video conferencing services, such as Zoom and Google Meet. Despite their best efforts, there is only so much one can do in a virtual environment, as many respondents of a recent survey (Streigard) around media consumption during the lockdown have expressed. In an increasingly technology-driven world, we seem to only focus on creating something new instead of looking at the past, where a possible solution might already have been concocted (Woolery).
Drive-In theatres are a relic of the past — wherein a large white wall was used as a screen for projecting films as it overlooked a parking lot that allowed people to “drive-in” and watch a film. They were particularly famous in the “Baby Boom” era (the late 40s — 60s) due to the ever-rising rate of car ownership combined with the fact that it was very cheap to set up a drive-in theatre as opposed to a conventional theatre. All these lead factors contributed to making drive-in theatres incredibly successful. However, as cable TV and on-demand services become more popular in the late 90s and the early 00s, drive-in theatres fell into obscurity, taking the role of an esoteric novelty item (Krueger). Through the lens of a pandemic, it is easy to infer from the concept of drive-in theatres social distancing was an unintended effect. Every patron that came to watch a film whilst sitting in their cars. Mind you, the did, however, people did get out to grab food and beverages, and sometimes, even sat on the bonnet.
In the current pandemic that we find ourselves in, the New Normal can be disrupted through the resurgence of drive-in theatres. With such emphasis placed on flattening the curve through social distancing, drive-in theatres are placed at the sweet spot as they allow you to retain the social aspect of watching a film but at the same time allow people to remove themselves from a position where they might exacerbate the pandemic. A solid prototype of a drive-in theatre fit for the pandemic would be one that can isolate the consumer to their cars but not skimping on the quality of the experience. To understand the problems that led to the downfall of drive-in theatres to not repeat them, we need to empathise with people that experienced them first hand. This exercise is similar to the Oral-B kid’s toothbrush exercise we discussed in class (Narayan). A peer reviewed journal cited that sound quality was one of the main reasons that drive-ins could not compete with conventional theatres (Anestis, and Gousios) as patrons believed it be an important aspect of watching a movie. Maintaining the quality of sound as available in a full-fledged movie theatre would be very difficult in a drive-in setting due to the sheer size.
A possible solution would be to implement a system where the sound of the movie can be transmitted via FM. Instead of installing expensive physical speakers, drive-in theatres can utilise the speakers of the car as most of them come equipped with high-quality speakers and a radio transistor. This method also had the added benefit of isolating the noise to the cars themselves, not polluting the area it is located in through blaring speakers, allowing drive-in theatres to run even in the odd hours of the night. Food and beverages can be serviced through the same method employed by delivery personnel — gloved and masked employees can distribute food and beverages to the cars that buy them. Tickets can be issued only through the use of methods that employ no physical contact at all; some theatres have implemented a QR code system to combat this (MacLellan). Many entrepreneurs, too, have seen the potential of the drive-in concept during the pandemic, as people increasingly want to alleviate their cabin fever.
According to a report published by The New York Times, the worldwide drive-in ticket sales are “booming” as it points towards countries like Germany and South Korea , where even screening of old films is drawing record crowds (Krueger). Existing drive-in theatres have been adapted to conform to the New Normal, implementing a subset of the solutions proposed above. A manager at one such drive in commented on how people want to “just get out and watch a movie” as he tried to fathom the sudden demand for his establishment. Such drive-in theatres may truly seem a relic of a by-gone era, a blast from the past. Several boomers probably have not visited one in decades; millennials perhaps never. Owing to this, only a few survive to this day. But the pandemic has changed this; there have been theatres popping up all over the world to combat the increasing desire of people wanting to escape the walls of their home, even if it means watching a decade-old movie. The pandemic has been given a retro tradition a boost from social-distancing edicts. Theatres all around the world have been shut but drive-in theatres have seen nothing but an ever-increasing demand for their services (MacLellan).
A novel concept such as this can be applied to other disciplines to utilise its underlying USP of maintaining the edicts of the pandemic (Narayan). One such application of the concept can be implemented in the medical field; hospitals everywhere have been overrun by the surge in patients due to the pandemic, leaving those with other, more minor, ailments without an option as they are either not allowed, or are scared to visit as they might contract the virus. To alleviate this, a drive-in clinic can allow people to visit it where a doctor goes up to each car to listen to diagnose them. Such clinics would require a large empty ground to set up and allow people to socially distance themselves by remaining in the car whilst also receiving the care that they need.
By empathising with people who are affected by the New Normal, the problem statement could be better formulated without having to meander through the obvious — the need for social comfort. This equipped us to hone in onto a solution, the drive-in theatre, whose primitive forms have already found success in countries throughout the world. Through prototyping, problems, and issues with the idea are made apparent such that they can be solved before deployment. The novel idea that was conceptualised can be used to transform other scenarios as well; such as employing a drive-in clinic to alleviate the medical system as well as those suffering from minor ailments. By utilising the tools of design thinking, we were able to create an idea by keeping a foot in the familiar but dabbling with the novel through crisscrossing across disciplines.
Works Cited
Anestis, Andreas G., and Christos A. Gousios. “How Cinema Sounds Affect The Perception Of A Motion Picture”. Universal Journal Of Psychology, vol 3, no. 5, 2015, pp. 147–152. Horizon Research Publishing Co., Ltd., doi:10.13189/ujp.2015.030503. Accessed 26 Apr 2020.
Narayan, Priyank. “Creative Design Thinking, Spring 2020”. Ashoka University.
Buchanan, Kyle. “How Will Movies Survive The Next 10 Years?”. Nytimes.Com, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/20/movies/movie-industry-future.html.
IDEO. EMPATHY ON THE EDGE. IDEO, New York City, 2020. Accessed 26 Apr 2020.
Krueger, Alyson. “For Drive-In Theaters, An Unexpected Revival”. Nytimes.Com, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/style/drive-in-theaters-coronavirus.html.
MacLellan, Lila. “Drive-In Movies Are Proving Popular In A Pandemic — Just Like 70 Years Ago”. Quartz, 2020, https://qz.com/1845772/drive-in-movies-proving-popular-in-pandemic-just-like-70-years-ago/.
Morley, Iain. The Evolutionary Origins And Archaeology Of Music. Darwin College, University Of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2003, https://www.darwin.cam.ac.uk/drupal7/sites/default/files/Documents/publications/dcrr002.pdf. Accessed 26 Apr 2020.
Nielsen. The Nielsen Total Audience Report. Nielsen, 2019. Accessed 26 Apr 2020.
Press, Associated. “In Shutdown, A Glimpse Of Life Without Movie Theaters”. Nytimes.Com, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/04/14/us/ap-us-virus-outbreak-moviegoing.html.
Streigard, Alexandra. “Drive-In Movie Theaters Poised For A Comeback Amid Coronavirus Crisis”. New York Post, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/04/20/drive-in-movie-theaters-poised-for-a-comeback-in-the-us-amid-coronavirus-crisis/.
Stromberg, Peter G. “Why Is Entertainment So Entertaining?”. Psychology Today, 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sex-drugs-and-boredom/200908/why-is-entertainment-so-entertaining.
Woolery, Eli. Design Thinking Handbook. 2nd ed., inVision, 2019.
