Sometimes your PGS doesn’t necessarily guide you, it blocks your way. And in blocking your path, you find the right path.

That’s what happened with me, and the IMAX screening of Gravity. 

I wanted to see the film with my son. I don’t spend a great deal of time with him, and we always used to bond over movies. Lately though that’s changed, and he’s moved on with his life. So I wanted this screening, him and me together, to be something special.

I’d read the reviews coming out of the Venice Film Festival, and I knew the director’s work. It promised to be a cracker of a film. So I wanted to see it in 3D. But when I checked online to find session times, I couldn’t find a cinema that would provide those times.

Here in Australia new movies open on a Thursday. The exhibitors – the cinema owners – have a hair-brained policy of not releasing session times of movies until the Thursday.

I went on every website imaginable – distributors, exhibitors, Rotten Tomatoes, sites where you can pre-book tickets. Strangely, I could not find any session times. It was Monday, and I was trying to book for Friday. Crazy, right?

So in a last desperate attempt, I simply Googled gravity+3D+sydney. 

Up came the IMAX cinema, with all the session times, and the capacity to book immediately for Friday. Which is what I did.

I hadn’t even thought of seeing the film in IMAX – I didn’t even know the film was screening in IMAX, but I was directed there because I couldn’t find a regular 3D cinema that would give me session times.

At the time I railed against the stupidity of the exhibitors, who refuse to give advance session times because they want to channel everyone into this week’s sessions, not next week’s. This is so they can get their bums-on-seats numbers up.

I know how this works. As a producer, I angst over the first week’s numbers when a film of mine opens. The first week is make or break. But the exhibitors’ recalcitrance works against the interests of the cinema-goer, who wants convenience and accessibility. This is why so many people are now avoiding going to the movies.

Anyway, I got mad – and in a last bid attempt, I did the Google search. And I ended up in the IMAX cinema with my son, which as it turned out was by far the best way to see the movie.

I regard this as my PGS guiding me there, so that my son and I could share something special. We’ve been talking about it ever since. It’s something we’ll always remember.