Only on one occasion has the delay been due to crossover (we had that print for a total of six hours, put-together, showing and take-apart). The rest of the time the problem is securicor.

Could someone in the UK outline the print distribution/warehousing/inspection/shipping practices there?

For example, in the US, most of the distributors contract with a film exchange service like TES, ETS, Easy Reel, etc.:

TES: Universal, MGM, Buena Vista, IFC, Sony/Columbia, USA, Miramax, Dreamworks

ETS: Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Fox Searchlight, New Line

Easy Reel: Sony Classics?

TES uses Airborne express to ship prints from their two depots in Wilmington OH and Ontario CA.

ETS has several dozen depots around the country (like National Film Service NFS used to have), and use local trucking companies or pick-up at the depot.

What is done in the UK?

John: Brief summary of UK print distribution practices as follows, but as you're probably aware I left the cinema industry around a year ago so some of this might be out of date.

All the major film distributors subcontract their print inventory control operations to a company called Deluxe Film Services (formerly Rank), which operates two large depots: one at Perivale, near Heathrow airport in west London, and the other in Glasgow. From there prints are shipped directly to and from cinemas. The vast majority of these print movements are undertaken by a shipping company called Securicor, which negotiates bulk contracts with the big chains. As a consequence of this, it (supposedly) operates the infrastructure needed to carry out large scale print movements across the UK, and as a result can offer its services to the smaller distributors and exhibitors at a much lower price to any competitor. What I'm suggesting here is that because Securicor has done deals with the big boys, it effectively has control of the market because of the lower costs it can then pass on to the smaller operators.

The only significant exception to this jigsaw is the British Film Institute - a major arthouse and rep distributor - which does not use Deluxe for its print stock control activities, but does the job itself, from an office based at the National Film and Television Archive's conservation centre in Berkhamsted, about 25 miles north-west of London. But although the BFI bypass DFS, they still use Securicor to move their films.

The problem is that, towards the end of my time working in cinemas, and from this thread it would seem the situation has continued getting worse since, there has been an increasing number of instances of prints not being delivered to cinemas on time, and an especially high number of failures in the case of 'crossovers' - the practice whereby a print is taken directly from one cinema to another, sometimes at opposite ends of the country (overnight crossovers from City Screen York to our sister cinemas in Southampton and Exeter, both around 350 miles away, were not uncommon). Crossovers usually happen in the case of arthouse and rerelease titles, where a small number of prints play for short runs in a large number of houses. Ergo each print is under intensive use and needs to be transported long distances (well, relative to the US, the distances are probably tiny but they're significant here) quickly and efficently.

As Dick and Pete both point out, failed film deliveries must now be costing cinemas a significant amount of money in lost screenings, and art/rep houses are being hit especially hard due to the crossover problem. IMHO, the underlying issue is that Securicor effectively has a monopoly on the print movement business, and for that reason they have no incentive to improve their reliability. I'm not surprised that the BFI have taken the lead on highlighting this problem (see the first post in this thread) because as an art/rep distributor which depends on efficient crossovers, they're probably being hit very hard indeed.

The British Film Institute, who have their own archive and depot always used Securicor. In my university days we'd commented that Securicor were conducting experiments in teleportation with films - they'd worked out how to beam them out from the sending station, but not how to rematerialise them at the receiving station...

Data Express were bought out by Hays, who later sold the Data Express part of their operation to Securicor. John Badham went to Securicor as part of the deal.

Initially the old Data Express branches continued to handle films, but eventually Securicor branches, that hadn't previously handled prints took over, and this is probably where things started to go wrong.

John Badham recently retired from the business...

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There must be more to life than Film and Rugby...

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John wouldn't leave it to the film distributor/company to let a cinema know that a film was on a crossover, he'd make sure he'd spoken to a projectionist at the cinema it was coming from, especially if the print had to be collected immediately it was off screen and plated off into its cans...

Artificial Eye seem to be one of the few companies that ever bother to inform a cinema that a print will be on a crossover, when its being collected, where its going to, and when it is playing...

Cheers

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However the amount of times i've had to phone up for ads on a Friday afternoon is shocking. Usually the answer is 'yeah, it's on the van, it's going about town, we'll drop it off shortly'

And then it turns up 5 minutes later! They must think this box is not important or something. I feel like saying 'keep it, send it back, because Friday afternoon is no good for me, i want it Thursday or not at all!'

Here's more distribs that ship via TES:

Artisan, First Look, Lion's Gate, Trimark, First Run, Good Machine, Shooting Gallery...

Sheffield Documentary Festival is curently on tour and we are one of the various venues around the country hosting it.

As with all these tours the crossovers are always tight. Thursday they went in to collect the print we were due to show on Friday. It was in two cases. Come Friday case 1 arrives , lots of phone calls no sign of case 2. Show cancelled

Saturday case 2 arrives , explanation or apology for late delivery,lost income and loss of customer good will - absolutely zilch!

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