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Topic: university owned cinemas

Dean Kollet
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 591
From: Florida State University
Registered: Jul 2003

posted 06-20-2004 05:34 PM

The IMAX theatre here in Tallahassee, FL (Challenger Learning Center) is operated and funded jointly by Florida State University and Florida A&M.

Challenger Learning Center

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Daniel Alt
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 111
From: Lakewood, OH, USA
Registered: Mar 2004

posted 06-21-2004 05:35 PM

The Case Western Reserve University Film Society, where I project, runs two films a week during the school year. (late August - May) We generally show second run mainstream and arthouse films, with some classics thrown in.

We have a nice room, a 540 seat hall with the improbable name of "Strosacker Auditorium". The equipment is in pretty good shape, a pair of Century JJs. (I don't remember the sound specs off the top of my head, but we're in the midst of upgrading them anyway.)

However, business is waaaay off from when i was an undergrad. When I was a student (early 90's), we'd consistently get several hundred people for a recent movie. Now we're lucky if we get that many people in a MONTH.

I attribute the drop off to two things; the internet, which sucks people into their rooms, and cable TV, which sucks people into their dorms. If you wanted to see a movie 10 years ago, you had to either go to a theater (none near campus) or rent it. (no video stores near campus) Our big ass screen had the advantage, and our ticket prices were and still are dirt cheap. And there wasn't much else to do. CWRU will never make Playboys list of party schools, that's for sure.

Now people download movies from the net, or just spend their evenings surfing and playing MMRPGs. But we hang in there. Our annual Science Fiction Marathon is still a big draw.

And if anyone starts putting out 70mm again... we're still equipped for it.

Web Site: CWRU Film Society

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Mike Fitzgerald
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 224
From: Castle Hayne, NC, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 06-21-2004 07:16 PM

The list just keeps getting longer and longer. The University I had been talking to had bought a closed UA 6 plex that is fuilly equipped. They have a film dept at the university so I was trying to discuss the option of the school running the 6 plex. The answer I got back from the school was that when they bought the property they signed a non- compete clause so for 5 years they can use the cinema as a cinema. Go figure huh

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 06-23-2004 02:39 AM

quote: Daniel Alt
However, business is waaaay off from when i was an undergrad. When I was a student (early 90's), we'd consistently get several hundred people for a recent movie. Now we're lucky if we get that many people in a MONTH.

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I ran a student film society when I was an undergrad (92-95), again showing a combination of second-run Hollywood and arthouse product; and the operation was virtually a licence to print money. By the time I was a PhD student (96-99) at the same place (and working at the local arthouse in town), it was struggling to stay afloat. In the early '90s, we showed art and rerelease titles because we could cross-subsidise from the Hollywood. Just before I finally left in 1999 that had become pretty much impossible; they even made a small loss on Titanic. The place was pretty well equipped by student film show standards, too; although the seats in that lecture theatre were gruesomely uncomfortable.

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