Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: UK Print Delivery Problems (Securicor)

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-11-2002, 03:22 AM:

I've just seen the following in 'Cinemascope' (the British Film Institute's newsletter for exhibitors):

quote:
Brian Walters, BFI Programme Unit writes:
There have been serious problems with the level of service provided by Securicor, and since John Badham left these problems seem to have worsened. On 18 October Christine Woodhouse [BFI bookings], Phil Hills and Lorraine Salter [BFI print despatch] and myself had a meeting with Stephen Howard, a Development Manager at Securicor.
Stephen acknowledged that there had been some problems and plans to visit a number of organisations to get an idea of what people feel needs to be done. He hopes to start work on getting a system in place where film boxes can easily be identified by drivers and therefore improve the level of service.
We have not as yet had a follow up meeting but hope to have one later this year. Up to now though, nothing has improved.
The CEA [Cinema Exhibitors' Association - UK representative organisation for theatres] has sent out 'print report sheets' to cinemas, which are to be filled out when prints are not delivered on time. These should be sent to John Wilkinson at the CEA, who is liaising with distributors, and to Lisa Doherty, who handles complaints, at:
Securicor Cinema Department
Sutton Park House
15 Carshalton Road
Sutton
Surrey
SM1 4LE
I hope to have a meeting soon with Stephen Howard and am also keen to invite Lisa Doherty and Emma Roberts from the Securicor Cinema Department. There is no adequate system in place whereby cinemas can get compensation for prints not being delivered in time for a screening, an issue we are keen to raise at the meeting. This needs to be rectified as soon as possible so Securicor realsise just how much their poor service is costing cinemas. I'll keep you informed of further developments.

I wonder what this 'system' for enabling Securicor's drivers to spot the film boxes will be? Teaching them to read?!

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 02-11-2002, 03:55 AM:

Leo

You really know how to start my week !

In our office we try not to use "The "S" word" before the third cup of coffee!

Posted by Darren Briggs (Member # 1071) on 02-11-2002, 06:33 AM:

Leo,
I havn't seen any of these report sheets yet!
If securicor are delivering them, Dick will probably have mine in Bradford!

Darren.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-11-2002, 06:38 AM:

Hi Darren:

Maybe we could make life easier for them by producing a 'how to identify a film' chart which could be stuck on the dashboard of every Securicor van. It would have a life-size picture of one of the green boxes from hell with an arrow pointing out where the label goes...

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 02-11-2002, 07:42 AM:

Generall we dont have any problems with securicor. Only very occasionally some ads might not turn up ect... This week for example.

Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 02-11-2002, 07:54 AM:

Michael,

You only don't have problems with them because you are a single screen, showing a small number of films per week. Take the number of times they mess you around, multiply it by the number of screens and different features shown at your local multiplex and you'll soon see why wrong/late/missing deliveries are a huge and potentially expensive problem for cinemas. Ok this analogy isn't statistically perfect, but you see my point?

Every cinema I visit tells me that Securicor is the worst thing that ever happened to film transport in the UK.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-11-2002, 08:45 AM:

Also I'd guess that Michael doesn't get that many films on crossover, i.e. most of them come straight from Perivale. In my experience, the worst problems were with short-run arthouse titles where a small number of prints were being constantly crossed over against tight deadlines - that was when Securicor really cocked up, time and time again. It didn't matter how many times the despatching and receiving cinema, or the distributor, rang them up to confirm the arrangements beforehand, films which arrived in time for the first show were the exception which proved the rule.

Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 02-11-2002, 09:52 AM:

Leo, I'd forgotten all about cross-overs! AKA how to lose a print, and cause the receiving cinema to lose a show! Invariably crossed over prints were only on once, so you'd miss the screening, which doesn't do your reputation any good at all. Often if it was an 'in town' cross over we'd do it ourselves, either in someones car or by taxi, or very occasionally someone got sent on a bus trip with film boxes in hand.

Posted by Rob Jones (Member # 902) on 02-11-2002, 05:30 PM:

I know we've had a couple of problems where prints we've had have meant to be going on a crossover the day after we've shown them, but we've been told complete nonsense by the securicor people...

They would have been made down, except for the fact that we actually phoned Securicor, asked them if they were on crossover and needing to be picked up that day, they'd say "no, just going back to Perivale" so they might not be done straight away, and so would follow a nasty phone call from whichever cinema asking where the heck their print was!

But hey, all those taxi trips get you the opportunity for a free bitching session about Securicor when you get to the other cinema What I think I'll be buying our driver for his birthday though is an A-Z - once he manages to figure out which cinemas are where in York it'll be a start at least!

Posted by Darren Briggs (Member # 1071) on 02-11-2002, 06:14 PM:

I must stick up for Jerry the driver who comes to City Screen anyway, He seems to at least care about if we get the films in time for us to show them, and does all he can to come before 10am.
As for the drivers who come for films on cross over on a thursday night, we have one who often send's his dad to pick the films up!
Must say securicor are better than Express Parcel Management who sometimes bring me films.
Darren.

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 02-12-2002, 03:38 AM:

Some of the UK distributors are supposedly dropping Securicor completely in favour of Express Parcel Management .
Does anyone have a list of these?

Our first,knowing,run in with EPM was the other week when they called me on a Thursday to set up a crossover for the print of The Hired Hand. Our last show was on Monday 8.15pm and they asked that it be left out for 9am collection the following morning.The confusing thing about this is that we usually get crossover requests from the distributor not the transport company. They eventually picked it up around 2.30pm.No documentation or receipt. Then 2 days later they sent another driver in to pick up the same print plus two others we have never seen to crossover to Sheffield Showroom for Friday!

One of the other recent horrors was during RLFF on tour when we had numerous crossovers. One print which was a 9am pickup from Tyneside for sameday to us for 6pm screening was picked up by Securicor despite being labelled for another carrier (Epic?). As there was a) no collection request with a consignment number and b) not entered in the Film transport book it was swallowed up by the Securicor sytem and eventually spat out TWO MONTHS later at Berkhamsted.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-12-2002, 06:53 AM:

I agree with Darren - the problem does not lie with Gerry or any individual working for Securicor - it's the failure rate of the system as a whole that's the issue.

As for crossover drivers not providing receipts, I eventually printed out my own receipt slips which had boxes for the film title, print number, destination cinema (full address), time and date of collection and full name/company of person collecting. I wouldn't release a print without either the Securicor generated paperwork (e.g. an entry in the Perivale book or one of their separate consignment slips) or one of my own slips. At least if the film did then get lost, we had the paperwork to prove that it wasn't us who lost it.

BTW, Darren, is City Screen still keeping its head above water? When I walked over Lendal Bridge going to the station this morning, the walkway on the north bank between Lendal and Scarborough bridges was already under a foot of water, but the level looked like it was still 3-4 feet above the City Screen basement windows. But Radio York said that a 'surge' was due down the Ouse at around midday. Did you survive?

Posted by Michael Hunt (Member # 772) on 02-12-2002, 10:05 AM:

An interesting thread to come across today...

I'm waiting for Securicor to deliver a copy of a Bollywood feature 'Pitaah' for screening tonight and tomorrow at 6.30pm...

Its nearly 4pm, and despite calls to the distributor and the local Securicor depot the print still hasn't arrived, but they've kindly informed me that 'its definately on its way'

If it doesn't arrive soon I'm probably going to have to show Harry Potter instead...

on the subject of crossovers, I get a few of them, usually arthouse material, and crossover or not, always break down the feature and box it up following its last screening, and then leave it out labelled up for the next cinema if I've been informed where its going...

Recently Securicor have collected prints labelled for crossover early the next morning, when they've made a film delivery, and have then come in before lunchtime to collect it again, usually with a comment of 'They've been told not to collect those sort of films...'

for example, we finish with 'The Piano Teacher' this Thursday, for crossover to the Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford, playing the 19th Feb (Thank you for the info Artificial Eye, you're one of the few film distributors that bother to tell cinemas about crossovers)
The print will be ready for pick up after midnite, and I expect that it will have been collected Friday morning with next weeks deliveries...

no doubt I'll get yet another second visit...

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

Gwan Glawster!!!

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 02-12-2002, 10:41 AM:

Michael said"I'm waiting for Securicor to deliver a copy of a Bollywood feature 'Pitaah' for screening tonight and tomorrow at 6.30pm...

If it doesn't arrive soon I'm probably going to have to show Harry Potter instead..."

Just call it "Hairy Pitaah"

Posted by Rob Jones (Member # 902) on 02-12-2002, 01:40 PM:

"I eventually printed out my own receipt slips which had boxes for the film title, print number, destination cinema (full address), time and date of collection and full name/company of person collecting."

Do you think it might be worth sending these to Securicor and suggest that they implement it or something similar - or maybe just change the current film transport books to include All shippings - including crossovers and BFI prints etc.. which don't go to Perivale/Glasgow.

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 02-12-2002, 02:38 PM:

Being a small setup can't be everything. We're a college cinema showing two films a week (one showing on Thursday and two on Sunday), and not infrequently do prints arrive on the day we are showing them, often late in the afternoon (including Sundays). This can cause us no end of problems because we don't have sole use of the auditorium and our projectionists have to work round all their other commitments.

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.

Yours
John Moriarty

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-12-2002, 02:57 PM:

I've been following this thread for a few days.

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 P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 585-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 585-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-12-2002, 03:00 PM:

Rob: I've no problem with this, or with the template being made available for download from here. I'll dig out my old 'City Screen files' zip disc and see if I can still lay my hands on it...

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.

Posted by Darren Briggs (Member # 1071) on 02-12-2002, 05:12 PM:

Leo,
still not quite under water at 3 this afternoon, but it was coming throught the drains in the floor again!! not smelly yet though.
Its peaked today allready so looks like im safe! No waders needed!
Darren

Posted by Michael Hunt (Member # 772) on 02-13-2002, 06:02 AM:

John,
the transport system used to be that a courier company called Data Express, who had a specific film division, run by one John Badham, would collect and deliver all print held by Rank Film Distributors, who had depots in Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast and London. The Birmingham depot later merged with London.

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...

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

Gwan Glawster!!!

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-13-2002, 06:14 AM:

...and John Badham's departure may well be part of the reason the service has deteriorated so much. Whenever I had a serious problem - usually a film which seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth - the last resort was to call him and he would usually be able to sort it.

Posted by Michael Hunt (Member # 772) on 02-13-2002, 07:17 AM:

Exactly Leo,

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...

Martin at Film Four will ring if its got to be collected on the night of the last performance...

Posted by Peter Hall (Member # 695) on 02-13-2002, 12:21 PM:

Off topic I know, but is the standard kit for City Screen York projectionits now a pair of cotton gloves, a good sweater, some splicing tape and an aqualung ! No need for screwdrivers or test gear the site was so well installed that it never needs attention (all credit to Darren, but two years without an engineer within 100 miles isn't bad !)

Cheers

------------------

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-13-2002, 02:05 PM:

You forgot the chest waders!

Posted by Ben Wales (Member # 92) on 02-13-2002, 05:03 PM:

Well how topical it has been with Securicor's film delivery (just about every Cinema I know complains about them!),only this week, we are still have been waiting for them to collect last weeks ads or the other week the delivery.

We can get prints quicker and on time from the other side of the world quicker, than getting the adverts from London!.

Posted by Andy Muirhead (Member # 712) on 02-13-2002, 07:15 PM:

I haven't had any major problems with print delivery's from Securicor, certainly nothing that has had me cancel a show.

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!'

On a seperate but related note, why do MEPD send me trailers that arrive at 3pm on a Friday? I know they leave independents till last, but sometimes it really screws up my day, they should get that sorted

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 02-13-2002, 11:09 PM:

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

Here's more distribs that ship via TES:

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

-Aaron

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 02-18-2002, 08:03 AM:

Well our friends in the blue vans did it again!!

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!

Bring back John Badham! Now!!!

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 02-19-2003, 02:51 PM:

We haven't had much trouble with securicor lately.

Last week they picked up two of the three they were supposed to (though one of these should never have arrived), and didn't do any paperwork, but we thought we could cope.

However, today they picked up the one they missed, the ones we've shown since, and the ones they delivered yesturday (tomorrows and one for next week). It appears he mistook the new ones for the ones already taken, ignored the shipping labels, the titles of the films and the showing dates and took them away. With luck we'll get "The Importance Of Being Earnest" back in time for us to put it together before we need it on screen.

(Being a college set up we don't have control of delivery and collection and so can't remind them about paperwork.)

John

Posted by Michael Hunt (Member # 772) on 02-20-2003, 01:07 PM:

A little email address that may be of use to everyone in the UK

select.cinema@soe.securicor.co.uk

I've been having to ring the local Securicor depot and ask them when they are going to bother collecting films that have been left out recently, and have had new deliverys left next to them!

I've also got a driver locally who doesn't seem to bother reading the address labels, several times I've had prints delivered to the local UGC, and sometimes their prints have been delivered here!

Finally received a publicity delivery from National Screen today that's been lost in the Securicor system for the past three weeks (I suspect it went to the UGC)

About a month ago Securicor delivered one of our prints to the UGC a week before we were screening it. The lads at the UGC rang us, we rang Securicor, who apologised and promised to collect it from the UGC and deliver it to us...

I go away for a long weekend, get back in on the screening day, and guess what, no print.
Securicor had forgotten about it.
Luckily we had a car handy (unusual for a venue staffed by Cyclists and Walkers)

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 02-20-2003, 01:43 PM:

Have to say that all the time I was at Stratford I had only a few problems. Since John Badham left things didn't change, the service remained good. Prints were delivered every day of the week with adverts being the only hicup. On checking it was normally Carltons fault anyway.

I think a lot depends on where in the driver's 'run' your cinema falls, and how far he has to travel from the nearest site.

To be fair I'd have no problem using them again... in fact I have suggested it at my new 'home'.

Seems the service is very patchy... if it's good it's very good. If it's bad... it sucks!!

[ 02-20-2003, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: Ken McFall ]

Posted by John Moriarty (Member # 1153) on 02-20-2003, 04:04 PM:

They appear to have spotted their mistake, because the films turned up again today with a label drawing attention to the playdate. Kind of lucky really; we put it together today and it is currently on screen for its one and only showing, our first sell out crowd for a long time. Hopefully the projectionist got the put together right, we didn't have time to screen it before hand.

John