Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 35mm Prints of Universal Films

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Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-24-2006, 05:08 PM:

I'm the Head Projectionist of a college run movie theater, we're basically a small second run theater. I don't deal directly with the film distributor, Swank, that is taken care of by the Social Committee (so less technically people can choose some movies). I just got the list of the movies we'll be showing from August till December, and I noticed a problem, all of the Universal pictures we're showing are scheduled to come in on VHS!

I talked to the Social Committee person who said no Universal films come in 35mm...which I don't believe for a minute, there's no way Universal isn't doing 35mm prints.

I haven't had a chance to talk to anyone at Swank, and I'd rather not as it's kind of going around some people which I don't like to do, but has anyone else who orders from Swank had similar problems? I know we occasionally have to show VHS because a movie is so popular there's not enough 35mm prints to go around, but that it's only the Universal movies has me suspicious.

If anyone has any information on this, I would greatly appreciate it. If I can't find anything else I'll probably contact Swank tomorrow and ask them directly.

Thanks in advance!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-24-2006, 05:22 PM:

Swank does not distribute Universal titles (at least in 35mm...not sure about video or 16mm). Universal handles its own nontheatrical distribution (usually at prices much lower than what Swank charges). Try getting in touch with Paul Ginsburg (I won't post his email address here, but it follows the firstname.lastname@nbcuni.com form) at Universal and he can give you more details.

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-24-2006, 06:32 PM:

Well, I can't say I've ever noticed a lack of Universal pictures in 35mm from Swank, but I'll take your word for it. Rather frustrating, I must say.

I will email Paul, though would anyone here be able to elaborate on this anymore? I figure if for anything, it'll add to the posterity of the forums, if it's not already mentioned somewhere.

Thanks again.

Posted by Brian Guckian (Member # 1678) on 07-24-2006, 07:04 PM:

Sounds like what's happening is that your bookers have been dealing with with just the one distributor (Swank). If Swank doesn't do 35mm from Universal, and Universal does their own, as Scott points out, then your bookers musn't know that, and think that the supply from Swank only of VHS versions of Universal titles means there are no 35mm prints!

The old "I don't know that you don't know" thing...

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-24-2006, 07:24 PM:

Yeah, it's pretty much exactly that.

I'm going to be a junior this year, I've been involved with the projection program for almost two years now (since I started college), but I've only been Head Projectionist since about March, so I'm still learning things.

I suppose now the question to ask, are there other companies like Swank that distribute films in the Northeast? I can't say I've ever bothered to look around for it, because it seems like kind of a specialized business.

I've email Paul, and I've also informed my bookers about this. We'll see if I get 35mm prints or if I'm stuck with DVDs. I'm hoping for the 35mm.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 07-24-2006, 10:01 PM:

Swank used to handle Universal's non-theatrical bookings until sometime in 2005, at which point Universal took back the handling of those bookings in-house. [thumbsup]

This is a Good Thing (tm). Swank is generally an undesirable middleman for nontheatricals and complicates 35mm bookings, as well as inflating the price. You should see substantially cheaper pricing from Universal directly, especially for older films.

It would be nice if more studios would dump Swank. If Swank failed to explain to their clients that they no longer handle nontheatrical rights for Universal movies in 35mm and sold you VHS instead, then that's pretty unethical, and I imagine Universal would like to hear about it.

Scott's contact information is correct, but you should probably call them by phone at 818-777-1000.

As for other booking agencies, it's certainly not specific to the Northeast -- the same rules apply thought the US. Swank has the lions share of nontheatricals, including Buena Vista/Disney, Dreamworks, MGM, Miramax, Weinstein, Paramount, Sony, Warner Brothers, Focus Features (even though they are part of Universal!), Lion's Gate, and Thinkfilm. In some cases for specific titles there may be other agents.

Swank's main "competitor" is Criterion Pictures, in Morton Grove, IL. (1-800-890-9494). They handle Fox and New Line, primarily. Don't get confused with "criterionpic.com," which is their Canadian business, which does not appply to you -- they are "criterionpicusa.com."

Many arthouse titles and studios go through New Yorker Films (212-645-4600).

Best of luck.

--jhawk

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-24-2006, 10:17 PM:

I got an email back from Dennis Chong (even though I emailed Paul Ginsburg), with a phone number to call, looks like it's straight to his personal line, so I won't have to wait on hold, I hope. I'm going to give them a call tomorrow. I didn't see it till after 8:30 PM EST, didn't think I'd catch him in the office then.

As for whether or not Swank informed my booker of the change, I can't say for certain. I will be talking to her tomorrow though after I talk to Dennis, and with some luck, I'll have 35mm prints.

Thanks everyone for the help, if people are curious as to the outcome I will let you all know tomorrow evening (or earlier if it's a slow day at work [sleep]

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-24-2006, 11:36 PM:

The best thing to do is to try to develope a relationship with each major studio directly. Swank, while they have a legitimate place in the non-theatrical arena, they are, as has been pointed out, a middle-man and as such it is always inefficient for them to get 35mm prints as they almost never have their own prints -- the one exception that I know of is their near mint condition (gorgeous color) SR print of WEST SIDE STORY.

Other than that, they basically have to do what you would have to do, i.e., go to the classics department of the theatrical distributor and beg for a 35mm print. It would be faster and there would less likely be miscommunication by dealing directly with the studio.

Colleges and other non-theatrical venues are almost always run by folks for whom running a theatre is only an avocation to which they can't devote a lot of time, so Swank and Criterion seem like easy answers to booking films -- one stop shopping so to speak. It's a bit harder to have to go from distrib to distrib. But that easy, lazy-man's method comes with higher guarantees and almost always higher percentages as well as stupid restrictions that are a carry over from the days when commercial theatres ran films for months and the studios didn't want to compete with their own product, thus the "no advertising" and restricted admission charge, and the really idiotic thing about having to pay additional rental fees for each show. In the theatrical world, the distributor wants you to run as many shows as possible -- he is getting a percentage of all you make, it would be stupid for him to restrict how many times you run the film. On occasion studios were know to cut titles to shorten them so they could get and extra show in per day.

The best thing is to try to position yourself as a legitimate art house that happens to be on a college campus. Emphasize that you are opened to the public, that you charge competitive prices and that you advertise. Don't have the word "college" anywhere in the title of your organization. At Notre Dame we set up "The Dujarie Theatre." And with a little work, were able to book second run just like any commercial, second run or art house. Try to run multiple days rather than just one day, and barring that, at least run multiple shows on one day.

Distributors are very resistant to sending out a print for only a single show; it's almost not worth their time. It is hard to position yourself as commercial second run house if you don't run at least a few shows. Remember they are looking for decent grosses. You pull in a nice crowd and send back a nice chunk of overage to the distrib, and their booker will start to warm up to you when you call to book your next titles.

It sounds like your Social Committee needs both a good education about the need to show a film the way it was intended to be seen by the filmmaker, and a quick smack up-side the head for even suggesting that you show a VHS tape. Anyone who thinks it's OK to show a VHS video instead of 35mm film should be thrown off that committee. You might want to ask if any of them think that pinning up a color xerox of a Monet painting instead of the real work in the art gallery would be acceptable? Ask them if they think the curator should be fired on the spot if he actually though the xerox copy was as good as exhibiting the real Monet? Then just point out that a VHS copy is about the same as the xerox copy in terms of its utter unworthyness and disgrace to the filmmaker, not to mention the audience.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-25-2006, 12:12 AM:

I built the cinema at University of Louisville in 1970. We had good results from a normal cinema booker until about 1990. Swank KILLED our connections with nearly all studios. We run 6 days per week with a 252 seat room that is "always cinema."

We have not booked any Swank since due to their disruption of our booking system. We lose a lot of titles, but we will not reward illegal behavior. Louis

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-25-2006, 05:57 AM:

Yup, Swank can be ruthless, but actually within their rights or at least the way they interpret their rights. As with any of these things, either side can claim whatever they want, if it comes to legal action, the final result is what is decided in litigation.

Thing is, when Swank contracts with the studios, their licence includes colleges and museums. The studios have given those venues over to Swank. If Swank finds out that the Moonskip Theatre is really a campus activity, they probably will move to get that business. So far, we have pretty much had a tentative peace with Swank. Criterion on the other hand, I believe is Foxes "classics department." They just farm it out to a third company, but they do book Fox older product to both non-theatrical and commercial art-house titles. Fox doen't want to have anything to do with product that is older than 2 or 3 years or more. But their are always exceptions. I think they still handle ROCKY HORROR.

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-25-2006, 06:59 AM:

We run two showings of a film every Sunday night, occasionally we'll do an additional showing (for Homecoming or other big weekends). It'd be hard for me to do more than that, as I only have two licensed projectionists, me, and a girl who just passed the state test (yay Massachusetts) about a month ago, and who doesn't have a whole lot of experience. I'm working on gettting more people trained, but with only two showings a week, getting proper experience is tough, it's the chicken or the egg problem.

I'd love to run more movies and more showings, but I don't think I'd have the time. The bigger problem is the Social Committee does not have a huge budget for films, though, if dealing with the studios directly is cheaper, then we may be able to start doing some more.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 07-25-2006, 08:00 AM:

My advice is that while it would be nice to go around Swank, it is not realistic; it is probably a waste of your time to even try, and will just annoy studios, who have contractual relationships with Swank that they cannot simply choose to disregard. Your milage may vary, of course.

Frank comments, "it is always inefficient for them to get 35mm prints as they almost never have their own prints." Sadly, it's worse than that. In recent years, in particular with some studios (notable Warner Brothers, but sometimes others), Swank does have their own prints (at least for popular titles), which have been handed over to them by the studios. These prints are generally in crappy shape and its extremely difficult to get replacements for, because the pool is microscopic. Furthermore, they actually charge you more in shipping (for a worse product).

Also, please remember that this is a public forum and most likely anything you post here will be read by representatives of both Swank and the studios in question.

--jhawk

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-25-2006, 10:49 AM:

It's not that Swank and the studios are not aware of the problem of non-theatrical vs. theatrical, and it is not that anyone wants to avoid dealing with Swank or Criterion; all anyone running a non-commercial venue wants to have access to titles and to get good prints. I talk with the guys at Swank all the time and have been dealing with Ray Swank way back.

There are times when Swank is a big help -- that WEST SIDE STORY booking was incredible. We couldn't have gotten a better print from MGM or Warner or whoever that title belongs to now (they keep switching hands seems like hourly). But Brian Fox (no relation to anyone at that studio) at the NY Regional Swank Office knows full-well that unless I am asking for one of those few titles that he may have on hand, he has as hard a time wrenching 35mm prints from the studios as I would.

Then all that whole theatrical/non-theatrical business is so contrived and illogical that there have always problems with it and everyone knows it. In the early days, it was a bit clearer -- 16mm was non-theatrical, 35mm was theatrical. Back then, since we were a 35mm house, and a big one at that, the studios hardly questioned our booking 35mm prints from them and we were treated as any other art house. Since we were advertising and opened to the public and they got box office statements with hefty overages, there was no reason to change and we established ourselves as theatrical. I was on a first name basis with bookers from most of the studios. We got good deals -- decent guarantees and good percentages.

Then came the shift in how non-theatrical was designation. It became not a matter of film gauge, 16mm or 35mm, but of "museum or college" being the de facto determination. Of course that is also a very arbitrary and quite frankly, an inaccurate way to make the determination. Many, many universities and colleges have performing arts centers attached to them that run as commercial enterprises with facilities that rival any commercial theatre. In fact, there are more university Performing Arts Centers built on college campuses than are stand-alone entities.

Last week I just went thru the University of Notre Dame's multi-million dollar facility of four theatres, one of which is an operating cinema. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Museum of Modern Art in NYC run more film probably than any single chain theatre here. These operations are opened to the public, advertise heavily and do substantial cash business. To label them as non-theatrical is just silly. And they book directly from the studios, probably on a daily basis.

I would say, play it by ear; if the studios brush a new-comer off and redirect them to Swank, then that's the end game. But if they are willing to setup an account and work with a theatre that happens to be on located on a campus, then by all means, go for theatrical status. If Swank comes-aknocking, then I suppose that will have a bearing on the outcome as well. But as I have said, and possibly it is because we've established ourselves for decades with the studios, we have lived side-by-side with both the studios and Swank, and in the old days Films. Inc., Twyman Films and Audio Brandon for years when they were alive, all quite peacefully. After all, all anyone wants to do who chooses to get into this business is to show movies.

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-25-2006, 05:55 PM:

Well, for the time being I'm still going to be using Swank for everything, hopefully with the exception of Universal movies.

I called up Dennis from Universal today, and got the information I needed from him. Turns out my school has an account setup with Universal already, it just hasn't been used in three or four years, which is somewhat before my time. I've done my part in forwarding the information to my bookers, and hopefully they'll give Dennis a call and get me some 35mm prints instead of DVDs. If they don't, well, I'll be rather sad, to say the least.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-25-2006, 10:57 PM:

How come a very small country theatre can get product, fairly priced and schools can't? There are laws in some states about this.

We had 20 years of excellent operations with every bill paid early BEFORE Swank killed an otherwise good operation. lOUIS

Posted by Tao Yue (Member # 836) on 07-26-2006, 02:17 AM:

I highly doubt that any states have laws against this sort of thing, and if they did, they'd easily fail constituional muster. Interstate commerce, remember, can be regulated only at the federal level.

If you search around, you'll find that there've been some lawsuits against Swank for their prison monopoly, which Swank reliably wins. (I guess prisoners have lots of time on their hands.)

How many colleges still run film regularly enough so that a coalition of them will be worth dealing with? I've always wondered. Universal just quit Swank out of the blue, so wonder when the other studios' contracts with Swank are up.

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-26-2006, 06:59 AM:

I'm actually kind of curious as to how many other colleges actually have 35mm programs. It never even occured to me that a college would have it's own movie theater(s) on campus until I got to school and wound up joining the projection program just because "hey, that might be neat" (look where that got me now [Cool]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-26-2006, 08:14 AM:

I've run 35mm at Wellesley College, Brandeis University, Northeastern University, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Except for Northeastern, all are changeover booths and have 16mm and video equipment as well. These are all fairly recent (last ten years or so) installations.

In the Boston area, MIT, Harvard, Boston University, and possibly others, also have 35mm capability. Harvard has the most extensive program and runs film every day (at the Harvard Film Archive).

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-26-2006, 09:32 AM:

The University of Maryland has had 35mm for a very long time. We put 35mm into Johns Hopkins University back in the early/mid 1990s. In more recent times, we've installed 35mm at Regent University in VA and Messiah College in PA.

Posted by Vernon Cramer (Member # 1181) on 07-26-2006, 05:10 PM:

At Tidewater Community College in the Norfolk, VA area, we've got two theaters equipped with 35mm. Our main theater is a renovated former Loews built in 1926 with 2,100 seats, renovations reduced that to just under 900. That house is equipped with Dolby Digital. Our second 35mm theater is just a plain, small (215 seats)ugly college auditorium with Dolby SR. We typically run 2 to 4 films per month between the two locations. A regional Jewish film festival recently moved to our main theater after 12 years at a local art house.

Posted by Ian Woloschin (Member # 3709) on 07-26-2006, 08:25 PM:

My brother is starting at Boston University this fall...maybe I'll have to push him to get involved with their projection programs [Cool]

.

We should probably start another thread for this, but another interesting thing I thought of, the only places where you can see 16mm anymore is probably on a college campus or in an art house.