Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Prints not being delivered..

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 02-13-2010, 04:38 PM:

For the first time in the 20 years I have been in the business we did not recieve our prints for Friday openings.

They blamed it on the bad weather here in the Mid-Atlantic.

I wanted to say something on here about it.

Thanks.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-13-2010, 04:56 PM:

Did the prints for other local area theaters meet the same fate? If not, then I'd raise questions. If so, then, well, it happens... I guess.

Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 02-13-2010, 05:07 PM:

It happens to the best of them, had a print delayed for 2 days because they delivered it to the wrong theater.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-13-2010, 05:37 PM:

I've had wrong-theatre deliveries, but those were always to places that were close enough that someone could just drive over and pick it up at the other theatre.

I have never personally not had a print arrive in time for a scheduled show (though there have been some close calls). When I have heard of it happening, it usually arrived later that day.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-13-2010, 05:46 PM:

We had an issue yesterday where we ordered a replacement print for movie we were opening that we rejected due to scratches, but the local depot did not have keys to the building. We told them that someone would be there at 10:00am. We had an 11:00am show of the movie. What did they do? They decided to try and deliver it at 8:30am instead, despite that we told them we wouldn't be available then! They said they wanted to try their old key anyway and maybe leave it with the cleaners. Since obviously nobody was there, they left it with another store in the mall. At 10:40am they decided to call us and tell us all of this information. My manager was understandably upset, as was I. The guy's excuse was simply "Yeah, I should have called you sooner". Thanks.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-13-2010, 05:56 PM:

Although the delivery system seems to work quite well, things do get interesting at venues that aren't actual theatres. The film distribution system isn't really designed to deliver prints to colleges, hotels, offices, PO boxes, and other random places, and I have had some "interesting" experiences with those types of deliveries.

At colleges, the prints will typically be delivered somewhere on the campus (often to the campus police station), but the people responsible for the event often do not know where the print is. Sometimes, it will take up to an hour of searching and phone calls before someone finds it.

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 02-13-2010, 06:53 PM:

FWIW, we were graced with 18 inches of snow on Wednesday, closing the mall and thus our theatres. UPS had the Technicolor prints Wednesday and tried to deliver them, but Mall security would not let them in, even though we had a manager on site.

We got our DeLuxe depot prints on Thursday evening, a little later than usual, but they were swamped by the conditions in our region. Still, we had plenty of time to get them made up and ready for Friday's matinee.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-13-2010, 11:26 PM:

I understand DFS's Boston depot had a lot [weather-related] of delays this past week because they didn't receive their prints on time. I think this was mostly a Mon/Tuesday phenomenon so it didn't really have much impact on theatres getting Wed/Thu deliveries, other than to stress some folks out a bit more...

It takes two to tango, Joe. Yeah, they (probably *not* the depot but instead your local transport company!) should have told you, but you should also have called them at 10am to find out where your print was! The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

I dunno, Scott, the film delivery system is remarkably flexible. But I'm stunned at the people who take it all on faith. I mean, you can and should call DFS/TES to verify your bookings if there is anything special going on. Those people are there to help you. (It doesn't help that most of the venues you outline probably are inexperienced and don't know who to talk to to find out what has happened, etc.) Police stations? Wow. That sounds pretty unprofessional...

Have I ever had a print miss? Hmm. I recently had a replacement print fail to Saturday-deliver (FedEx) because of a shipper error (wrong checkbox) and by Monday the shows were over. And certainly I've had prints that were supposed to deliver 1 or 2 days later than anticipated, but still in time for the show.

And then there was the special screening where the Editorial guys in Hollywood decided to provide additional footage at the last minute (atually about 90 minutes before showtime) and they sent it via fiber, but the screening was on HDCAM SR but the fiber facility only had D5, so it ended up with the lowest common denominator...maybe that counts as a miss.

--jhawk

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-14-2010, 01:56 AM:

We didn't have their number, so we called Deluxe. They were supposed to arrive and get a new key as well and we figured they were running late. We didn't figure that they had zero brain cells and thought 10:00am meant 8:30am. The depot does their own "shipping" to and from local theaters. They go under two different names, but it is the same people. It's just one of the guys who works there who drives them around town. It's all kind of confusing since it seems to take 18 companies to do the job of 2. But hey, everyone wants to get their palm greased and that's why we are a country of middle men.

No shows were canceled.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 02-14-2010, 07:14 AM:

Still, WE are paid to do our jobs well, 100% of the time.

I expect nothing less from my suppliers and vendors. Eliminate those who fail to measure up. Louis

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 02-14-2010, 07:29 AM:

You don't have the phone number of your local courier who delivers films to you? [Confused]

OK, I give up.

Louis: Yeah, Joe should stop doing business with Fox, Paramount, Sony, and Warner Brothers. That'll be a win for him.

--jhawk

p.s.: Joe, is it 322-5585?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-14-2010, 09:58 AM:

It's been a couple of years since our last missout. It almost always happened when Tech/ETS would do a day of show delivery, and the print would get bumped from the flight it was scheduled to be on and there was no next flight. Most of our deliveries now are Wednesday, so it's rare for a missout.

Nonetheless, I've been doing this for 25 years, I call and check every Wednesday to make sure the delivery is in the system and has a projected delivery time. I prevent several screwups a year that way.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-14-2010, 10:06 AM:

John, that is one of the three numbers I received. Why you went out of your way to research this I have no idea. You're trying to solve a problem which no longer exists.

quote: John Hawkinson
You don't have the phone number of your local courier who delivers films to you?

Your detective skills are amazing.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-14-2010, 11:35 AM:

The last missout we had was the animated film, "Surf's Up" a couple of years ago. Sony had to fly the print in from Salt Lake City, and we had one of those "it hasn't landed yet, but should be on the ground soon" phone calls from the courier service. Then at 4:00, they called and said the print was on its way from Billings to us (a 90-minute drive).

I started to get nervous when it was 6:30 and we still hadn't seen the courier, so I made a couple of phone calls and got reassured that it HAD left Billings some time ago and would be here "almost anytime." So we started selling tickets and just told people the show would be up to 30-45 minutes late starting, and we gave out free refills and all the usual show-delay tactics.

Well then at about 7:15, the print still hadn't arrived so I started calling again...and found out the stupid print still had not even landed in Billings yet! It had missed a flight out of Salt Lake City. (I guess the print was in the bathroom and didn't hear the boarding announcement?) So we sent the crowd home, and a lot of them came back the next night, but a lot didn't.

So now we have a new policy that we don't sell tickets until the print is in our hands.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 02-15-2010, 04:00 AM:

We missed the entire first day of 'The Life Aquatic' due to a snowstorm delaying flights. It was supposed to open on Christmas Day which was a Saturday that year. I think we finally recieved the print about 15 minutes after the last show as supposed to start.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 02-15-2010, 02:14 PM:

A few months ago we had UPS pick up a print of a film that was a personal copy of the production company. They brought it with them as a back up to the 2 prints that Technicolor had sent. Even though it was in grey cans, had no shipping labels, and we only had 4 cans scheduled for pick-up the UPS driver took them anyway (he printed out extra labels from his handheld computer) now more than a month later the production company calls and wants to pick up thier print which was now where to be found. After calling the studio and technicolor multiple times technicolor finally said to try calling UPS because they didnt have it but we had 2 extra receipts. We eventually found out from UPS that technicolor had refused the delivery and that the cans had been sitting at the UPS depot in NY for over a month [Roll Eyes]

They had no idea why they never got returned to us.

I can't figure out why Technicolor didn't call and inform us that they were refusing extra cans, or note it in thier computer system so that if we called we would know, or for that matter when the phone agent and her supervisor went to the warehouse to have the warehouse supervisor look on the shelf's someone wouldn't have told them then. But anyways it all ended up getting worked out! [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-15-2010, 06:56 PM:

jhawk--to be clear, with rare exceptions I don't book these films. Other people do, and then they occasionally hire me to show them. Some of these bookings are done though Swank/Criterion and others are not. It's not my problem.

Print traffic is generally a big headache, and I try to avoid getting involved in it as much as possible.

I will pick up and/or return prints to the DFS depot on occasion, since it actually can save money for people, but I am otherwise not involved beyond the actual screenings.

I would only be interested in dealing with bookings if I could have some influence over what would be shown, and that is extremely unlikely to happen. (just in case, though, if anyone wants to give me a budget, I would be happy to program your film series)

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 02-15-2010, 07:12 PM:

Dustin-
Don't overlook the fact that bookings within CKE are often error laden and switched last minute, which results in opening day deliveries from time to time.. [Smile]

Things did improve the last couple years I was there.. but it was not not that uncommon to make up a print at 1130am Friday for a 1:00 showing... Not what you like to do.. but in a pinch, you make things happen.

I do miss the business...

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 02-16-2010, 03:26 AM:

Bookings get changed pretty much every week at the last minute on Tuesday but everything still comes by Wednesday at the latest, so its really no big deal.

I do miss film sometimes but digital sure is making me lazy.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-17-2010, 08:33 PM:

Jinxed it.

Even though I called our delivery guy this morning, our print for Friday's opening did not arrive this evening. I called Deluxe and they said there is no booking in the system. I've emailed and called the booker for the distrib, but it is afterhours so I won't know what's going on until tomorrow morning. Maybe a courier delivery, maybe they screwed up and there's no print for us.

This is the part I love [Mad]

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 02-19-2010, 09:43 AM:

Hmm, let's see if I can reply to myself...

I know you've been waiting with bated breath. The booker for the distrb emailed my Weds night that it would be taken care of. By Thursday morning Deluxe was hunting down a print and said it would be in by 10am Friday. It got delivered this morning at 9:30am.

The moral of the story is Trust But Verify (a few days before the show).

Posted by Jillian Brock (Member # 4709) on 02-23-2010, 07:56 PM:

It's so funny to me that in 20 years this has never happened to you! You must never show Cinema Art because the theatre I used to work at got prints on Friday nights and Saturday mornings all the time! I was so much fun telling customers the show was cancelled and we're sorry we couldn't call every single person in town or air an emergency announcement over the radio.

Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 02-23-2010, 10:44 PM:

Christmas day we had a delayed print due to the holiday. It switched from 12pm friday (with a call from my boss asking "Can you Build it in time") to 5pm, until saturday morning. Which it finally came (I arrived half an hour early to eat breakfast, and deluxe was outside with the print as I pulled in, even though we told them no one would be there until 10:30am)

Posted by Geena Phillips (Member # 3726) on 02-24-2010, 12:50 PM:

I guess that's one plus of showing primarily Indian films: This is my life pretty much every single week; a week without a missed opening show on Friday is a precious rarity. [Wink]

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 03-13-2011, 05:22 PM:

It has been 382 days since the last post.