Ironically, UA Union Square in NYC has run commercials/PSAs with the features though not on my last 2-3 visits.
 

A question for our European Film-Tech'ers: Are commercials in movie theatres "commonplace" as this article states?

Paul
Unemployed mercenary film/video projectionist/engineer
"Film is art, television is furniture."

Trailers are usually shown between the adverts and the feature. In most of the cinemas I worked at, the 'bullshit reel' was between 10 and 15 minutes in total. Adverts were a real pain, because you had to edit them to cut out any individual adverts with a higher rating than the feature (basically, cut the alcohol adverts out of films with 15-certification or higher, plus the odd one for things like condoms).

Charles: I'm not entirely sure that a key reason why UK theatres run adverts is because BBC television doesn't. There are now five free terrestrial (analogue) TV channels in the UK, three of which run adverts. In addition virtually all the cable, satellite and digital channels show adverts as well. So it's not as if someone wanting to advertise their product on television is unable to do so because the slots aren't available and so is forced into the cinemas. I suppose this might have been a factor between 1946 and 1953, (i.e. when there was only BBC television, before commercial broadcasting had started) but cinema ads go back a lot earlier. In the film archive I work for, we have cinema adverts going back to 1924, and I've seen examples of 'product placement' in British films going back to 1901!

It may be that the last couple of movies you saw were products of Buena Vista Distribution, who doesn't allow ads infront of their movies.
 

BTW, 'public service announcements' (i.e. government propaganda) sometimes come in the form of paid advertising in the usual reels. Anti drink-driving adverts are quite common around Christmas, and there was recently some government advertising in the cinema to publicise changes in pension legislation. There was also the famous 'AIDS - don't die of ignorance' publicity campaign in the 1980s.

The last time government films were shown by cinemas without payment came in 1941 when the Cinema Exhibitors' Association signed a deal with the wartime coalition government which allowed for one 5-minute film each month released by the Ministry of Information to be included as part of the normal cinema programme. This agreement survived beyond the war, and quite a few government films about increasing industrial productivity (e.g. the 'We Work or Want' campaign) and the need for austerity were shown this way during the late 40s. But the Conservative government which took power in 1951 did so on a ticket of cutting back on public spending, and the CEA was getting increasingly critical of what it saw as political propaganda rather than public service films, and the agreement was scrapped the following year (the CEA had also refused to allow films to be shown which had been broadcast on TV in 1949). Ever since, if the government has wanted to show its stuff in the cinemas, it has had to pay like everyone else.

Buena Vista (Disney) lets you do it, just not on Walt Disney titles.
 

1: Coca-Cola ad
2: occasionally an ad from someone like M&Ms, Christler, XM, Herbal Essences, etc...
3: PSA from "The Foundation for a Better Life"
4: REAL ACTUAL HONEST-TO-GOSH TRAILERS
5: The Feature

Currently in the 2 spot we are showing an ad for Fox Kids. It starts out like a movie trailer for a Power Rangers style kids movie. The kids in the theatre start squirming and shouting "Mommy - look there making a Galydor movie" - At the end of the "trailer" when the announcer says "Catch it Saturday Mornigs on Fox Kids" the audience erupts with laughter.

(modified 4-19-02 by Mike Olpin)

Some cinemas run upto 15/20 mins film ads & trailers before the show,
makes you feel that retirement was worth it (although forced)

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KALEE FOREVER. CARBON ARC, THE ONLY LIGHT FOR THE STARS!
ALL PARTS FOR VICTOR AND KALART VICTOR 16MM PROJECTORS.SERVICE TO 35 AND 16MM PROJECTION EQUIPMENT.
35MM sprockets made to order.
 

The agency pays the cinema for showing the adverts; I suspect the big chains can negotiate some pretty good deals, but from what I've heard advertising income for independents has dropped a lot in recent years (maybe Bernard might like to comment on this).
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Actually our revenue has increased in the last two years, but I would say that it is fair comment that income for independents has dropped in recent years. When I signed the last 5 year contract my share was increased by 5%.

I am afraid that 'rolling stock', as we've come to call it, is here to stay.

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2 Time ICWF Champion

2 Time ICWF Hardcore Champion
 

No, there still is the restriction from Rolling Stock on Walt Disney labeled films (At least that is what our corporate office and the NCN playlists tell us weekly). Hope that theatre isn't trailer checked by Disney, if so they could lose their print.
 

quote:

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leo wrote:
Some of the advertising used to be for businesses in a cinema's locality, but now they're almost all for national and international products (I'd guess because of the cost of producing 35mm prints).

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Thats an excelent point. The first cinema I used to attend (in Skegness in the 80's/early 90's) would have adverts for local businesses. Similary in the early 90's I saw some of these at an Odeon. Never seen them since.

A friend who runs a small arthouse in Devon discovered this when she investigated getting a video projector and showing locally produced advertising off MPEG files before each show. She had to drop the idea after finding out that if she did that, she'd have to stop showing her Pearl & Dean ads.

Presumably this means that the amount they pay is high enough that an independent owner would be taking a cut in income by going entirely over to local advertising shown electronically.
 

Could not the Devon exhibitor screen ‘local’ adverts on 35mm slides supplied by P & D before the national ads on film.

www.pearlanddean.com

Sadly, the sums just didn't add up if she dropped P & D, which she'd have had to do.
 

Now the cinemas handle the ads themselves. Almost any new movie will have about 3min - 5min of paid ads before the previews. Kentucky Fried Chicken and Heineken are major sponsors here; they are on almost every movie. Alcoholic beverages are not advertised on children's movies.

Personally, I would prefer if all advertising was limited to the trivia slide show.

I've been receiving trailers from ECO - I sought them out because I wanted to run some good PSA's and I like their campaign. I have an ample supply of the ECO trailers in 30-sec and 60-sec, so almost every movie gets one.
 

Kodak is a proud sponsor of the Earth Communications Office (ECO):
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/hse/partner.jhtml
http://www.oneearth.org/fs_index.htm
http://www.oneearth.org/communications/campaigns.htm

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion
 

Sometimes there'll be an Activison ad for a video game version of a movie (Spiderman or Bad Company), or a Lego "Bionicle" ad.

My old theater ran only coke and moviefone and had no policy trailer, but for some reason management limited our movie trailer attachments to 8 minutes.

I personally think that inless it's being sold in the theater, it should stay off of the print. Leave more room for sound snipes especially. Although I can see the armed forces using the screen time having had military background in my family.
 

I guess the point is that it's okay to enhance the feature but nothing else with these studios

Josh
 

If you have Pepsi, call their corrresponding offices, but be careful... Shakira and Brittney Spears have made several ads for Pepsi that will pester and annoy everyone in and around the theater. Go for the mountain dew ads from them, they're safe.

Josh
 

I was at the UA Union Square for a Fourth of July matinee of Sunshine State. On my way in I saw footage from a tennis tournament on the screen. Must be the NBC telecast of Wimbledon, I thought. Turns out it was rolling stock -- on video. This continued for a total of 4-5 adverts. Slides came on, projected via video, with MovieTunes as background music. After 5 minutes or so the rolling stock repeated for another cycle. Slides and MovieTunes returned -- the MovieTunes exactly where they left off. Once it was showtime the booth started the 35mm projector for trailers and the feature, all in 35mm.

The cost of putting a high-end video source and projector in every cinema auditorium would surely be unrealistic (a Digibeta VTR costs around £20,000 alone), especially if it's only going to be used for Pepsi commercials. It could well be that in this case, a video-to-film transfer is the most cost effective option.

--jhawk
 

You're absolutely right about the terminology. I was using 'kinescope' out of nostalgia! Kinescopes (or telerercordings as they were called in the UK) were the only way of recording live TV broadcasts in the days before videotape. The more sophisticated systems synchronised the exposure in the film camera to the scanning rate of the CRT (25fps for the old British 405-line system which was used until 1963 and also for PAL and SECAM, 30 for NTSC), but the cruder ones didn't, resulting in a stroboscopic effect on the filmed picture.

The filming was usually done on 16mm reversal stock. We have a number of regional TV kinescopes/telerecordings in our collection, and they vary widely in quality.
 

I too am annoyed with commercials in a theatre auditorium and believe they have no place there either before during or after the trailers or feature. It's my opinion that if a theatre is running ads or PSAs for pay it's because they aren't making it with good booking and promotion (I don't wan't to hear any whining about having to pay 90% because nobody told you you had to run it day-and-date). The only "ads" on your screen should be your coming attractions. It's okay to run ads in the lobby. It's bad enough that most multiplexes have lost all the ambience of a theatre and look like nothing more than large TV screens on the front wall of a cinderblock box but when you start running commercials in the auditorium it's JUST LIKE TV only more expensive. Come to think of it, the picture on my TV is better than what I've seen in many multi-plexes. Whatever happen to professional projectionists? (I really do know the answer to that.)

Bob
The Old Showman