Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: New 35mm Shipping Set Up For Warners

This is topic New 35mm Shipping Set Up For Warners in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 06-25-2015, 10:48 AM:

This Just In:

quote:
Effective June 29, 2015, all 35mm prints will be shipped by Vision Media Management. Attached you will find the announcement which outlines this change and provides important information moving forward. Please note that Vision Media Management will not be directly billing you for the $60.00 roundtrip fee for the 35mm print shipment. Warner Bros will bill you and this $60 fee will appear on your statement. If you require an invoice for this fee, your usual Warner Bros. Account Representative will provide one, upon request.
All 35mm prints shipped will be locked and the code to open the lock will be provided to you by Vision Media Management (generally no sooner than 48 hours prior to the first showing for security purposes). If your account is in good standing, you may use the code to unlock your print. Please communicate with your Account Representative for review of your account and to verify that all necessary monies and box office reports have been received.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kim DiMarco, Executive Director of Sales Initiatives

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-25-2015, 12:42 PM:

Sounds to me like they are getting down to the point where most theatres showing 35mm are having a hard time paying the bills. Either that or the studio views the few remaining 35mm houses as being a greater risk for pirating.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 06-25-2015, 02:06 PM:

It's getting pretty hard to even get WB to allow you to show a print.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-25-2015, 02:11 PM:

Is this for repertory titles, too? If so, it will be cheaper than DHL shipping to the east coast, which I think is nearly $100 each way now.

I actually haven't had any issues with booking prints through Warners lately (in my case, this is for a performing-arts house which occasionally shows films on a reel-to-reel setup). The situation might be very different for first-run houses and/or platter houses, though (I don't know). Universal, Park Circus, and Sony are all better to deal with, but Warners is not bad and has been getting better over the last two years.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-26-2015, 06:18 PM:

The WB rep titles usually come in steel shipping cases direct from their lot in Burbank, whereas the more recent ones come either from Technicolor or Deluxe (can't remember which) in their corrugated plastic boxes.

The WP rep prints have also clearly been inspected. If they've been plattered before, the heads and tails have been reattached carefully. They also come with a condition report sheet they want you to fill out (I bin it and put a photocopy of our standard report sheet in the box when I send the print out, which is actually more detailed and gives more information than theirs, rather than laboriously do another sheet from scratch). In short, their rep prints almost always arrive good to go, with nothing more than spooling up needed, but their normal distribution prints need a full-scale inspection, and sometimes repairs.

So I'm guessing that their archive/rep prints will continue to ship direct from the lot, and that it's just the new release titles in 35mm that will be handled by Vision Media Management.