Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: There was no free admission show for Christmas this year

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-14-2018, 03:50 PM:

Most years I have a free admission show before Christmas that's sponsored by one of the local businesses.

One of my regular customers phoned me this afternoon and asked why I didn't have a free admission show this year. I said that it's part of Santa Claus Day and this year the Santa committee had decided to hold their Santa Day on the same weekend as I was playing The Grinch so I couldn't do it.

He asked how much it costs to sponsor a free admission show like that so I told him.

He then said that he wants a free admission show for the whole community this year so he can bring his grandchildren to it and he will pay for it all himself as long as he can remain anonymous.

Well, okey dokey then. I'm now checking to see if the movie that he wants will be available on the day that he decided on.

Who'da thought someone would come up with something like that?

He also told me how important the theatre and going to movies is to him now since his wife died a few years ago and he started coming almost every week. (Except if I'm playing a scary movie. He doesn't like scary movies.)

Gosh, I hadn't realized that it was so meaningful.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 12-14-2018, 04:43 PM:

I THINK Christmas is a pretty big movie day. I'm going with a group of 20 others to see "On the Basis of Sex" that day.

Harold

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-14-2018, 04:52 PM:

Movies here on Christmas Day are a waste of time. I usually close on December 24 and 25 so I can paint my auditorium floor. I have occasionally had to play a movie on those days when the movie company insisted on it, but there's never more than three or four people in the audience on either of those days, regardless of how big the movie is otherwise.

I guess people have other things to do those two days. And I get an opportunity to paint the floor...

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-14-2018, 05:59 PM:

We are closed on 100% of Christmas Eves. I don't give a crap what the studio says, that's just not an option for us. (None have ever objected, not even Disney.) But we always have a pretty decent crowd on Christmas Day.

Back in my 'party years,' we were closed New Year's Eve, too, but the year the original Toy Story came out we decided to play it that night, on the premise that people could drop of their kids while they went to a party or two. We had a really nice crowd that night so we've been open every New Year's Eve since.

We used to ALWAYS have at least one free matinee every year before Christmas, until matinees of old movies became sort of a losing proposition due to home video. When that happened we started using the movie we were playing if it was suitable, or bringing in a PG-film we had missed during the year.

Then the movies started getting so expensive that "free" was no longer an option, so we started doing discounts, sometimes sponsored. The prices vary depending on how much money the sponsor wants to kick in. This year we're doing "all kids get to see The Grinch free" the 16th, and a regular-priced show of Mary Poppins returns the next week. Plus we're running an all-seats-$5 show of "It's A Wonderful Life" to benefit the local hospital tomorrow.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-14-2018, 06:11 PM:

I just charge a flat fee for "free shows" and anyone who wants to pay that fee can have a movie.

Usually it's one of the local businesses around here that pays for the free Christmas show. It's a "special movie", though; not my regularly scheduled movie.

Do you have to pay anyone for It's a Wonderful Life since it's public domain movie? (For that matter, what about Night of the Living Dead, since it's also public domain?)

And are they available as DCP's anywhere?

Posted by Steve Moore (Member # 4753) on 12-14-2018, 06:55 PM:

Here, in the UK, we have played Wonderful life on Christmas Eve in the morning to a full house, 466 seats, in my 106 year old single screen cinema for the last 7 or 8 years. Yes it's through distributor Park Circus on DCP (we played from dvd before we went real digital on a large data projector.) We also show a "normall" film on Christmas eve afternoon (this year Mary Poppins returns.) but close for the evening showing.
We always close on Christmas day and Boxing day.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-14-2018, 07:03 PM:

If you can find an original 1940s print of It's a Wonderful Life, then it's public domain and you can have at it.

However, most of the versions in circulation today are restorations or remasterings, with all rights reserved in that component, even if the original footage has lapsed into the public domain or was never covered by copyright in the first place. The cynic in me would point out that it's no coincidence that the most enduringly popular classic oldies (Lawrence of Arabia, The Red Shoes, you name 'em) seem to be the subject of a major restoration every decade or so, even though they are already preserved in far better condition than 99.9% of our surviving cinema heritage. The reason is to keep them perpetually in copyright.

Last year I received a cease and desist letter from a major record company, regarding a video of my two-year old son playing I put on YouTube (scarily, as a private video, unsearchable, uploaded to YT simply as a convenient way for relatives to see it - but the record company still found it), to which I had added a soundtrack of a jazz record published in the UK in 1926. I responded, pointing out that the soundtrack was of a digital capture of an original release copy of the 78 that I owned (I included a photo of the record), and citing the relevant sections of the UK Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act and the Berne Convention to point out that copyright in this record had expired, and that in fact, I owned the copyright to the version on the video, because I did the capture and remastering (which, like a movie restoration, is itself is a standalone piece of intellectual property). I never heard from them again, and YT accepted my challenge to the request to take the video down. I suspect that 99.9% of the people they bully like that just roll over, but I wasn't going to.

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 12-16-2018, 11:44 AM:

"Jewish Christmas" means going to a movie and a Chinese restaurant on December 25th.

And even aside from that, I think the theaters are pretty busy on Christmas in NYC, although I don't have access to actual stats from prior years.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-16-2018, 11:58 AM:

I guess that in areas with a concentrated non-Christian population (even within countries that do officially recognize Christmas as a public holiday), the atmosphere is very different. Thanks to a canceled flight, I was once stuck in Shanghai on Christmas Day. It was just another regular working weekday in the city. There were some Christmas decorations up in some places (in the same way that a few British stores now do Black Friday promotions, despite the fact that very few Britons, I suspect, know where that tradition comes from), but they were clearly for the benefit of westerners there rather than the indigenous population.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-16-2018, 08:48 PM:

quote: Frank Cox
Do you have to pay anyone for It's a Wonderful Life since it's public domain movie?

We had to pay Paramount Repertory for it. It is available on DCP but we already had a Blu-Ray of it so I played my converted version, rather than having to mess with a KDM and pay $50 to ship it in and out. I think it was about $100 cheaper to provide our own copy. It looked really really good.

One guy asked me "Are you playing the colorized version by any chance?" I said no, we're playing the black-and-white, like God intended. He said "Yes!!"

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-17-2018, 02:45 PM:

"A Gift to the Community from Someone who wishes to remain Anonymous."

Gosh, that line has really got the town buzzing.

It seems to have become a game to try to figure out who the anonymous person is. My answer when anyone asks is "Classified".

That aspect of it seems to be adding even more interest to this thing among the people around here. Of course, FREE MOVIE always gets everyone's attention anyway. It ranks right up there with Free Beer, I suppose.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-17-2018, 08:36 PM:

That's for sure. We had about 3 times as many kids to the "free kids" matinee of "The Grinch" than we had to the regularly-priced matinee the week before...and that was before we had even advertised the free-for-kids show. We were completely full.

We also had a guy who came in and wanted to pay for some kids tickets but wanted to be anonymous and didn't want to specify who would get the tickets. He gave us $60 and then another $50 the next week. So we're sprinkling those tickets out among random kids over the next few weeks.

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 12-20-2018, 08:13 AM:

They pulled back the green velvet curtain and it was FRANK all along!

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-22-2018, 07:29 PM:

A semi-local cinema to me once interlocked all screens to play one film for a free matinee on 35mm. The Cinema did not have an empty seat and built a lot of good will for the cinema. The point is that there may well be a good number of people who normally can't afford to go,but show up for the free film. You never know who you are helping or why.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-26-2018, 06:05 PM:

On this: Last week I had a senior citizen actually scold me on why we don't let senior citizens for free .. at all times..

He told me that they've put their time in to society and deserve restitution of sorts.

I replied back that I'll bring this up to the company brass.

Dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-26-2018, 06:12 PM:

For many years my theater let in senior citizens for a dollar. When we took over, we adjusted it be the same as the pre-school price. Since then we've raised it in increments to where it's now between the kid and adult prices.

Some seniors don't WANT to get the discount and insist on paying the full price. I like that group!

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 12-26-2018, 07:17 PM:

I've heard seniors don't like the word "senior" unless it's followed by "discount."

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-26-2018, 10:46 PM:

Even then they don't like it.

I've had people complain when they don't get the senior discount, and I've had people complain when they do.

So I solved that problem a few years ago. No senior discount. The only admission categories now are 12-and-under, and everyone else.

Someday I might get rid of 12-and-under as well, and just have a per-seat price. But I haven't got there yet.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-26-2018, 11:20 PM:

We have five prices. The reason is partly historic....this theater has always had five prices since before I was born, and the computer system makes it easy.

Adults (12 and up)
Student discount (age 12 thru 18 - they have to present a discount card to get the discount)
Child (6-11)
Pre-school (2-5)
Senior (65 +)

The student-discount is interesting. It used to be a really hot item, because the card gives the student a dollar off each movie, and after 10 movies they get a free one. A total savings of $17.75.
We hardly do any of the high-school discounts any more though, because the kids don't want to bother with the cards. They'll carry their silly cell phone (plus charger) everywhere they go, but a little card is too much bother. So they mostly all pay the full price.

Our pre-school price is $1.50 lower than the kid price. I have thought about getting rid of the pre-school price and making everyone under 12 the same, but I just can't stomach the idea of charging that much for a little 2- or 3-year old, who, in all likelihood, is going to fall asleep long before the movie is over.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 12-27-2018, 11:48 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
They'll carry their silly cell phone (plus charger) everywhere they go, but a little card is too much bother.

You could build a function like that into the Roxy Theatre app since they're carrying a phone anyway.

But since they're paying full price the other way, you might be better off not doing that.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-27-2018, 05:33 PM:

The touchy one though, is the military discount since some venues allow this and others have no policy on this.

I work at a venue that doesn't offer military discount and we do have some senior citizens working with us. One was in box selling tix and this one hot guy of a military guy approached this one employee asked for military discount and was replied back that there is no military discount.

The customer exploded all over this employee about that he served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he deserved his discount.

Employee reared up and told him that his father served under Patton and was at Normandy, that he was proud to do service to his country and never asked for any discount.

Shut this hot shot up real quick. He wife was total embarrassed and yanked him away quickly

Few months later, I was up in box doing the same selling tix and these young military guys after buying tix wondered why they didn't get discount. I told them that my cousin, who fought in Nam, and lost his life at Da Nang ,never thought about asking for discounts. They walked away quietly.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-27-2018, 06:04 PM:

We don't have a posted military discount but if anybody asks for one we just punch them in as a student so they get a dollar off. (My dad served in Korea and both of my grandfathers in WW2, and I don't recall any of them mentioning any form of discounts ever.)

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 01-02-2019, 05:43 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
We had to pay Paramount Repertory for it. It is available on DCP but we already had a Blu-Ray of it so I played my converted version, rather than having to mess with a KDM and pay $50 to ship it in and out. I think it was about $100 cheaper to provide our own copy. It looked really really good.

Depending upon your setup, that's actually too bad as I've seen the 4K restoration and it looks absolutely incredible.

I don't know if you're setup to be able to project 4K though.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-02-2019, 07:34 PM:

Ours is 2K, but the b&w from the blu-ray looked excellent. I even had compliments on it. Many people around here have no idea that we ever switched away from film, and that's just fine with me.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 01-04-2019, 10:25 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Many people around here have no idea that we ever switched away from film, and that's just fine with me.

And this, my friends, is the best example of proving that Mike did film right!!! [thumbsup]

His prints were obviously kept clean and free of scratches, which are the usual giveaways to the public that film is being shown.