Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: No movie schedule in Honolulu's newspapers anymore

This is topic No movie schedule in Honolulu's newspapers anymore in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-14-2016, 06:31 PM:

A while back, Regal dropped publishing their movie schedule in our major newspaper, the Honolulu Star Advertiser and Honolulu's other major exhibitor, Consolidated Theatres operated by Reading International also did the same two days ago.

I remember when I was young, I used to go first to the almost full page movie section in both of our major newspapers at that time, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star Bulletin and enjoy looking at the display advertisements. On Fridays and Sundays the section would be full page the the ads were bigger The Waikiki, Kuhio, Princess, Hawaii, King, Queen, Palace and sometimes the Liberty would each have their movies advertised in a display ad everyday. Only the neighborhood theaters like my hometown theatre, the Waipahu would have their movies and playtime listed only.

I guest the exhibitors feel the internet is the way to inform the public what they are playing but I feel for the people who love movies but do not have a computer.

-Claude

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 07-14-2016, 06:54 PM:

It has to do with the cost of the ads. Here in San Francisco Bay Area the cost for a listing in the San Francisco Chronicle is very high. Many theatres have dropped their ads or just go to one line telling to call the theatre for showtimes.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 07-14-2016, 07:15 PM:

We dropped our ad in the local paper about 3 years ago. Prior to doing so we surveyed our customers and found that close to 75% got show times online. Of the remaining 25%, many were from our show times recording, driving by the theatre, or from word of mouth. Only about 5% of our customers were getting show times from the newspaper, and of those something like 60% also used the internet and other sources.

With this data we were able to calculate out that our ad in the newspaper cost in the ballpark of $1.25 per ticket generated. And many of those tickets were senior citizens. So roughly 17% of the revenue from each of those tickets went to the newspaper ad. Needless to say it was obvious the newspaper ad had to go. For those customers who depended on the newspaper, we now send a schedule through the mail. In the 3 years we've had 15 people total sign up for this mailing, and 2 have since dropped off. It's probably been more than a year since we've even had someone ask about a listing in the news paper.

It's a similar story with our show times recording. We used to have 4 incoming lines and received something like 3000-4000 calls a week. We have dropped down to just 2 lines and we are only seeing about 200-300 calls a week, even on really busy weeks.

Unfortunately the phone companies and newspapers are driving these decisions by driving rates up to the point that eliminating these costs makes sense. When I was a kid, I know movie listings would actually drive newspaper sales, and many papers provided the listing for free for this reason.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-14-2016, 07:15 PM:

Since everyone plays the same films, there is no co-op to promote a specific film. Showmanship died.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-14-2016, 07:17 PM:

REG has done it at all of their locations.
Even the locals chains have dropped doing newspaper theatre ad slicks.

True, the cost per square inch have really risen at the newspapers and the strong popularity of internet advertising, the addition of smartphone apps which caused the sudden change from hardcopy to internet access only saves tons of money for the cinema owners.

Plus the usage of the online ticket FANDANGO services (which, they could open up their own huge cinema circuit and pay cash for it from the fees collected by moviegoers ordering tix online or by phone apps ... which I also heard that these fees are going up from a $1.50 to $2.25) and other online tix services, is the other money savings factor for the owners.

-Monte

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-14-2016, 07:41 PM:

I posted this before, here.

quote:
When I first opened my theatre I paid for a "now playing" ad in the local weekly paper because, well, that's what you do, right? Advertise in the paper.

The guys at the paper screwed up during the week that I was going to play the first Spider-man movie, and put that as "now playing" the week prior to the week that I was actually going to play it.

Great, I thought, I'll have people coming here all week to see Spider-man. "I drove 40 miles to see this movie and you're telling me that it's not here!"

So I braced myself for a tough week of telling people that the ad in the paper was wrong. And how many people came here expecting to see Spider-man during that week? Zero. Nobody.

That told me that nobody was reading my ad in the paper, so I have never advertised in it again.

Up until I got my digital cinema setup I sent out a monthly flyer in the mail. I now just advertise on my website and don't send a flyer. The website gets an amazing amount of traffic and costs very little to operate; I was spending $1000 per month on postage for the flyer, plus the cost of printing it. I give away fridge magnets to all-and-sundry with the website url on it; everybody seems to like the magnets.

I have a sign-up form on my website for people to sign up for a weekly email to tell them what's playing here. Over four hundred people are on my email mailing list at the moment.

And I still give away fridge magnets.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 07-15-2016, 10:29 AM:

Years ago, there used to be "press books" sent out to all the locations that booked a specific film. They contained information about the film, faux news stories you could provide to local newspapers, ordering information on all the types of promotional items that were available (poster sizes, banners, standees, radio spots, etc), ideas for theatre managers to promote the film, and of course add slicks for the film in various sizes. In later years, these "press books" dwindled down to mostly just add slicks.

Do these still exist for current films?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-15-2016, 08:22 PM:

I haven't seen one of those in years. I still have the one from Disney's "The Fox and the Hound." I kept it because we hardly ever got them so I thought it was a cool souvenir.

I expect most "press kits" these days are online.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-16-2016, 10:10 AM:

The old press promotion kits were so wonderfully cheesie. Always full of old school promotional advice that was mostly useless, and sure to get you into the Showmandizer section of BoxOffice Magazine.

A friend of mine worked for Roger Corman's New World for awhile when he was starting out. Since everyone got to work on everything when they worked for Corman, my friend worked on some of the promotion kits that were sent out to all of the theatres. They read like parody issues (and could get you arrested these days). Things like scatter bloody clothing around on the beach - notify the police and press (for Up From the Depths); call in a bomb threat to your local school. When everyone is evacuated call the police and wonder if it is a coincidence that the bomb threats came just after Rock and Roll High School -in which they blow up the high school - opened at [your theatre].

Nowadays, many of the major and minor studios do not even do electronic "ad slicks" for their movies. We are a calendar house and still use them in our monthly calendar. Much of our audience is very attached to their monthly calendar, though we recently cut the mailing and printing from 6000 a month to 3000. We don't get anywhere near 3000 attendance a month, much less 3000.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-16-2016, 03:23 PM:

I have a pretty ratty book of advertising artwork for Bonnie and Clyde that I found in a theatre attic. I think that I paid the theatre owner $10 for it in the '90s.

Does anyone still do movie press kits? The ones from the '90s and earlier were interesting, with B&W stills, color slides, and press releases. Last I heard, most were on CD or DVD now, so printing the photos required a trip to the local photo lab (and payment by the theatre, not the distributor, for the prints).

When I was submitting two short films that I made to festivals a couple of years ago, I was asked once or twice about press kits (for a short film? really?). The ones that actually screened the films were happy with a few scanned stills that they could use in their program books. Oddly, one asked for a trailer (how does one make a trailer for a five-minute short?). I told them that I didn't have one....

As for movie times in newspapers, I am sure that this is a cost-saving move as newspaper circulation goes down and advertising rates go up. People without computers can always call the theatre by telephone, although this is admittedly annoying for large multi-screen theatres with long lists of movie times.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-16-2016, 08:15 PM:

Prior to '86, I also did ads the hard way... press books, grid paper, line tape, blue pencils, exacto knife, rubber cement and a nice drawing board.

When we took our drive-in over in '86, the place was running 2-column display ads EVERY DAY. That soon dropped to weekends only. We had 12 lines on our phone system. Down the road, we had an opt-in fax page (we never did do mail). We reduced our line count as phone usage decreased. Now, it's just phone company voice mail on one line (multi user). We dropped the newspaper nearly 12 years ago, when they neglected to insert our ad (tried to charge for it though) and NOBODY asked about it. That alone saved me about $2,500 per month, as by that time, I was just running small directory ads.

Today, Facebook is our major connection to our customers. Behind that is an opt-in email sheet I send out each week... basically, a copy of our web site's front page. Our highway sign is passed by over 35,000 cars per day, and I suppose word of mouth fits in there somewhere. Phone usage has just a minimal influence on our business, but I keep it around as it does get used some.

My phone lines used to cost some $40/mo each, plus a raft of taxes and fees. That's gone, as well as the newspaper. Now it's $19 per month for the internet account and whatever my wife pays in for extra boosts on the Facebook page.

I do agree though. The old display ads were a lot of fun to look at, though they sure did take time to produce.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-17-2016, 02:37 PM:

I think the quality of advertising in movies has been on a downward decline for a long time. I think it has taken away some of the "big" buzz, hype or whatever you want to call surrounding movies versus that of a TV show. It seems like the movie poster of tomorrow will be a 150 pixel by 300 pixel thumbnail image for a web page or mobile phone app.

I really liked the big "stack" co-op ads in newspapers -the ones that would have a big poster image of the movie and all the theaters playing it listed below. They were even better when things like those big 70mm logos came into play. Those ads are still being placed in newspapers of the largest cities, even full page ads in some cases. Not as much work is being put into them anymore due to the decline in newspapers advertising. A lot of the sound & projection info has disappeared in such ads. Just plain location listings. Those kinds of ads are all long gone in the newspapers of many other cities. There has been no attempt to duplicate that kind of advertising online.

One of the things I also liked about the stack ads is you could immediately see which theaters were playing a certain movie and in which sound/projection format. A movie-goer could quickly size theaters up against each other and maybe try out a different theater rather than just driving to the nearest one.

Web sites have replaced theater directory ads in newspapers. Some of this is the fault of newspapers for gouging on the ad prices. Web sites can be updated more easily, more frequently and with no worry of a mistake getting printed and unable to adjust for a solid day or more.

I'm not a big fan of the new trend to replace 27" X 41" printed movie posters with HDTV screens showing electronic versions. While a HDTV screen rotated vertically might seem high-tech and slick, that screen doesn't have the resolution to do the imagery, graphics & type any justice. Credits at the bottom of the poster can end up looking pretty bad due to the limited resolution. I can see movie studios adjusting to that by either eliminating the credits or simplifying them so they can be bigger. But what we'll end up getting is something more plain. Movie poster art has already been on a downward decline anyway. So many of them just feature some actor's Photoshopped head and very little else.

I haven't seen as much movie advertising done "out of home" lately -things like billboards, bus wraps, giant posters in high traffic locations. So much of it seems to be devolving into ads just for computer screens, phones and tablets. There's nothing BIG about that kind of advertising. There's no epic scale to it.

Maybe all this is fitting with movies whose plot lines are churned out via the Save the Cat! templates and dialog watered down to people in China and elsewhere can understand it more easily.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-17-2016, 07:18 PM:

Bobby--we still get lots of "big" movie advertising in this market, at least for the major releases. Billboards, public transit ads, and the like are all pretty common. And TV/radio spots, of course. Maybe this has been dropped in smaller markets, but I still see quite a bit of it in this larger-mid-size market.

At the theatre level, only the big chains get standees and such. Independents usually only get trailers and posters. Is it still hard for small-market theatres to get these? I know that both were in short supply in the '90s for late-run art-house titles. I never understood that, since it is in the distributors' interest to help theatres advertise their films.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 07-17-2016, 07:55 PM:

Scott, we can still get standees from some movies. It just boils down to what the studios make available. In many cases they will have really spectacular standees for flagship locations, then smaller version for other theatres.

For the most part I don't order many standees because most of them are too tall for the hallways, and my lobby isn't really laid out in a way which accommodates a big standee. For the most part we just do one sheets and bus shelters (when available).

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-17-2016, 08:43 PM:

Justin -- that is good to hear.

One related topic that I have wondered about before is this: in NYC and LA and other big markets, the "flagship" theatres often have (what look to be) custom-made banners attached to their marquees to advertise what they are playing. These use the title art and other design elements that are specific to each film. For example, this is how the Odeon West End in London advertised its screenings when it was playing Interstellar in 70mm in 2014:

I always thought that these were neat. What are they called and are they something that the theatre makes or something that the distributor provides?

Pretty much every theatre not in a top market uses changeable-letter marquees like this one:

These are no doubt more economical than having a custom banner made for every film, but they are also not as appealing to the eye of a passer-by. (Although the one pictured above has some impressive neon tubes that are not visible in this B&W photograph taken during the day.)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-17-2016, 08:45 PM:

I'm in the same situation as Justin. Our lobby is too small and has too low a ceiling for a majority of standees. Some studios (Sony, Fox) are easy to get standees from, and the rest are next to impossible. We haven't ever had a Disney standee to my knowledge.

Posters are easy to get for the most part, depending on the studio, although in all cases if you wait until the movie has opened to order, you risk them running out.

The current major frustration, one-sheet-wise, is the amazingly clunky Technicolor website, which when you ask it to list "current films," lists pretty much every movie (major and indie) from the last five or six years. They need to go in and purge that thing every month or so.

The "new upgraded" site from Sony isn't much better but at least it's restricted to Sony films so it narrows down the clutter. But the shopping cart structure and workings of these sites are just incredibly clunky compared to.... well just about any other site that has a shopping cart.

Universal's site has been the easiest to use for a long time even through a few different iterations and a completely unnecessary name change.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 07-17-2016, 09:04 PM:

Re: Mural banners

We had 3 of these, not for every movie, but upcoming blockbusters. The distribs paid for the custom vinyl banners and changeout(Or most of it?) Later, they wanted us to pay for it(or more of it?) I guess, and Regal certainly wasn't willing to do that so they changed them to awful 'permanent' ads for gift cards/rewards cards. I'm not real sure on the specifics of who paid what but I'm sure at least a majority had to have been paid by the distribs for Hollywood to have paid for it but Regal to have not.

Our location can be seen here:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/16083/photos/28511

Our sister theater at:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/31186/photos/7115
(They only have one full size and one half-width as opposed to our 3 full size)

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-17-2016, 09:40 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I can see movie studios adjusting to that by either eliminating the credits or simplifying them so they can be bigger.

Credits are contractual, which is why most modern poster are crowded with unreadable text. I predict as posters go electronic they will come with a built in credit crawl loop.

[ed. corrected the weird autocorrect]

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 07-17-2016, 10:29 PM:

I have for many years collected the movie theatre section of the Friday SF Chronicle/Oakland Tribune and the LA Times from the 1950's & 60's. You can also find these on line sometimes. I find some newspapers still in great condition. I frame all the old 2/4 col ads into one big one sheet size frame with different cities. These were the best times as all the theatres advertised in a long neighborhood list plus huge display ads. Loved the opening of CinemaScope® 3-D and Cinerama ads. I still say in San Francisco with all the tourist traffic all the AMC Theatres in SF and some small local non circuit cinemas miss business. They just need to run 2 small word ads (Fri/Sat) in the small list of mainly Century/Cinemark/Landmark ads in the SF Chronicle and I know they will get some more business from out of town movie people. Most have no idea were the 2 big AMC theatres are in SF but they can see the Century listings and locations. It's also so sad in today's new theatres they are so cheap with many without any neon marquee with plastic letters that tell what is playing or even a LED screen. This saves them help with people going up a ladder each week and maybe falling down. Do the studios know how much $$ they loose without doing any advertising in a paper when a new film opens each week? Yes people still buy a newspaper on the weekend to see what is going on in the entertainment world around the SF Bay Area. If I had the extra money I could prove my point by placing a small ad for the New Mission Theatre in SF on Thurs/Sun in the movie time listing in the SF Chronice and I bet the business will go up 40% for that weekend. The older people in SF have no idea this old theatre is open again after being remodeled nicely by Drafthouse Cinemas as they along with many other cinemas in SF don't do any advertising. I guess they don't want more money coming in.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 07-18-2016, 11:46 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
One related topic that I have wondered about before is this: in NYC and LA and other big markets, the "flagship" theatres often have (what look to be) custom-made banners attached to their marquees to advertise what they are playing. These use the title art and other design elements that are specific to each film.

Special lobby or front of house type displays date back to the teens and 20's in major markets. The Flagship theatres got this special treatment. NYC and LA and SF had some great displays and marquees.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-18-2016, 03:50 PM:

The Honolulu Star Advertiser publishes a tabloid that is included with the newspaper and in it are restaurant articles and advertisements. Also included are mini reviews of every movie that are now playing in Honolulu theaters. Although Consolidated dropped their movie listing advertisement last Wednesday, they did have an ad last Friday in the tabloid. Once again,, there were no ad the next day on Saturday, Sunday and yesterday. It seem, Consolidated will only Advertise on Friday.

-Claude

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 07-18-2016, 05:21 PM:

quote: Terry Monohan
If I had the extra money I could prove my point by placing a small ad for the New Mission Theatre in SF on Thurs/Sun in the movie time listing in the SF Chronice and I bet the business will go up 40% for that weekend.

I'd bet even the contract price per column inch in SF would be really scary today. That 40% increase in business might get eaten alive.

Posted by Mike Rivest (Member # 5500) on 07-18-2016, 06:14 PM:

Montreal, QC papers (6) lists only on Friday

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 07-21-2016, 01:57 AM:

The Mistake, the name I have given to Cinemark's theater under construction in Sacramento where the Century domes used to be, is planning on having large banners outside the building advertising the big movies. I am betting in a couple of years they will give up on those and either stop using them or change them to something generic that can stay up long-term.