Next couple weeks films. Sep 3- 16

Since we were closed for three weeks we built up a backlog of available movies. This resulted in us not playing a couple films we would have otherwise, but also allowed me to book the Frosh Week movies early. We try to get the new students into the theatre during Frosh Week so I booked the films ahead so the orientation staff and sophs can tell them what we are playing.

Here's some of the films that came available.



A-Team- from Fox so couldn't split, this movie wasn't worth playing by itself.

Knight and Day- also Fox and even less worth playing by itself.



If we had been open the three weeks I would have asked Fox if we could play both movies the same week, they will usually split with their own movies. Now better movies are available so I won't be playing either one.



Predators- Fox, no splits but probably wouldn't have played it anyway.



The Last Airbender - no words are needed.



Sorcerer's Apprentice. If we had been open I might have played it just to fill space but now I don't need to. It was a fun movie, I don't think it deserved the horrible death it got.

For re-opening I ended up booking The Girl Who Played With Fire. I'd rather have reopened with a big movie like Inception but it wasn't available. Also I wanted to play Girl before school started as a lot of the non-students stop coming during the first couple weeks of school. The other movie I reopened with was Grown Ups.

For Frosh Week I booked Twilight Eclipse and Dinner For Schmucks. Twilight isn't the best Frosh Week movie as mostly only the girls will go. Dinner For Schmucks is good for anyone.

For the last part of Frosh Week I booked Toy Story 3 and Salt, both good films. I wanted to play matinees of Toy Story but the theatre was already booked by someone else. Not an issue I would have had to worry about if we had got it before school started.

Renovations complete!

The new seats are in, along with the new floor and some of the walls have been painted. As soon as I remember to take my camera in I'll post some pics.

The new seats are more comfortable than the old ones and have higher backs. The cupholders were delayed for some reason but are supposed to be installed soon.

The floor is now vinyl, not the prettiest things to look at but much easier to clean than carpet considering how much stuff is spilled in the theatre.

The new video projector hasn't come in yet. I'm looking forward to seeing the image it puts out. We are bringing back the midnight shows on video as a result.

Going to be an interesting year...

This trailer make no sense but looks cool.

The movie is directed by Zack Snyder who did 300 and Watchmen. I like the imagery but have no idea how it all compiles into a movie?!

Next Week's films Jul 30 - Aug 5

I've gotten behind on these again. The only new movie available to play for next week was The Last Airbender which I don't plan to play. The Karate Kid and Prince of Persia had both come available in the last couple weeks so I choose those. I'm not sure how Prince of Persia will do as it wasn't exactly a huge hit but I think it will do well enough to play it.

The A-Team is available but I can't split it so it probably won't be played. We are going to be closed for three playweeks for renovations as of Aug 6th. The timing is actually kinda good. I'm running out of movies to play. This has been a weird summer with a lot of disappointing movies, most of which we have either already played or won't be playing. Most of the movies currently playing now are hits that will keep playing first run for a while like Toy Story 3 and Inception. All the big summer movies have opened so there isn't a lot of new product coming out to bump older films off the screens. Whereas something like Iron Man 2 takes up several screens in a multiplex opening weekend the films left this summer are the kind that only take one.

About the only film that might have been available for the following week is The Girl Who Played With Fire and I think there's still no extra prints so even if The Hyland drops it the print will go off to another first run theatre.

I expect to reopen on Aug 27th with Toy Story 3 and Girl Who Played With Fire but we'll see what happens.

Bollywood Films.

Just a quick post regarding a comment left on a previous post asking about Bollywood (Indian) Films. The ones that have played over the last couple years were put on by others renting out Western Film. They sold the tickets etc. I haven't heard from them for a while so they may not wish to do any more. The attendance was never super high.
I tried to put on Bollywood films myself a couple times but I didn't know how to market to the proper community.

The basic problem is we have to wait 2-3 weeks after the films have been released in order to play them. We have to wait until a theatre in Toronto is done with a print before we can show it. The piracy is so bad on Bollywood films they are basically dead by the time we can show them.

I do find it frustrating as I'm constantly being asked to show Bollywood films but then not enough people show up when we do. Piracy is a two way street, if people are willing to watch the pirated versions then theatres won't be able to play them.

Next Week's Films Jul 9 - 15

I'd already scheduled in Robin Hood so I only needed to decide on what late show to play. Shrek 4 was available but obviously isn't well suited to a late show. It will play starting Jul 23 at 7pm and matinees. The only other movie that the booker was checking on was Get Him To The Greek which ended up holding so it wasn't available to us. I would have put it in a the late show if it had come available. I was considering keeping Iron Man 2 as a late show but wasn't sure. Robin Hood is quite long which would make the Iron Man 2 show at 9:45 and Iron Man isn't exactly a short film. The evening shows of Iron Man have done quite well. The matinees were a bust but I think a lot of that was due to the holiday weekend and people being out of town. Bringing back Date Night as a late show has worked reasonably well. So I decided to keep Iron Man 2 for a late show. I'm also doing a bit of experimenting with matinees. I'd going to run matinees of Robin Hood to try to gauge how non kid's movies will do. I'm also going to run matinees of Iron Man 2 partly to see if the first weekend was a fluke and to give people who didn't come last week a chance to see it.

Considering how the matinees for How To Train Your Dragon did I was truly shocked we didn't get more people for the Iron Man matinees. It was very out of character as Sundays are almost always busier than Saturday but we ended up having no one show up for the 1:45 show on Sunday?!

So the Robin Hood matinees are at 1:30 and the Iron Man 2 matinees are at 4:15. This is the first time I've run two different movies as matinees, I hope it's not too confusing.

Sex and the City 2 is already booked for the following week and will probably be followed by a late show of Get Him To The Greek. I doubt Robin Hood will do well enough to keep for another week.

Now accepting Debit and Credit Cards (at the Snack Bar)

I finally gave in and put in debit/credit at the snack bar. I've been reluctant for a couple reasons. The main one is speed. It takes a lot longer to do a card transaction than a cash one, especially for those who are a little slow putting their PIN in. I'm not as concerned about speed at the Snack Bar as we can get the popcorn or whatever while they finish paying.

The second reason I was reluctant was cost. It will cost about $100 a month to rent the equipment and the phone line and they take a fee every time debit is used and a percentage every time a credit card is used. It's not a huge amount per transaction but it will add up.

You may be asking why did I put the debit machine in then? Basically I noticed a lot of people wanting to buy stuff and not having cash and walking away. For tickets people have come to the movie so they will usually go to a bank machine in the building for ticket money but for snacks they are more optional so people are less likely to go to the bank machine. A ticket is only $4.20 and most people have a little cash but the concessions can cost more for a combo or whatever. There's also a fair number of people in the building studying who aren't going to the movie so again it's more optional.

We are selling tickets at the Snack Bar for those who don't have cash. I'm nervous too many people will want to buy tickets with debit and cause back ups. We are going to wait and see.

I suppose it's only a matter of time before I have to put in a card machine at the Box Office but I don't want to. The speed factor will create nasty lines. We only have one til and I can do about 10 cash transactions in the time it takes to do one debit. Since most people show up in the last 10 minutes before the movie we sometimes have to sell anywhere from 50 to 150 tickets in that time frame.

We'll see what happens.

Next Week's Movies Jul 2- 8

This is one of those weeks that's a bit annoying. There were 4 movies available, 3 of which I plan to play. The 4th one was Jonah Hex which I'm not going to play as it bombed very, very, badly and wasn't a very good movie.

Of the three I do plan to play I picked one for next week and I've slotted the other two in for later weeks. I decided to play Iron Man 2 first. This is basically a long weekend and the kids are just out of school so I figured it was a good week for something somewhat kid friendly and light. It's playing at the 7pm show and I'm going to run matinees on Sat and Sun.

Neither of the other films available I wanted to play as a late show so I decided to bring back Date Night. It did better than I expected when I played it for both shows and most nights the late show was actually busier than the early show. It's also quite short.

Robin Hood is scheduled to start Jul 9 and Sex and the City 2 for Jul 16th. I don't see anything else coming off that I would rather play then these so I thought I would just go ahead and book them in so I can advertise them. They will play the 7pm show. I think I'm going to try another experiment and run matinees of both. I've noticed a fair number of people show up to matinees that I never see at evening shows. I don't see either matinees being really busy so I'm going to try running with only two staff instead of the usual three to save money in case the matinees don't do well. Two staff is only a problem for the couple minutes when the projectionist is in starting the film. For that period we will sell tickets at the snack bar.

Late shows for those weeks will depend on what's available and how other films do. I might keep Iron Man for example if it does well. However both Robin Hood and SATC2 are fairly long so would make the late show start time fairly late.

Helen Mirren with a Machine Gun?!

I hope this film coming out in the fall is anywhere as near as good as it looks.

Next Week's movies Jun 25 - Jul 1 - a little late.

Got busy last week and didn't make this posting when I usually do.

The only new movie available was Killers which I wasn't sure about playing. Letters To Juliet had been available for a couple weeks but other films kept coming off so it hadn't been played yet. I decided to go with Letters To Juliet at 7pm, it's one of those films that has to be the 7pm show.

I thought a bit about whether to play Killers. I had previously decided not to play it but it came available quite quickly. Since we got it that fast I figured we might as well try it. It didn't get the best word of mouth but the stars are fairly popular. It's also a bit of an experiment to see if negative buzz is having the effect I think it is. If Killers doesn't do well I think that's pretty much it for negative buzz films. I tried playing MacGruber which turned out to be better than most thought it would be but it still had a negative buzz to it. It bombed at Western Film and didn't even break even. I saw Killers and found it entertaining enough but it wasn't the best movie I've ever seen.

I wish I could play this before every Film.

One of the most common reasons given for people not going to theatres are the behaviours of the audiences. Noise, talking, lighted devices and other distractions. I find I avoid the busy nights at other theatres to try to get distracted as little as possible.

I found this video on the web. I'd like to show it every night before the films but the numerous regulars that come often would probably get sick of it.

Let me know what you think...

Cinema Etiquette from Damien Ferland on Vimeo.

Cool TRON stuff

I remember seeing the original TRON movie back in 1982 and being absolutely enthralled. I convinced my father to buy me a Vic-20 which was one of the first home computers. It was called the Vic -20 because it had 20 K of memory...yes you read that right, 20K not M. The entire computer ran on what now is the size of an average picture file. The back-up device was a cassette Drive which was also how one loaded programs. Needless to say I was disappointed when I couldn't recreate the world of TRON in that computer. It could do the horizon look pretty good though, but not the Light Cycle.

The sequel comes out Dec 17 and the trailer makes it look amazing. I hope it lives up to it.
I found these videos of a couple of cool-tie-in Toys that are also coming out. The remote control car actually drives up the wall?!

Check out the videos and then the trailer if you haven't already.

Next Week's Film Jun 18 - 24

There was only one new film available which made a couple decisions easier. Date Night was available but since it's from Fox I would only be able to play it by itself, not split it with another movie for the week. I had been trying to decide whether to play it as I wasn't sure it warranted a week all to itself. Since it was the only film I didn't have to decide.

I had been trying to decide whether to keep the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for another week. It had done well on the weekend but not spectacular and it's really long. Since I couldn't split it with Date Night that made up my mind for me.

The other decision I had to make was whether to play just one show of Date Night at 7pm or play two shows a night. Date Night is quite short so the late show could run at 9pm so I decided to run the late show. It won't cost too much extra staffing so it's worth the risk of experimenting. If the movie had been a full two hours long I would have just done one show. My staff like it when I run two shows so they get in a full shift. If there's only one show they only get two hours work.

Date Night is a funny movie so I suggest seeing it, and stay for the scenes in the credits.

The only movie I've got in the backlog right now is Letters To Juliet which I could have played a couple weeks ago but other films I wanted to play more kept coming available. It looks like we won't have space to play The Last Song which I was kinda iffy about anyway.

Robin Hood should be available soon and maybe Iron Man 2. I think I'll try running matinees for Iron Man, we did some for How To Train Your Dragon and they did okay.

That was Close...

I was working as projectionist tonight. The movie playing was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which is a long, intense thriller. The movie was in the credits and only one guy was left in the theatre watching the credits. Suddenly the power went out for no apparent reason. Initially he gave me a bit of a dirty look thinking I had turned the film off on him but the entire building was dark. I was so glad the power didn't go off even 5 minutes earlier, imagine sitting there for 2 1/2 hours and suddenly the screen goes blank right at the climax of the film?! The power was only off for a few minutes so I could have finished showing the film but sometimes it's off for hours.

It was kind of odd, the power usually only goes off during thunderstorms and it wasn't even raining.

It reminded me of a time that did suck. I was working at the Galleria Cineplex back in 1998 for a matinee of Saving Private Ryan. That movie is almost 3 hours long. It was about 10 minutes from the end and suddenly the bulb went dark, so the screen went dark, but the sound would have continued. The manager wanted me to change the bulb but it's dangerous to change a bulb when it's hot so I said I had to wait 20 minutes. The people got passes or whatever but I wasn't able to finish running the show for them because it would have screwed up later showings. When I started running the film through I noticed it had gone dark right when a major character was having his big death scene. Ouch.

Upcoming changes at Western Film.

There's a few things afoot at Western Film over the next few months. Some good and some not so.

The Good.

New Seats- Probably in August all the seats and carpet on the main floor are going to be replaced. The carpet is pretty old and stained. There is going to be vinyl under the seats and maybe carpet still in the aisles. The seats haven't been chosen yet but will look similar to the pic. We aren't changing the layout in terms of elevation. The new seats may or may not be the same size so I'm not sure if the total number of seats will change. The new ones will probably have cup holders instead of the tablets, the tablets aren't needed since the room isn't being used for classes any more.

Website redesign- we are going to redo the website, I'm going to add a lot of pics and start embedding trailers. The current design doesn't match the decor of the theatre or the atmosphere I'm trying to create.

No Classes- Since the new classrooms opened downstairs the McKellar room isn't being used for classes any more. This should help with people thinking we aren't a 'real' theatre since we ran in a classroom. I always tried to get people to think of McKellar room as a movie theatre that also held classes rather than a classroom that showed films. There will also be more opportunity to rent the theatre out to show films to high school classes, student clubs etc.

The Not So.

New admission price- Come July 1 the ticket price will go up. I'll do another post on it later but basically we have to go up because of the HST.

New Snack bar prices- our costs for supplies have steadily gone up and with minimum wage raises driving up all the wages we pay we are going to have to raise prices at some point. I'm trying to keep it as low as possible. We aren't sure when the change will be.

I'm Back...

As anyone who's actually reading this knows I kinda stopped posting a while ago. It was a combination of things, busy at work and buying a house and all the work and time that entails.

I had set myself the goal of posting each day but sometimes didn't have time so got frustrated and basically stopped altogether.

I realized i missed writing the posts and have had a few people comment that I should start again which implies someone is reading.

So I'm going to start again but not give myself any kind of preset number of posts and just do them as I can. I'll at least do the Next Week's Movies posts as those are probably interesting.

Changes in attendance patterns

I've noticed a couple things over the summer I thought were interesting. They may or may not continue during the school year.

Fewer Children to kid's movies. - Even for UP which was a big hit most of the attendance was adults, the other kid's movies we played didn't do great. The matinees just barely broke even. I was planning to play ICE AGE 3 but I don't think I will now. I don't think adults want to see it enough.

Yet more spreading out of business over the nights. - When I first started at Western Film we had a fairly standard pattern, busy weekends and discount Tuesday, the rest of the week was fairly quiet. Over the last few years it spread out until most nights were at least somewhat busy. This summer it got even weirder. Sunday and Monday were often busier than Friday or Saturday?! Tuesdays aren't as busy but sometimes Wednesday or Thursday are busier than Tuesday.

During the school year I attributed this to more night classes plus students going out to other places on the weekends. For the summer I think it's people going away or whatever on the weekend and seeing the movies during the week. I kinda like this trend, it takes the same number of staff to man the theatre for 10 people or 60. If we get the same number of people spread over more nights then we have less problems with lineups or the theatre getting too crowded and people not getting to sit where they want.

In very general terms people seem to be willing to see films they haven't heard a lot about but have heard are good. I'm not sure how much this affects it but a couple people have said they decided to see a film because we were playing it on the assumption that it must be good. It makes sense, as a single screen theatre I'm not going to play a film that isn't good if people also haven't heard of it. I only play bad films that were big hits (I'm looking at you Twilight).

Next Week's Movies Sep 4 - 10

Next Week is one of the most important of the year. We try to get as many of the new students as possible to know Western Film is here and hopefully go to a film as part of thier orientation. This year I got two movies I consider to be perfect Frosh Week movies. Both have general appeal and are comedies good for going to in groups. THE PROPOSAL is at 7pm and THE HANGOVER plays at 9:20.

My current plan is the switch THE HANGOVER to 7pm starting Sept 11. I think I can get a third week out of it and there's probably a lot of people who want to see it but don't want to go to the late show for whatever reason. I'll decide on Tuesday what to play as a late show that week.

The Ugly Truth should be available, MOON is still on my list to play. Harry Potter may come off soon. I may try Star Trek for another week once the students come back. That's one of those films that can be watched more than once. I've seen the whole movie 4 times, the beginning 5 times and the ending about 8 while working.

The last couple weeks.

I've been bad about posting again. I'll go through what I've played the last few weeks in case anyone cares.

UP- I decided to try to do both evenings shows plus matinees for this one. The late show was surprisingly busy. The matinees did okay but we got mostly adults, not a lot of kids. I may bring it back.

STAR TREK- Did well enough it's second week that I may bring it back during the school year.

PUBLIC ENEMIES- did okay

TRANSFORMERS- was surprisingly quiet, not dead but not what I would have expected.

FUNNY PEOPLE - didn't do very well, I understood why after I watched it. How can so many funny people make a movie that's not very funny and way too long.

AWAY WE GO. - this was a bit of an experiment. I had an opening after Funny People and no other new movies were available. I wasn't sure how to full it as the show would be rather late starting because of the length of Funny People. My first choice was MOON but there weren't any prints available. If AWAY WE GO had not been available I would have put in UP for another week. In retrospect I should have switched the order and played AWAY WE GO at 7pm and FUNNY PEOPLE for the late show. AWAY WE GO probably would have out grossed Funny People then.

THE HURT LOCKER - another bit of an experiment, got a lot of great reviews but awareness was low. It actually did better than I expected and it's a good sign that people will take a chance on good movies.

BRUNO did okay but I expected more. The people that did come tended to laugh a lot.

THE HANGOVER- did quite well for a 10pm show. I'm bringing it back from Frosh week as the late show and plan to play it again the following week at 7pm to give people a chance to see it who don't want to see the late show.

These movies I rejected.

ALIENS IN THE ATTIC- Fox was unusually nice and was going to let us split it but it wouldn't have done any business.

I LOVE YOU BETH COPPER- Fox plus wouldn't have done any business.

A PERFECT GETAWAY- a okay little action film but wouldn't have done any business.

Next Week's Movies Jul 31 - Aug 6

I already knew My Sister's Keeper was available and had been planning to play it as the 7pm show. It didn't do great first run but we have had a lot of people asking about it so I expect it will do well. For the late show I decided to bring back Star Trek, it did really well its' first week. The late shows did okay that week with it playing for both shows.

The only New film that would have been available for next week is Public Enemies. I decided to hold off on it for a couple reasons. We had already been telling people Sister's Keeper would be playing and I couldn't play both the same week as both need to be the 7pm show. Public Enemies is also fairly long so I'm not sure if I will play anything after it.

It could get interesting as Up is also available the following week. Disney sets the dates we are able to get movies in advance. They usually leave a week between when the films leave first run and can start at Western Film.

I was trying to decide whether to play Public Enemies or Up the following week. Both have to be the 7pm show so they need to be separate weeks. It doesn't really matter which week they play though. I would have liked to have UP this upcoming weekend since there is a holiday Monday and we could have had extra matinees but it's not available until the following Friday. I checked to see if anyone else had booked the theatre during the weekend afternoons as that would affect my decision. No one had so that's not a problem. I figure the only thing I should do is try to play Up the week with the lowest kid's film competition. Opening it against Harry Potter would have been a bad idea for example.

According to the booker, The Proposal is getting close to coming off and The Hangover may come off soon to my mild surprise.