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.

Bollywood Update and response to comment.

I guess the guys that put on the last couple Bollywood films still want to do more. They called me to ask about a film called Billou Barber. It opens in Toronto Feb 13th. The booker will be able to tell me on Tuesday when we can play it. It depends on how it does, if it does really well we'll have to wait a little longer since they may still need the print in TO. That's good in a way though as it will likely be more popular here as well.

This comment was left on my last Bollywood post.

thanx for answering bak bout this !--personally- wenever they've shown a bollywood film its been on a single day and invariably i've already got sumthin happenin-- also wen its hosted by a club then sumtimes u dont wanna go coz it feels kinda odd that ur not part of the club--newez-- hopefully we'll get to see sum indian films in the near future ! =)

The shows aren't put on by any clubs, its generally done as a profit making enterprise (hopefully) by someone.

To be blunt, if one wants these shows to continue you may have to give up whatever is already happening and go to the Bollywood films if you want them to continue. There isn't enough demand for more than one or two shows. We can't play them in the evenings as that would require playing them all week and there isn't enough demand for that. A couple of the local multiplexes tried playing Bollywood films all week and it didn't work.

I don't understand some theatres.

We played a Bollywood ( Indian ) film called Drona on the weekend. One of the theatres that had previously played the film did something that makes no sense to me. Bollywood films are almost always long, 2 1/2 to 3 hours and have an intermission about half way through. The intermission is built into the film, the word intermission, or sometimes interval, comes up on the screen.
Every Bollywood film I've played has had an intermission, even one that was only about 2 hours long. So Bollywood audiences expect to have an intermission so they can go to the bathroom etc.
From a theatre's point of view an intermission is great for food sales. We made 75% of our food sales this weekend during the intermission.
So if you are still with me, the audiences expect an intermission and the theatre makes money, everybody's happy.
So why did a previous theatre cut off the section of film that says intermission?! From a film standpoint the only practical reason to do this would be to be able to splice the film altogether into one long movie without an intermission. Why would anyone do that? The only thing I can think of is to save the time of the intermission in order to run more showings of the film per day. Personally I would hate to be sitting watching the film waiting for the intermission to go to the bathroom and it never comes.

It made things a little awkward for us this weekend. A Bollywood film I showed a few months ago had a similar situation. I spliced the intermission titling back into the film. This weekend however one of my projectionists made up the film and didn't know to do that. By the time I found out it was too late to fix it. I knew where the intermission was supposed to be but to the audience it was probably somewhat jarring as the film just stopped without any text warning. Luckily they tend to put the intermissions at either cliffhanger moments or just after pivotal events so it's somewhat predictable. For Drona the intermission came right after the transformation of the regular guy into the Super guy.

Bollywood Films

This post is in response to a comment asking about Western Film playing a Bollywood (Indian) film called Singh is Kiing. There is someone interested in renting Western Film to play that film. I'm not sure of the details yet.

Pretty much all of the Bollywood movies that have ever played at Western Film were other groups or people renting the theatre, we basically just showed the film and sold some concessions.

I tried running a few Bollywood movies myself a couple years ago but it didn't work. I wasn't able to promote it properly, largely because I wasn't sure how to reach them.

When I first started running Western Film there was a student who used to rent Western Film about once a month. She was able to pretty much fill the theatre every time. However that was a while ago and the piracy issue was nowhere near as bad as it is now.

If Hollywood think it has piracy problems they should be happy they aren't Bollywood. Once I was dropping tickets off at one of the Indian food stores for a showing in a couple weeks. The guy running the store rented out a VHS pirated copy of the film for $1.00 while I was there.

The main issue for playing Bollywood at Western Film is timing. It's best to be able to promote a specific date that's as close to the Toronto opening as possible. However there are only a few prints of each movie and they play Toronto first. Much as with the Hollywood product we have to wait until the prints finish in TO before we can play them. The Indian theatres in TO decide each Monday what they will keep so it's hard to set a date for a London showing.

I'm hoping this is one of the situations that will be fixed by a digital projector in a few years. They should be able to make as many copies as they want so we could probably open the same time as TO.