Theaters- it's time to step your game up.

We talked a little, recently, about the Premium VOD battle that theaters and studios are waging against each other. We've also talked, a little less recently, on rules you should adopt when you go to the movies (it all basically boils down to "don't be an asshole", so you can skip the lengthier article). We've talked about windows shrinking, and event-izing your theatrical.

But we haven't talked much about theaters, and what they can do to help independent films. And as it turns out, there's plenty.

When we pick the theaters we book for our titles, we factor several things into it- gross potential, what films play best there, location, ease of parking, etc.. And we don't always get our first choice- sometimes the theater is booked on the date we need, sometimes the buyer just doesn't think the title is going to work.

One major thing we factor in is "how easy is this theater to work with". And surprisingly, the answer is quite often "not terribly". If you look at the list of theaters for each of our titles, you'll see the same ones popping up over and over again- and you can read things into that. You can also note that there are theaters you think we'd want to play that you DON'T ever see on the lists- you can read plenty into that as well, and likely be correct.

We're looking to event-ize our releases. We want to do special things in the theater to give the audience something to talk about. We're releasing a kung-fu movie? We want to have a kung fu demonstration in front of the audience. We're releasing a documentary about a comedian? We want to have a ten minute "live comedy set" before the show starts to get people in the mood. Jazz musical? We want a three piece combo playing at the front of the auditorium.

You'd be surprised how many theaters object to things like that. Either it's too much work for the managers, too much hassle to add ten minutes to the run time, too much trouble for insurance purposes. It's insanely irritating, because it makes us feel like we're working our ass off to get people to their theater (where they get half the box office and ALL of the concession sales) and they're like "yeah, screw it, just run some print ads".

We tend not to play these theaters more than once.

There are a few other things I'd like to see. And as I've mentioned before, I've got 11 years in the exhibition side of things- nine with a major chain, two running an underfunded indie arthouse, so I think everything I'm discussing below is reasonable, and I think that if theaters are so worried about thirty days less before VOD killing off their audience, they would want to do everything in their power to help people like me get butts in seats.

Here's what I want-

#1- ENFORCE A CODE OF CONDUCT.
Did you notice a few days ago, when Tim League, CEO of Alamo Drafthouse, wrote a six paragraph letter apologizing for a group of four people talking during a screening of RUBBER at one of his theaters? Let me say that again- ONE group of people disrupted ONE showtime in a chain of 50+ screens, and the CEO wrote a letter about it.

That's because, for lack of a better term, the Alamo guys actually give a shit what happens to its customers INSIDE the auditoriums.

When I worked at a major theater for a major chain, I noticed we were giving 10-15 free passes every weekend night due to people coming out and complaining about disruptive crowds. I proposed that, on Friday and Saturday nights, we station an usher inside our six large auditoriums to monitor the crowd non-stop, and deal with problems immediately. Due to breaks between shows, this would only necessitate five people- and two of those could jump behind the concession stand to help make lines move faster/make more money.

6 people at $7 an hour (yeah, I know, but it was 2002) x 5 hours each = $210 dollars.
Total value of free passes that wouldn't need to be given = $165 PLUS value of lost business due to bad experience = ????

Worst case, this would've cost $45 a night. I was told that this was "not in the budget and would never happen". That kind of thinking is what drives people away from theaters, and makes them think "yeah, it's worth it to stay home".

When you let people text, talk, make noise, and disrupt a show, everyone is unhappy, and that is what they remember.

#2- GET YOUR PROJECTION GAME TIGHT
I know that not every theater can install plush luxury stadium seats, a 60 foot screen, and a 25,000 watt sound system. But what you can do is make sure films look, and sound, good at your theater, and if/when they don't, fix it- immediately. Solely via customer complaints and visits from filmmakers/friends, here are things I've caught theaters (both chain and independent) doing on my films:

-Running action films in mono because "someone complained the trailers were too loud"
-Projecting a DVD with a "property of" burn-in instead of the Bluray they were sent because "the player was broken" (Bluray players cost approx. $130)
-Asking for 6 35mm trailers (which cost $40 each) and not running them, at all, because they "forgot".
-Not placing posters for our films, instead putting up studio posters for films opening NINE MONTHS after ours.
-Running a bluray in the wrong aspect ratio so people were squished for nearly two and a half weeks.

Look, I don't expect perfection every time (yeah I do, but I understand that's unrealistic). But I do expect that the following four things will happen every time a theater shows one of our films: it is in focus, in the right aspect, the picture is bright and undistorted, and the sound is loud and crisp. If you run a theater, and you don't have the equipment to pull those four things off, please let me know now and we will politely part ways until you get your shit together.

As a bonus- the chain theaters have installed these lovely digital projectors. I have to pay a $500-900 "Virtual Print Fee" each time I run a film on one of them. In turn, since even in an A/B test at a studio screening room, nobody can tell the difference between the Digital Cinema Package format (which costs $3k+ to encode, plus $180 for each run to make a HD and ship out) and a well-authored (not home burnt) Bluray disc (which costs maybe $500 to encode, plus $30-40 for each professionally burnt copy), please kindly let me play Bluray discs on your beautiful projectors instead of spending $6,000 encoding and making dupes of a DCP file that can't be used anywhere else. There's zero reason for not allowing this, and it will broaden the types of films you can show to your audience.

#3- IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE OPENING A FILM, PUT TICKETS ON SALE
This drives me batty. Chain theaters are particularly bad about this, but they do their schedules weekly, so I understand the logic to a degree. But... if you run a calendar house, particularly one with only one or two screens, and we've got a date locked, please don't make me beg you to get tickets up and on sale, or to get showtimes. We get awareness going early- not the Tuesday before we open- and we want to be able to tell people when it's showing, where it's showing, and how they can get tickets BEFORE THEY FORGET ABOUT IT. Help me.

Also- if you can't sell tickets online, while this admittedly can be a little costly, it's generally going to be worth it for you if you can get that going.

#4- IF YOU EVER DO Q&As, CONSIDER HOOKING A MIC OR TWO UP TO YOUR SOUND SYSTEM
It's embarrassing for me, and should be for you, to have filmmakers fly out to a market to do a Q&A at the theater, sell out the show, and then find out "yeah, we don't have any microphones". This is a $300 problem that is easily solved, and your audience will be grateful.

#5- INDIES...KNOW YOUR COMMUNITY
While Variance loves doing special events, we're sitting in an office in NYC. You, in turn, are in your community. Take the time to find some event partners. Find a great local bar that will give discounts for an after-party. Find a comic book store that will do ticket giveaways. Make your theater part of the active, vibrant scene that exists in EVERY-SINGLE-CITY, comprised entirely of people that want to actually go out and do cool stuff- not just a movie theater that sits there and plays weird movies.

We have to build audiences for every single one of our films, and we'll do everything we can to deliver them to your theaters. But you, as theaters, need to take on the same responsibility- build an audience for your theater, so we can combine forces and fill up the joint all weekend long.

There are wonderful theaters everywhere that do this- places like the Camera 12 in San Jose, the Hollywood and Cinema 21 in Portland, the Alamo Drafthouses everywhere, the Laemmle theater chain, so many more to name that I won't take the time- just look at where our films are playing, these are the good guys.

But there are more that aren't, and every time someone has a terrible experience at the theater it pushes them home to the couch. And not just to watch "premium VOD"- more often than not, I suspect, to find something for free on Netflix. Stakes are high, so let's all do our part.