pogo wrote:
Of course your choices are determined by availability. And I am glad that you decided to blow a wad on Lucy to provide the diversity of something recent. It must cost as much as a good part of the rest of the list combined.
Actually, LUCY costs about as much to screen as something like ALIEN, although that rule doesn't always apply. But DCPs of new films, in particular, usually aren't too much of a financial burden. For the most part, the cost of booking new and old films comes down to the individual studio. Some have very affordable rental costs, some charge relatively exorbitant rentals, and some have very specific (and sometimes odd) requirements for screenings. It's what makes film programming so fun...and frustrating.
pogo wrote:
What 's the hit rate for finding films that you want to show? Are many picks determined by suddenly finding a print that some collector or archive possesses?
Process would be interesting to a lot of us and I am sure that everybody here would promise to not tell anyone your and your colleagues secrets.
A good question. The hit rate for films we want to show can very wildly, many times depending on which studio or source we're dealing with. As I mentioned on the newest Marathon Chat, the collector market for 35mm prints is fairly strong these days. And more studios than in the past are willing to authorize screenings of collector prints (although at least one or two majors still hold out.) But screenings those collector prints involves paying a clearance fee to the studio (which usually isn't at a discount from a regular repertory rental), a fee to the collector, and shipping for the print. Sometimes that can be fairly affordable. Sometimes, it can cost a good chunk of change. For instance, when we screened THE MANITOU at last year's Horror Marathon, our only print source was the 35mm private print we used, which we also had to clear through its rights holder. The total cost, with shipping, was around $500. The crowd loved it, so it was worth the cost. But choosing to book a film like that will always have an impact on what we spend on the rest of the lineup.
In terms of the process and print/DCP sources that suddenly show up, yeah we often take that into account. I mentioned Zulawski's POSSESSION before, but in 2012, our good friend Brian Block spearheaded the restoration of the uncut version of that film. We knew that it would be something strange and worthwhile that most of our audience hadn't seen before, and being able to show it well in advance of the new Blu-Ray release (which is REALLY nice, by the way) immediately sold us. When news came down that Warner Bros. once again had the rights to distribute BLADE RUNNER (they'd been suspended for a few years due to legal wranglings), the knowledge that, for the time being, those rights are seemingly on a limited contract went a long way toward swaying us toward choosing it for this year's Sci-Fi. When we learned about the only known 35mm print of THE HITCHER touring the U.S. in 2011, we jumped at the opportunity to show it at the Horror Marathon.
So yeah, programming these things can be a very complicated process. Hopefully, the hit rate is consistently strong enough to make it worthwhile for the audience.
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