Screening A Film

[Chedney Honks]

I know absolutely nothing about this, but I would like to do it. I imagine a few people here have done so and I'd be grateful for any advice in this specific area.

I'm not looking to make any money, obviously, and I wouldn't be fussed if I was a bit out of pocket for the experience, I just want to watch some particular films at the cinema, and put them on for a community audience with similar interests.

From scratch, I would need a venue, projector and sound system, so I'm thinking of just hiring a community cinema to cut through all of that. In a former life, a mate and I organised a music festival and the technical side of sound mixing and all that was a ballache. I wouldn't even know where to begin with a projector. Anyway, using an existing venue seems best right now.

Beyond that, I guess I'll need a screening licence. I know that there are various options available, including direct from BFI, but I don't really know what I'm looking for. If I own the Blu-ray, can I licence that for public screening? What if it's not available in the BFI catalogue, for example?

Beyond that, I wonder about the pure costs of licensing. Is something like Godzilla going to be ridiculous because Toho are the way they are? What about Transformers: The Movie? Will Hasbro want their cut, etc.? What I mean to ask is whether there's massive variance in licensing costs based on the content?

The promotion and stuff will be no issue. I would also want food and drink available but again, hopefully the venue would be taking care of this. I assume if I wanted to put on food and drink, local pies and tinnies, all that licensing and health and safety stuff would be a mega ball ache so I'd be happy for the venue to do whatever they do.

If anyone has any advice or relevant experience in this specific area, I would really appreciate it.

[steveh]

If there's nobody here who can help, maybe try and find somebody from a local film society? A relative of mine used to go to one which put on arthouse stuff in a town that had only a multiplex but streaming and increasing complications and costs with licensing titles killed it.

[Chedney Honks]

Cheers, Steve. There's nothing like that near me unfortunately but I'm going to try a couple of arthouse venues in Manchester which will hopefully have some advice, as well.

[steveh]

You've seen https://cinemaforall.org.uk/? The starter document may be helpful: https://cinemaforall.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Starting-a-community-cinema-2017-UPDATED.pdf.

[Chedney Honks]

Oh, brilliant stuff. I hadn't, and that doc is exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you very much!

[mjwilson]

Cheers, Steve. There's nothing like that near me unfortunately but I'm going to try a couple of arthouse venues in Manchester which will hopefully have some advice, as well.

Probably good to speak to Chapeltown Picture House, they're doing stuff like this.

[13 schoolyards]

There seems to be a very firm distinction between renting a cinema to watch a movie yourself (and with invited friends), and renting a cinema to show a movie where members of the public can attend.

The former, according to a friend of mine who manages a cinema, is largely a matter of having the money and a blu-ray (or even DVD) copy of the film; the latter is a massive pain in the arse with licensing fees and a lot of older films simply aren't available for public exhibition.

[Chedney Honks]

Probably good to speak to Chapeltown Picture House, they're doing stuff like this.

Cheers, they were actually who I was thinking of.

There seems to be a very firm distinction...

Hmm, slightly dampened spirits but cheers for the info, I am keen to know the reality.