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Author
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Topic: Cinema Advertising
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Gordon Leslie
Film Handler
Posts: 39
From: Perth ,Western Australia
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 01-10-2000 07:18 PM
Down here in Australia cinema advertising is" big business "as they say , I was told that advertising pays the wages for the booth , but going by the amount of ads we screen these days its paying a few others as well. We've had up to 24mins of ads prior to the feature which consists of "talkie slides" 5-6mins filmads 6mins , trailers 4@ 2 1/2 -3mins avdvertising company logo tabs ,sound format tabs it all mounts up and it does get a few people peeved as they groan "not another one". All filmads are changed weekly here , slides monthly. The quality of the ads is very poor (film) they don’t fit the screen usually cropped on the sides and top, with poor focus to match. I guess it must be shot on video first and copies run off from there, obviously it must be a one take production as I remember a while back a Coke ad we had ,when the ad started it was partially off centre you see the framing moving up then the picture across to evenly fit the screen that’s the way it was printed. Hard to believe that a big company like Coke would except a trashy job like that. Another we had was an anti-smoking ad which had someone smoking leaning against a wall watching cars go by ,this went for 3mins , we certainly got some complaints over that one , the ad lasted 4 days, we sent it back to the advertising company and said don’t send it back. I know advertising seems to be a part of everything these days (even the space shuttle) it can be a good little money earner for the theatre owner but it needs to be under control. Our company does have time limits and that’s the maximum above . How does this compare with companies in the states and u.k…
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Scott Ribbens
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 118
From: Los Angeles
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted 01-10-2000 08:15 PM
A few years back, Cineplex Odeon used to run Coke ads, and sometimes an ad for Sharp or Neon (the car). The first time I went there I asked to speak to the GM of the theatre. I told him that I would never set foot in his theatre or any other Cineplex Odeon until they pulled ads off of the screen, and I kept to it, never went to see another show at any C.O.. I worked for them sometime after that and wound up having to put those darn things on the feature, what irony!Well sometime after that, they got so many complaints from the Los Angeles area, that they pulled all ads in Los Angeles (my thanks to all of the customers who complained and wrote letters). I don't work for them anymore, and I have not been to see a movie at one since it became LCE, so I don't know if they run ads now or not. PS. never had slides either. The presentation has some class. All of the screens out in LA have curtains, so intermission with closed curtains and music, but they went to a radio station to supply music, and of course there are some ads on those CDs. Can the slide show and film ads be far behind? ------------------
"No matter where you go, there you are." Scott
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Nicholas McRobert
Film Handler
Posts: 38
From: Belfast, N. Ireland
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 01-10-2000 08:50 PM
Cinema Advertising is a pretty old trade in the UK, with a couple of main advertising contractors, namely Carlton Screen Advertising and Pearl and Dean, so people here are pretty used to it and rarely complain. It's hard to find a cinema here that doesn't play an advertising reel before their main feature. My company's running order is: Opening title/Advertising reel/3-4 trailers/Company Welcome trailer/Main feature, averaging out at about 15-20 mins or so. We have an agreement with the contractors that the advertising reel will never exceed 13 mins, however this has been broken a couple of times, in which case we have to remove the last 2 or 3 commercials to reduce the running time. We also run on-screen slides before each show (which replace our now-permanently-open festoon curtains...great shame!) that consist mainly of company stuff with a few outside ads scattered throughout. Advert reels are changed every Friday (new ones are sent on a thursday from the main depot in london, old ones are sent back for alteration on a Friday) and slides normally change on a Monday, but these stay roughly the same most weeks. I can't say that I agree 100% with the whole concept, but it does generate extra money (LOTS of extra money.....) for cinemas, and it is the reason that quite a few cinemas can stay afloat (and employ their projectionists!). For that reason alone, I can find it totally acceptable. PLUS, many of the commercials that run in cinemas here are made only for the cinema, are part of a big budget campaign and actually prove to be entertaining, many actually becoming as famous as the movies themselves..... Nicholas 
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-11-2000 02:31 AM
Local theatrical advertising goes WAY back, at least to the 50's., but seems to have tapered off. Typically local businesses would have the local TV production guys come out & shoot in 16mm, then it would be blown up to 35mm & run in the theaters. This seems to have dried up with the disappearance of 16mm from TV; the last originated-on-film local theater ad I've seen was an ad for a satellite dish company in the early '80s. The rotten local ads via video-to-35mm & slide-to-35mm still seem to be around, though.
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Reeve Byrne
Film Handler
Posts: 35
From: Anchorage, Ak USA
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 01-11-2000 03:44 AM
Here at regal, we have 3 to 4 ads. Hot Topics(Pepsi), Nintendo ad of sorts(right now it's DK64), an Anti-Drug one of some sort, American Express, and when they have some sort of awards show they will usually give us some trailers like "100 Years 100 Stars" or the Ocars, each ad is 30 to 60 sec. Then we have the trailers usually 2 to 5 at about 2 min each. And Last we have the Regal logo trailer, the sound format(DTS,SDDS, etc.), and then THX trailer. It is usually ten to fifteen minutes before the movie starts. When the theater was owned by ACT III, it was 5 trailers, sound format(usually SR-D), THX and then the ACT III police trailer. Much simpler I think and better (ACT III let us pick the trailers, Regal limits us to what we can use).
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John Walsh
Film God
Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted 01-11-2000 09:20 AM
I agree with Scott. Totally. Ads suck big moococka. The only difference between 'slides-only ads' or 'slides and filmed ads' is like someone driving over just one of your feet, or both.For the sake of a short-term dollar, many theaters degrade the 'movie-going experince' to a night of watching TV. Nine dollars to get in, jumpy and dark 2:1 projection, poor sound, crappy seats, ads, ads, ads. Only except, at home, you can go into the kitchen and get a drink (bought at the store) for 50 cents. At the theater, it's $2.75. It's like we are beating patrons with a stick when they come in. And, I bet very few places take that ad money and put it back into the theater. It goes right towards a new swimming pool. Ads are one of the major 'coffin-nails' in the theater biz. No wonder there is a big interest in home theaters, HDTV, recreating Dolby 5.1, etc.
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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays
Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 01-11-2000 03:20 PM
The King of Theatre Advertising, hands-down, was the Alexander Film Company of Colorado Springs. They started in the teens, making theatre ads, and were in the forefront with the advent of both drive-ins (where they made thousands of now-classic intermission clocks), and television. In the 50s, they were producing 160,000 feet of theatre ad films a DAY.The award for longevity, of course, goes to Filmack.
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