The Film
Overview
Here we go through the the process of picking films, how to track down the screening rights, the different kinds of screening rights, formats, checking copyright © and a selection of best practices to help make the process as painless as possible. This first step helps to set everything else in motion. Once you have selected your film (or films) for screening this filters down into every subsequent step. After all, you don't want to book a venue, build an audience, sell tickets and get an expert speaker for a night of Akira Kurosawa films, if it turns out you can't get the rights sorted.
Picking a Film
Every journey starts with a first step and the first on the way to your screening is picking what film(s) you want to screen. If this is your first time screening a film you might consider screening a film that is a personal favourite. The advantage of this is that your enthusiasm for the film will help you define what type of event it is going to be and what possibilities exist to enhance the event beyond pressing play.
A good starting point is to whittle your potential choices down to two or three possibilities. It is possible that you will not be able to acquire the rights to screen your first choice so having some second choices means you can try for one of those films without getting disheartened. If it turns out all your first choices are available to screen then you've already done some of the legwork for any future screenings you might want to put on.
Also consider at this first stage what format you want to screen from. If you already own a copy of the film then consider screening from that format, unless it may require special equipment at a venue.
What Are Rights?
The rights to screen a film in public are held by a rights-holder (a company or individual) who will allow screenings of it in return for a fee. Different factors affect the type of licence being issued, but broadly speaking these fall into two distinct categories.
Theatrical
Theatrical rights apply to a venue that is geared towards screening film as it's primary means of generating revenue. This also means that certain film formats are more likely to be subject to a theatrical rights licence. For instance it is unlikely that your local pub or community centre has a 35mm projector and the environment to assemble reels of film.
Non-Theatrical
Non-theatrical rights cover venues that are less geared towards solely screening film. This would cover more multipurpose venues like pubs, clubs and community focused venues. The equipment available at these venues is also likely to be less specialised, such as a DVD/Blu-Ray player.
Public Domain
Not all films require you to attain the rights to screen. Films whose rights have fallen into the Public Domain, or have had their copyright set to free use, can be screened for no cost or with certain other restrictions.
What works appear in the Public Domain varies from country to country based on the prevailing legislature in that country. AS such you will need to undertake a different set of checks for works in the public domain, in particular whether the screening rights are in the public domain rather than just the copyright having expired.
Some feature films and short films are licensed under the Creative Commons system. In short this system allows a creator to override the prevailing jurisdiction and apply their own set of criteria for the use of their work. While you may not have to pay for use of their work, there can be other conditions such as accreditation or non-commercial usage requirements. If you want to pursue a Creative Commons licensed work for you screening it is worth bearing this in mind.
Formats
The format for your screening touches on both the practical and the aesthetic. Practical in terms of how you will screen the film for your audience and aesthetic in terms of how your film will look. If you are considering screening Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A space Odyssey a higher definition format will allow your audience to really appreciate the film. If on the other hand you have decided to screen Garbage Pail Kids: The Movie then a screening from VHS may be more appropriate and add to the ambience of your screening.
Physical
There are a variety of physical formats that are still in general use for film screenings:
There are other physical formats which it is possible to screen from:
However, venues are less likely to support these more archaic formats and you will probably need to provide the playback equipment and take on extra technical responsibility
Non-Physical
Alternatively there are non physical formats. These are pure digital files that exist either on your hard drive or are streamed from a server somewhere. If you have a copy of the digital file then consider how this will be played for your audience. Connecting a laptop to a projector is a possibility but will require you to do some technical tests with the venue's co-operation before each side commits to a screening. The same applies for instances where a Blu-Ray player may have a USB socket, you will need to make sure that the codec used to encode the file is readable by the player and that the player supports the file type (MKV, AVI, VOB, MP4).
Similar technical considerations need to be taken into account for streaming along with the additional concerns around internet connectivity. Our recommendation when streaming would be to always insist on an a wired connection to the internet, no matter how strong the venue claim their Wi-Fi is. A wired connection will always be more stable and less prone to interference.
Equipment
Once you have selected a film for which you can get the appropriate screening rights and selected a source for the film you will need to start thinking about venues that will be able to screen your film for you. Or, if you are setting up a screening in a non-traditional venue, think about where you will get playback equipment, screens and a sound system from.
Equipment hire, particularly for more specialised formats, can be costly and require a high level of technical knowledge. Some venues will prefer you to use the in-house equipment and actively discourage additional screens being put up or additional equipment being installed for one night's screening.
Summary
This is where your film screening journey begins. The film you ultimately choose to screen will influence every other part of your screening experience. So it's worth taking your time over.
Your film selection will colour and influence many of the other parts of the screening process in obvious and subtle ways. Meaning that not only are no two screenings alike, screening the same film multiple times is never alike either.
Now that you have your film in hand, and the details of who holds the screening rights and an idea of the cost, it's time to find a venue.
Screeners
Resources
Finding Screening Rights
- Filmbankmedia – non-theatrical rights for most major film studios' titles + other smaller distributors.
- MPLC - Motion Picture Licensing
- Hollywood Classics - 35mm/DCP as well as DVD/Blu-ray rights for some major studios and independent catalogues
- Park Circus - Representing over 25,000 films from Hollywood and British studios, mainly theatrical rights
- BFI Bookings – as well as theatrical and non-theatrical bookings for BFI titles, they also represent other distributors such as Curzon Artificial Eye's non-theatrical licenses - email bookings.films@bfi.org.uk
- Dogwoof - distributor with a specialism in documentary. Run a booking service called Pop Up Cinema.
- British Board of Film Classification - Useful for finding the distributor of recent releases. It might also help to Google ‘<the title of the film> + BBFC’ to go direct to the correct page
- Focal - Facilitating the use of library footage, images, stills and audio in all forms of media production
- ICO page on archive screening
- ICO Distributor Contacts
- Vimeo Creative Commons Licensed works
Formats Information
- Charbon Studio - Format and resolution guide for screening.
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