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We're a film nonprofit showing mainly older films...from about 8 months old to 50 years old...and we were wondering where the best place to get previews was. I've found various services that allow us to get NEW previews, but nothing for older stuff. We'd need it on DVD as well, which may be the problem.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

If the "previews" you're talking about are 35mm trailers, about the only source would be collectors or buying them on Ebay (IF someone happens to list one) for the truly ancient stuff... If you're talking about reviews, suntimes.com (ebert) archives his reviews back to 1985, and Yahoo (movies) has SOME review archives dating back to the 1960s... You mention DVDs, and I HOPE you're NOT showing feature films to any audience via DVDs!... This is illegal without ALL the proper licensing, and has been discussed ad nauseam in previous threads on this forum...

I did mean trailers...preferably on 16mm or DVD...35mm is a bit harder for us in our current venue. I suppose I was hoping for some service with archived trailers that one could order...I guess there isn't

And fear not...we get all of our public performance DVDs from distributors and pay dearly for it (for a new nonprofit anyway). We're new...we're not stupid.

Thanks for the info!

I did mean trailers...preferably on 16mm or DVD...35mm is a bit harder for us in our current venue. I suppose I was hoping for some service with archived trailers that one could order...I guess there isn't

And fear not...we get all of our public performance DVDs from distributors and pay dearly for it (for a new nonprofit anyway). We're new...we're not stupid.

Thanks for the info!

Sorry for the double post...don't know why that happened, I only hit submit once.

Also, a comment on the DVD presentation...we'd do film if we had a larger venue, but we've found the projector, even a very quiet one, tends to be too loud for our 75 seat theater. We do what we can.

Well, its probably only quasi legal to do this, but if you are already obtaining the necessary public performance license to shows films off of video, it might be ok. Do you know about Netflix? If you don't Netflix is a subscription DVD rental service. For 20 bucks a month you can have out 3 DVD's at a time. They mail them to you along with postage paid mailers to return them. Why not order the dvd's of your upcoming titles and play the theatrical trailers off of the dvd's? Netflix has a huge library and at $20 it should be affordable. Like I said earlier, it's probably only quasi-legal, but if you have the necessary public performance license to play and promote the film, I would think that a reasonable argument for this could be made. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so I'd have to advise you to check with your own counsel.

Rialto

Thanks...that's a great idea...I'll look into it. I'm already a member of NetFlix.

I don't know why I figured there would be some clearing house out there that be able to supply trailers both old and new. Shows why we're just an arts nonprofit (although we're getting great feedback and are the only ones in the area that played/are playing Whale Rider, Girl With A Pearl Earring, Super Size Me, and Triplets of Belleville)...trailers didn't cross our minds until just recently.

netflix does not provide public show rights with their dvd rentals.

you need to try swank at [url=http://www.swank.com.]www.swank.com.[/url] they provide rights to public shows, have movies on dvd, and have a very extensive library of old movies to movies not yet released on video.

good luck

[This message has been edited by crshedd (edited September 14, 2004).]

Point of clarification:

I never said Netflix provides public performance rights. What I said was that provided an organization has already obtained the necessary public performance rights to a title, those rights usually include a clause about promotion and using materials for promotion.

The man is looking for trailers for titles he is already obtaining public performance rights to. My suggestion of Netflix was just a suggestion to aide him in his promotion. WEC makes the point in his previous post that he is obtaining public performance DVD rights.

Thanks Rialto...you are correct in everything you said. We do obtain all the necessary rights for the films/DVDs we show, but the NetFlix idea for getting trailers is a good one and one we have tried since you suggested it. Thanks again. Also, we do use Swank, but several others as well.