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Hello All,

My main question is: What kind of paperwork do you have to do to provide to the studios. Sure EDI or whoever calls, but what does a studio really need? Do they have a specific form, or do you make your own?

Also, whatother paperwork do you have to do in your business?

One weekly box office statement per picture with all the ticket numbers broken down by day and prices, and each theatre makes up their own form. I have never received any from the distributors, although they did have them way way back.

When do you send it in once a week? By fax? Do you include refunded tickets and passes?

How and when do you pay the studios? Cheque, credit card, pay your booker, direct debit?

Also, with a booker, do you tell them what you want, and they try to get it, or do they give you a list of what you can get, you pick, and they book it?

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"Would you like fries with that?"

[This message has been edited by Andrew McCrea (edited September 14, 2005).]

Andrew---

All the above, depending on theatre owner--and if a booker is involved, depends on how much your willing to pay him/her to do. This can include doing paperwork, ect along with picking the films. I personally have a booker just for a cushion, and an "in" with the studios--but I pick the movies I wish for, and do all paperwork, ect.

Besides fax and regular mail, I have been e-mailing b.o. reports to a few studios.

As far as payment--in most cases they want their money in 14 days

Thanks wi!

I sent you a sample report form that I made up. Let me know what you think!

[This message has been edited by Andrew McCrea (edited September 14, 2005).]

How exactly are the studios paid?

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"Would you like fries with that?"

We have a "Works" template that we've used for years. It serves as our boxoffice report form. I email it to our booker. She faxes us a weekly "pay" sheet, which we use to produce and send the checks. All invoices go to our booker, and all boxoffice reports to the studios go from our booker. This means that if the studios need something, they call her first. I can see that some of you get (or want) more communication from the studios... I do not.

Our booker is up on what's opening or otherwise available out there. We discuss the week's bookings before she goes out and sets them up, so there is concensus on what gets booked. Sometimes, she makes the case for a film which we would not have chosen ourselves. Sometimes, we refuse a picture that she would have booked in, given the choice. For us, longterm, it's a system that's worked far better than if I had chosen, negotiated, marketed, settled and then paid for our films myself. After all, I have lawns to mow, toilets to fix and fryer oil to change!

As for what the studios want you to report: They differ somewhat in the fine detail, but the basics are pretty much the same. All of that is spelled out in the master licensing contracts.

How you pay depends (like most everything else) on your relationship with the individual studios. Last I checked, if you're a new account, most of them will charge an advance, which must be received before they'll ship your print. After that, they'll keep you on a pretty short leash until they're comfortable with your track record. More established accounts eventually may not have to pay the advances. Many theatres have had 30 day accounts for payment purposes, but it seems more of the studios are shortening that up to 2-week due-dates.

All of the above goes out the window if you bounce a check on a studio. Some of them can be so skittish on this subject that one bad check can get you put on a "cashier's check only" status for quite a while... and I mean years. They have a very long memory about anything negative that gets their attention... and a bad payment (or trouble getting a payment) ranks right up there.

[This message has been edited by rodeojack (edited September 16, 2005).]

Most studios will take payment with certified check, chasers check, company check or wire transfer. They will not accept money or credit card though Sony use to just that (the credit card that is not the money).

When we first opened two years ago, the studios required us to send an advance via certified cashiers check before they would release the print to us. The amount of money varied depending on studio and/or what movie it was. Some advances were a couple of hundred dollars, while others were several thousand dollars. I'm really glad those days are over!!

I created an Excel spreadsheet that I keep on my key-chained Jump Drive, that tracks almost every conceievable thing we need to keep up with. All I have to do at the end of each night is plug it into the computer, punch in the ticket numbers in the appropriate place, and it creates the weekly boxoffice report for us. Now that we have two screens (drive-in) I'm gonna have to modifiy my calculation formulas in the spreadsheet to create a report for each screen.

At the end of each week I print the boxoffice reports to a PDF file using PDF995, and can fax right out of the computer to the studio or our booker.

I know POS systems can do all of this automatically, but we're not there yet.

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Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Lebanon, Tennessee

Stardust Drive-In Theatre
Watertown, Tennessee

Barry,
Hope you are keeping a back-up copy also.