Want to open a (RED) digital cinema movie theatre...

[C.H.Haskell]

Although I am NYC based Director/DOP, I am living in a small village in south france working on a new film and I will be here for quite some time. I have always dreamed of opening a cinema and thought i would exercise this dream right here in my tiny village. The plan is to do this in phases and phase one is simply outdoors right here in the vineyard, I have access to a nice big piece of property with breathtaking scenery around you, its at the top of a mountain near the med. . Done. Now after sorting out a sound system suitable for the "cinéma gardin" (think small football field in terms of size) add the screen with a RED lazer projector and...voilà, out door cinema dream accomplished.

Now the legal stuff, if you know any of this or have some leads please share or email me vila clay (at) haskellfilms (dot) com.

Phase 1. Free. Can I legally screen, WITHOUT charging admissions films from my personal bluray/DVD collection? Keep in mind the population of my village is 150 people and I would be surprised if i had this many show up even with surrounding villages catching wind of an cinema in a vineyard. I thought I would add a little life to this ghost town while they work on the legal side of things.

Phase 2, low cost general admissions (2-3 euros) and In the spirit of an "Art-house" cinema, I would have in mind to screen classic films, 2nd run films, indies, art films, reduser films etc ;) but not sure how to go about this. Do I contact the distribution of the company in which i wish to screen their film, anyone have experience doing something like this?


Thanks for any tips or feedback. Cheers

Haskell

[AndrewThomas]

I'm actually in the process of opening a theater here in Texas, so I've had to work through a lot of this. The main problem is that public screening laws vary quite a bit from country to country so you would need to find out the specific laws in the country you are opening the theater in. In general, as long as you are not in anyway charging entry or for things like concessions, public displays of your DVD/BD collection is not an issue. If ANY money exchanges hands, you typically need to get a license for distribution from the rights holder. On DVD/BD, it is probably cheap enough that you could front the costs pretty easily.

The only thing I would warn you about going to the Red projector route is if you ever plan to show DCP files from any of the mid-major to major studios. It is not known if Red is trying to get DCI certification for their projector and server yet. If they don't, you will be completely locked out of encrypted DCP playback.

[C.H.Haskell]

Hey Andrew, thanks for the feedback. Good to know regarding RED projector...I imagine they will be compatible, no one at RED has commented on this? Best of luck on your cinema. Cheers.

[Kristin Stewart]

Clay, France isn't America. I don't want to discourage you to screen movies like that, but you know, some people have invested in the movies before to get them done, so it would be fair to give them money to project their work ;-)

Joke apart, there is a huge legislation about film projection in France, so your best contact is the CNC www.cnc.fr

There are also security/insurance issues which must be cleared.

Good luck,

Kristin

[C.H.Haskell]

Kristin, haha been meaning to touch base with you. Got it, i will forward this to legal. Thank you!

[Kristin Stewart]

Yes, it's rather complicated to do this kind of things here. Don't also forget to check the authorization for operating a Digital Cinema Projector : in France, when you run a theater, your operator must own a specialty degree called CAP Projectionniste. For legal and security reasons. But I don't know about seasonal projections though. The CNC should help you on this.

Best,

Kristin

[C.H.Haskell]

Rather complicated in France? I cant imagine. I can only imagine the paper trail of stamps.

[Kristin Stewart]

Yes, that's why we drink so much. To forget the real life with all this bureaucracy.

Kristin

[C.H.Haskell]

Well there is no shortage of booze in this country to sort that out!

Here is one potential location, anyone with compositing skills feel like doing me a big favor and putting in a screen under the rainbow perhaps in front of the vineyard for example, I would greatly appreciate it. I have to present the idea next week. Whom ever does this gets a bottle of best wine. ;)

[Elsie N]

Can't tell what your audience angle would be (depending on seating direction) but I once posted I may just hang an old reverse-side billboard sign on the side of a barn and point the Red Projector toward that. If unable to buy one in France, you could get one on ebay and have it shipped. Shipping would probably be pretty costly but overall, a pretty inexpensive screen. And that building in your picture would surely be large enough to handle the billboard signage, even though they span very large areas. I can't believe France has so many bureaucrats they can deploy the projection police in every small town for complete compliance with projection licenses etc.