Dust & Illusions, 30 years of Burning Man History, A Documentary by Olivier Bonin

ORGANIZING A SCREENING

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If you have suggestion for this list please fill in the comment box at the bottom, and I’ll add them if it makes sense! Thank you

Organizing a screening:

  • Who can do it? Anyone can organize a screening. But you will need someone who has the connection to promote it. To organize a screening you need:
    • To read the instructions below
    • Find an affordable venue
    • Find someone in your community who knows how to do promotion and who has already done that. The Burning Man community is well connected but it takes certain skills to promote.
  • Why would you help/volunteer for this?:
    • Financially the film is around -$100,000 in the bank, without considering my time working on this. To make this I volunteered, I spent 5 years to create a project that would tell the history of Burning Man and offer a critical perspective. Critical in the sense that I want to raise questions that can help the community move forward. I hope the film can serve as a discussion forum, and help understand what has been accomplished and what more we can do.
    • If you’re interested in organizing large screenings, or a series of screenings, there’s certainly possibilities in compensation, since it would take quite some effort to promote them, but it’s better to start small and learn from the success. Just ask for it, don’t be shy.
    • During the film I have spent more time filming artists creating works for Burning Man, than filming for my own film because I wanted to be part of the experience and of the teams making the event what it really is (you can read more about this in the About section). Just like so many people at Burning Man I volunteered, not necessarily in a way that’s visible to most (although you can watch many Flaming Lotus Girls Videos here), but it was very valuable to a few. By helping me here, you’re helping me to provide more to the Burning Man artist community.
    • The film has always been screened in a community/art house/repertory/independent local theater, and by renting their facility, we’re also helping an important cultural centers, which we all know are quick to disappear if we don’t do that.
  • Budget:
    • Theater rental, please check underneath for reasonable theater rates.
    • Publicity. Most times, I won’t have money for publicity, but if you’re trying to organize a large screening, then we should talk and see what’s needed.
    • No equipment rental. Usually the theater/venue has all the equipment. If the plan is to use a free/cheap space, then I might consider renting screen/projector, please check prices around first and then let me know.
  • Size of the event:
    • It’s best to target 100-200 people for a first screening. If you want to organize several screenings, the first is the hardest. The following screenings will benefit from word of mouth, previous publicity, and all the research that you’ve done to find the right place, the right rates. With a first screening you can build momentum, so it’s better to target a small audience in the first place.
  • Promotion:
    • This is the key ingredient to success. You need to be well connected, have people willing to help you
    • Online is the way to go, it’s much easier to reach out to a lot of people this way, especially if it’s well targeted.
    • There are a lot of groups related to Burning Man that have mailing lists, and they’ll be happy to publish a listing for a special event like this. Find them with google, and contact them.
    • Check out local burner event, as well as the regional burn and local burner camps.
    • You can also find groups on Facebook. You can post on the groups’ wall, and you can also contact the admins of those groups and ask if they could send a listing to all their members.
    • Check the event’s page on this website here, and you will find a Facebook event. Get all your FB friends that have a lot of connection on FB to invite them to the event. You can easily have 2,000 people invited to an event. It’s a great way to keep people updated since all guests can be emailed. Just ask I’ll make you an admin.
  • Offline. Here you some of your best bets:
    • Announcements at other events prior to the screening.
    • Posters if you can have some… at local events.
    • PSA (public service announcement on public, and local radios)
    • Listing in radio community calendar. Just call the radio, or email them, they will list the event there.
    • Radio reviews. Your local radios are often interested about special one-time screenings, especially on this subject. I can give them access to the film, and they do a review.
    • Radio are of course also very interested in running interviews and if I give them access to the film, they can do an in-depth interview.
    • Newspapers: some local indie, often free, papers are always looking for a subject, and they can also do interviews and reviews. This is the best way i’ve found to reach general audiences.
    • Film Societies and Film Festivals. Local film societies do not only organize their own screening and film festivals, and promote their own programming, but they are also eager to publicize special screenings of indie films like these. Contact them and send them a description of the film and the event, and they will post it on their mailing lists.
    • Local festivals (Art, fire, community oriented..) have usually large mailing lists that they are happy to use to help for special events like these.

Screening Rooms, Venues, Movie Theaters:

  • Type of venue: I have a strong preference for a real screening room. I have watched the film here in the Bay Area in a club/non-theater venue setting, and in a theater. The reaction to the film is quite different. In a theater, people can focus on the film, sound is properly distributed allowing anyone to hear very well, and the picture is usually of high quality. It is important to me that people can follow the story and question what the film is talking about, and I believe that can only really happen in a comfortable theater setting. Some other kind of venues could work, but we’ll have to see what their capabilities are.
  • To find a venue:
    • http://cinematreasures.org/location/country=181/
    • http://yelp.com Find Reviews => Categories => Event Planning => Venues

      • ♦ Venues: http://www.yelp.com/search?rflt=reviewed…..
      ♦ Cinemas: http://www.yelp.com/search?rflt=reviewed…..
      ♦ I’m listing Venues on Yelp because some venues have screening rooms but are not listed as movie theaters.

    • Look up the Film Society in your area. They generally organize film festival and know all about the venues, and might even have a venue of their own
    • Film clubs may know of screening rooms too. You can just google for film clubs.
    • Universities always have a place to screen films. Sometimes their screening room is opened to the public, sometimes not. In the case they’re not open to the public they might let you run the film through their program and share the revenue.
    • Call an independent theater in your area. They are all connected, and have a list of all local indie theaters.
  • Agreement:
    • Either the theater rents their space to us: It’s the best when it’s affordable.
    • Or they run the film through their program. And usually they charge 50% of the ticket sale. With this option they also announce the film to their mailing lists, and on their prints.
  • Rates:
    • First of all, it’s not easy to put on a screening promotion out there. To get 100 people motivated to come see a film might not be as easy as it seems. So target a theater size that’s smaller (100-200 seats is the best option). And make sure you have the promotion tool needed to do this.
    • A 100-seat theater should be less than $300, which is 30% of the ticket sale already if we fill it up.
    • A 200-300 theater should cost b/w $300 & $500 max. And at the $500, we need 100 people to become positive in general depending on ticket price and other costs associated with that.
    • You can negotiate the price based on this:
      • The film has a non-profit status through the San Francisco Film Society, and I can make the contract available.
      • Tell them you can’t afford it, and ask what kind of discount they could get you. Make the math with them. Example: 100 seats at $9 average is $900. Minus their rental fee 9 ($300), minus traveling if I come over ($100-$300), minus a few poster printing ($10-100), etc.., it could easily become $200 revenue, with a full house. Basically it’s not worth it. Some theaters have told me $700, 15 minutes later, it’s down to $400.
      • Sometimes the theaters rent for a full night (6-11pm) at decent price. If the theater has 100 seats, but $400 to rent it full night, it might make sense if we can get 200 people in 2 separate shows (7pm & 9pm for example).
    • Check their calendar and see if there’s much going on
  • Schedule:
    • The film is 85 minutes long. But it takes 15 minutes very minimum of preparation, and another 15 minutes to get everyone out. So we can fit it in 2 hours, which is important if the theater rents per hour.
    • Week nights are better, such as a Wednesday/Thursday night. Tuesday are even fine in large metro areas.
    • Weekend should be avoided. There’s too many conflicts with weekends, and people go out of town on weekends too.
    • 2 Shows in one night if affordable, can be a great way to get cheaper rates, and more people since that gives more flexibility to people.
    • Make sure there isn’t another major event in your town that day, especially a Burner friendly one OR combine them together. Film at 6/7pm, then party at 10pm. Check on street fairs, local big events that could really take the crowd away. Simply go online and check the events calendar (newspapers have them, like the free weeklies, radios, local TV stations).
    • In general, it’s a good idea to start the film after 7:30pm, even 8pm. People have to get out of work, often they prefer to stop by home. And if you think 9pm is fine, it’s fine with me too.

Technical facts about the film:

  • Film Format:
    • The film can be shown on DVD or Bluray only.
    • No BetaSP.
  • Film Spec:
    • Color
    • Stereo (not dolby sound). It’s great if the theater can output some of that stereo onto their surround sound speakers as well.
    • 90 minutes

Theater Check list:

  • Audio: good audio system so that people can hear what’s going on in the film.
  • Video: need a digital projector. Please check what they have, sometimes it’s an old PC projector, and the quality is so bad, it’s unwatchable.
  • Screen: Better to have a real screen if we have more than 100 people. In smaller venues we could work with a white wall, but the wall should be flat, no irregularities.
  • Tapes: Must be able to play miniDV, or BetaSP. Or at least let us plug in with RCA audio/video cable.
  • Seating: For large venues for more than 100 people we need to have decent seating for people to be able to enjoy the film.
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