
Published Feb. 28, 2022
A couple of decades ago, I was a young-pup theatre manager, in a small Nebraska town, only months on the job and excited to open on the national break, what would go on to be the second highest grossing film of the year and win Oscars for both lead actors. Each week, our film delivery service (“film truck”) would pick up movies from the Omaha Film Depot and drop-off our film cans on Thursdays. Trailers would arrive separately via USPS.

A typical print included five (5) reels, each holding 2,000ft of 35mm film, for a total of 10,000ft. Each very ugly and beat-up metal can weighed-in at around 30lbs (60lbs total) and I would heft them up to the projection booth and “build-up” the print.
I would start with the trailers, unspooling each onto a platter by splicing the “tail” of trailer 1 to the “head” of trailer 2, then the head of trailer 3 to the tail of trailer 2, to the…
I would then move on to the print (praying the film was originally wound on to the reel head-first…”be kind, rewind”) by splicing the tail of the last trailer to the head of reel 1, then the head of reel 2 to the tail of reel 1, to the…
Build-up would usually take about 30 to 45 minutes, then I would run the print through the projector to ensure all was good to go, which took another 90 to 120 minutes. All in, up to around 3 hours of mind-numbing work.
On this particular week, during pick up at the film depot, my print was missed by the film truck and did NOT arrive on Thursday. The Distributor quickly hustled and made arrangements for the print to be shipped via Greyhound Bus, with delivery assured Friday morning. Cutting it close, but no panic…yet.
Well, you guessed it. The print was put on the wrong bus, so now I found myself on Friday afternoon with no print…now that stomach-twisting panic we have all experienced started to set in.
Fortunately, I had a friend in Omaha who owned a small single-prop plane and he agreed to grab another print from the film depot and fly it 90 minutes to my theatre. He arrived at 600p and by the time I picked up the film cans and returned to the theatre it was 640p…and the auditorium was sold-out for the 700p show start.
I quickly built up the first 3 of 5 reels, crossed my fingers, and started the movie at 705p. I then went to work building up the last 2 reels. Around 815p we mysteriously had a “film break”…where I hustled to splice-on those last two reels in world-class time and restart the projector.
Fast-forward a few decades and NOTHING has really changed. Sure, that hard drive is a lot more user-friendly, weighs a heck-of-a-lot less, is not nearly as unsightly as those film cans and digital ingestion is much easier than splicing film, but we still have that same anxiety pangs each week…will the UPS driver have my hard drive to me on time!
Fortunately, today we do have much more efficient and less stressful options…
Satellite Delivery.
Launched in 2013, Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC) is a joint venture between AMC Theatres, Regal Cinema, Cinemark, Universal and Warner Bros. The company was formed as a “utility” to provide theatres with safe, secure and cost-efficient delivery of content via a network of next-generation satellites. The company is “industry-owned” and operated similarly to a “non-profit”, providing low rates.

DCDC will provide the theatre with their proprietary satellite equipment at no cost; the exhibitor will execute a multi-year agreement and pay DCDC approximately $25 per transmission. There is a financial penalty payment if the agreement is terminated prior to expiration. Over 75% of U.S. screens receive their content via DCDC, primarily driven by large circuits. [Full disclosure, while at AMC, I was one of the co-architects in creating DCDC]

Contact: Maya Polimac
Senior Operations Executive – Exhibitors mayapolimac@dcdcnetwork.com
Electronic Delivery.
Founded in 1915, Deluxe Media Inc. (Deluxe) knows theatrical exhibition…!

Deluxe provides film distribution companies with digital masters for their movies, loads it on to hard drives, manages shipment of those hard drives to theatres and creation and delivery of encryption keys. They do this virtually flawlessly every week for over 220k screens in 195 countries.
In June 2020, Deluxe, with Amazon’s AWS as their core technology, launched One VZN (pronounced, “One Vision”). Recently rebranded as E-Delivery by Deluxe, the technology is a cloud-based, high-speed internet delivery solution and the perfect add-on to their already robust distribution platform.
Depending on the number of hard drives sent to a theatre (and the cost of your high-speed internet connectivity), Deluxe will work with the exhibitor to provide one of the following solutions:
Fully Qualified – Deluxe will provide a dedicated internet line and their proprietary FilmVault Server at no cost (the exhibitor may use the high-speed internet throughout the theatre). The exhibitor’s fee remains the same as standard hard-drive fulfillment ($40/film).
Server Qualified – Deluxe will provide their FilmVault Server at no additional cost. The exhibitor must provide high-speed internet connection of at least 100 Mbps download speed. The exhibitor’s fulfillment fee is discounted by $15, bringing costs to $25/film.
Note the program includes a three (3) year agreement, which automatically renews for successive one (1) year terms thereafter, unless terminated by either party with a 60-day notice.

Contact: Anne Sampson | Director, Exhibitor Relations
Watch Video: Deluxe Electronic Delivery on Vimeo
Summary.
From 35mm film cans on a truck...to hard drives shipped via overnight...to satellite delivery...to high-speed, IP-based terrestrial (“broadband”), this is the natural evolution of content delivery for theatrical exhibition.
Both delivery methods are outstanding options and I strongly encourage you to explore transitioning to one of these solutions. While I definitely have sentimental feelings towards DCDC, if you have access to high-speed internet, I believe Deluxe’s solution to be the most practical, reliable and long-term cost-efficient delivery method.
While overall, delivery stress levels and the hassle of having to return hard drives will immediately disappear, in the near-term, your actual content delivery costs will not appreciably change; over the long-term, however, they should begin to decrease. Also, know that our film distribution partners share in the pain of delivery costs…as a matter of fact, distributors pay a cost equal to, and many instances, greater than those of exhibition for each of the delivery alternatives (in the case of the old film cans, their share of cost was $135 and hard drives around $80).

How Digital Cinema Works.

A Quick History of Film Delivery

Comments