Our school is interested in doing a free family movie night. Mention was made that the license was obtained for a small fee. Can you give me some idea what you paid? Thanks.
We have found movies to be a great fundraiser and a wonderful way to entertain and reach our kids, but it is a much more complex situation than you might think. We just got licensed like Aabkptc was referring to by Movie Licensing USA, a division of Swank. We had previously found out that our school needed a license to legally use movies from the major studios, like Disney, for non-curricular purposes like After Care or Adventure Club programs, or even our PTO “Family Movie Nights”.
It was all brought to our attention by a very informed librarian and as we researched it further we found out that you must have a license to use movies out side of the home for any purpose, any size group, in just about any setting, as a profit or non-profit organization, and it does not matter weather or not an admission fee was charged either way it is illegal. Actually the librarian was able to help us find Movie Licensing, which can provide licensing to a majority of the movies made by Hollywood, even classics and cartoons and even Disney.
The license was very inexpensive for our school, and it covered both the schools needs and ours. What we found out in all this was our school was in danger of significant financial penalties if they or we were caught showing movies without a license. You would not believe the ways we have found to utilize movies know that we can use them anytime, for any purpose, and any number of times we want. Our “The Grinch” showing was a huge success, and we are having problems picking from the great movies to use for a Black History movie night we have planned in February, and I can not count the number of requests for Harry Potter, when it eventually becomes available.
I believe that if you show a Disney film you MUST pay royalties even if you don't charge. They were trying to get PRESCHOOLS to pay if they showed a movie to the classes! (Not very good press in my opinion!)
I'm not sure how they police this if you just rent a video.
Just another suggestion. It is mandatory that students have an adult with them at all of our evening events at the elementary. Quickly becomes a babysitting problem and our goal is to have the families together anyway. Otherwise we would show the movies during their school day somehow. Best Wishes!
Our school did movie nights during the spring break for the first time. We had to rent a big screen TV for a rental company ($100 for 2 weeks). We did not charge admission so we could show disney movies. We sold popcorn and pop for .25 each. The first night was the biggest crowd and then it tapered off. The weather was nice then, baseball practices and other outdoor things were also happening. If we do it again, we will do it during the winter. We are K-8 with 400 students. Only the younger grades came. Parents were encouraged to stay. Hope this helps.
