Hi Lisa.. YES! We get tremedous turnout.. nearly half our school comes with their parents. I'm only aware of Disney imposing copyright restrictions .. there may be others as well but that is one that we've dealt with as of late. Anyway.. the place you need to contact for that would be Buena Vista Non-Theatrical, Inc in Burbank Calif. I have the number and contact person also.. You can EMail me if you need it.
An alternative to showing Disney movies would be a video series called Animated Hero Classics. They are a great tie in with Character Building. For example, the Harriet Tubman video would be great to show during February, Black History Month and emphasizes her courage to fight for what she believed in. The videos come with resource books that you can make copies and give to the children. Our school loves them!
We have movie nights at our school at least 3 times a year.. Each month of the year we offer a family fun night.. it's worked out really wonderfully. Admission is free to all members of the PTSO and their families, non members pay $5 per family for entry. We serve popcorn which we pop fresh with a borrowed machine and sell it for 25 cents per bag, and we have a raffle. For instance when we showed the movie Tarzan, we made up a basket with the movie itself, some posters, stickers, action figures, pens/pencils, blockbuster tix, etc. etc.. in it. All raffle chances are a dollar but the basket itself turns out being worth at least $50 or so depending on how many donations we can solicit for it. We have a very strong solicitation team at our school. This solves half the problem. The other half of the problem is getting everyone to WANT to come back into the school. We kick off the week with a related activity. This Friday for instance we will be showing Toy Story (and yes it's copyrighted so you need to pay a small fee and get the company's permission prior to doing so.. as with all DISNEY movies..) ANYWAY.. we're going to be sending out notices on Monday to all families, it'll be in our paper and it'll be mentioned in the morning news each morning. The kids will get worksheets to color at the beginning of the week and we'll select one from each grade level the night of the event and that family gets free refreshments for the night! Hey.. we'll try anything once!
Hope this information helps. So far, this year has been a phenomenal one for generating interest in our school. I'm hoping to carry the momentum into next year as well..
I would like to have movie nights at our school during the spring break. I've heard that other schools do these and I'm asking for tips and suggestions on how to make this happen. What do you show them on? a big screen TV? Is there a problem using movies that are copyrighted? How much do you charge for admission? THANKS
