screening fees for museums and universities?

Hairy Lime

Hairy Lime

Well-known member
We've been approached by a large national museum and a private university about screening our short film. The museum would like the short to be part of a daily screening series and a university professor would like to screen the short in a classroom setting. Both have offered to buy/rent the short film, which suggests payment. Any suggestions on what kinds of fees to charge? I'm sure both have budgets for this kind of thing ... I just want to know what is usual or customary for these kinds of environments.

Anyone have experience with this?
 
Don't know about the rules for museums...

...but the classroom is pretty simple. If they buy a copy of your short, they are allowed to show it as part of their class. No extra charge. (But not in the cafeteria for entertainment purposes).

So...whatever you would sell a DVD of your short for. Or gouge them. Of course, they might just run down to the store and buy something else to show for $20.
 
Actually, I just re-read the email from the college professor and it's not for the classroom, but for a symposium, for which I'm guessing the participants pay a registration fee.
 
That still might count as educational purposes. I didn't read the copyright law on it that closely.

I'm always torn by things like this. Want to get paid, but don't want to take too big a bite out of education folks. Heck, I out-and-out gave a program to a university, rather than selling it to them...not that the $25 price of the software would have broken their budget. :)
 
I'm in academics myself so I won't be sticking it to them, but I may as well recoup some of my investment if my short film is worth something to them. This is when it's difficult to be a socialist leaning filmmaker in a capitalist free market. The freedom loving opportunist in me says "charge what the market will bear" while the alrturist in me says "give it away!"
 
Hmm.. Its a tough one,
On one hand they're making money off of the symposium and you probably won't be getting a large amount from them.
On the other hand it may spur people to buy your film, or at least get you some exposure which you could use to approach and sell the film to a educational distrubution firm.
 
I'm in pretty much the same situation. A museum wants to license a 20 minute doc I made for regular screenings as part of a continuing exhibit. What should I charge? I can't afford to make more of these if I give the product away. Any suggestions? Thanks.
 
Depends on the museum. I know some will pay up to $500. I ended up negotiating $200 from the Smithsonian. Not bad for an 8 minute short that will only play for a month.

The university ended up paying $50.
 
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