Forbidden Planet - Royalties

[dbuckley]

My local school is staging Return to the Forbidden Planet soon, and I got told what they were paying in royalties, and nearly fell over when I discovered that they were paying two thirds of the door take. Yes, you read this right, 66%. This is so far outside my normal range of royalties experience I feel compelled to ask - have other folks found Planet to be this expensive?

 

If you wish to keep confidences intact, responses by PM are welcomed, and I'll anonymously summarize.

[PDD]

I recently enquired about RttFP, and I'm fairly sure I was quoted the usual 15% of box office, with a minimum of ~£80 per performance, although I can't remember for sure, as I've deleted the email now as we're doing a different show. Seems very unlikely a school would be charged anymore than this for any show really; perhaps they applied for professional rights by mistake? Don't know if that's possible.

[paulears]

My recollection is the same as PDD, no unusual royalties - to be honest, at this scale, then nobody would do it, would they? If you add the cost of the script hire and other incidentals, you would pay them more than the box office take!

[Stutwo]

How much are you taking at the door? If it's fairly low then the minimum fee per night might be accounting for the 66%.

[dbuckley]

Dont know the answers to the questions; I'll enquire and come back. But thanks for ther responses so far.

[Jazomir]

I'm doing sound for a primary school production of High School Musical and providing we do not make a profit on ticket sales etc we get the CD & the scripts for a very reasonable set fee. However, the crunch comes if a profit is made - there can be stinging royalty fees to be paid - consequently we have wisely invested in an expensive flown sound & lighting rig from a reputable hire company.

 

Regards,

Jazomir

[gareth]

So rather than reduce the ticket prices so that mummy and daddy can come and see the offspring do their singing and dancing and not have to pay much for the tickets, the school decides to blow its profit on loads and loads of extra kit. Hmmm. Not sure your use of the word "wisely" is entirely appropriate in this scenario! What did you hire? And how much more kit is it than that school would normally have for a school play?

[paulears]

Having done this show as a college production, it stood no chance of making a profit - too much money on costumes effects and sundry technical things required by the script.

[Ken Coker]

- too much money on costumes effects and sundry technical things required by the script.

 

Come now..all one need is an overhead projector, some ex-rental TVs and a few Solar 250s!!

Do keep paying the royalties however small!!

 

 

KC

[andy_s]

Come now..all one need is an overhead projector, some ex-rental TVs and a few Solar 250s!!

and to really recreate the original - a tent with a few holes in it and weather similar to that which my esteemed colleague w/robe is currently experiencing on Bubble's latest show....

 

 

(edited for spelling)

[Jazomir]

1 - Ticket prices pegged at £2.50 so not overly expensive to start with

2 - Grants were obtained from various sources for drama based activities & from various social funds for this specific event

3 - Hire was considered the better option to enable us to firstly ascertain what the school needs to invest in in the future and secondly decide if a large one-off investment in drama production technical equipment is a good idea or even viable.

4 - System consisted of a flown truss (suspended from ceiling beams) + various spots , fresnels & par cans and a Martin/ QSC PA system (flown due to layout of school hall)

 

Total cost of production about £1300 - cost of buying in - approx 10 times more. Hence, no brainer for a potential one-off.

 

Regards,

Jazomir

[Nick S]

Total cost of production about £1300 - cost of buying in - approx 10 times more. Hence, no brainer for a potential one-off.

 

 

I don't think Gareth's point was actually about buying versus hiring - more about the wisdom behind hiring "extra kit"...nobody was suggesting it would be feasible to buy rather than hire for the kind of school show you're talking about.

[gareth]

Nick's right, Jazomir - I think you kinda missed the point of my comments. But never mind.

[Jazomir]

Thanks for all your replies. I think there is one thing that needs clarification in that there was no extra kit - we were starting from a point of owning no technical (light or sound) equipment, rigging/infrastructure or even a proper stage. We have other schools (including dedicated performing arts schools) in the area who have excellent facilities and normally we would have borrowed or rented from them - unfortunately all these were putting on their own productions at the same time as our own, and preparations/rehearsals etc. were so advanced when I joined the team that a change of show/venue/date was impossible. Without the generous grants we were offered, we would have been totally unable to present such an adventurous show - if it fails to impress or audience numbers are very low (these are both possibilities we have to consider) we will not have lost a major capital investment, and will continue to present low budget, low key productions more in keeping with our original ethos, as befits such a small school, and any future technical investment can be reigned in to match our future, more modest requirements .

 

Regards,

Jazomir

[paulears]

I think this phrase triggered the confusion

However, the crunch comes if a profit is made - there can be stinging royalty fees to be paid - consequently we have wisely invested in an expensive flown sound & lighting rig from a reputable hire company.

 

The bit that worried me more, as someone who has some experience of these things is this bit

I'm doing sound for a primary school production of High School Musical

 

The key word here is primary school. Primarys rarely have any kind of proper lighting or sound systems - they are not normally required with kids that young. I find it amazing they are even considering doing this show - musically and production wise, the kids will need it simplifying so much, and to be honest, throwing money at the technical elements is pointless - the overall quality threshold can only be at 'primary' level. Surely anything more than a few low power Fresnels, or PARS on stands is overkill. High schools and college have access to substantial central government funding that can't be possible in a primary - their purpose is so much different. There is no doubt some misudenrstanding within the school as to the royalty situation - I have never come accross a contract based on profit. Box office take is their only concern. From the rights holders perspective, it's clear that if profit was the key, then only rarely would they get money coming in - especially if the person with the rights could then blow the profit on kit?

 

I'm assuming you are doing the cut down version intended for middle schools? - This only lasts about an hour, and doesn't normally have an interval.

 

High schools and colleges have a different system - the students each generate 'clumps' of funding - so if you have lots of performing arts students, you get lots of funding, which usually but not always stays within the department. This way, some schools have really big sums to spend in a particular area. The upshot being that schools are rarely poor, they just perhaps spend their money on things other than the arts!