I get asked all the time about how we get our movies and what goes in to scheduling them. It’s all pretty simple! Swank Motion Pictures is a company that provides pre-release movies to college campuses (pre-release meaning just after theaters and before being on DVD). Swank provides a release schedule that lists when movies are available to colleges and when they will go on DVD. I look at these release dates and pick a bunch of movies that will fit into our schedule. I bring the options to my committee, we discuss the options, and we vote. The film committee in UPB is made up of about 30 of your peers. They consider the movie options and do their best to select movies that will appeal to as many JMU students as possible. Once we’ve decided on the movies, I make the schedule for the month and send it to our representative at Swank. The rest is boring stuff like tracking the shipping, moving the films to Grafton, and making sure the films get returned. See? Simple!
-Alison Goitia, Film Director
I was on the Film Committee from ’05 to ’08 and used to design the monthly film print calendars. Good to see certain things don’t change! Long live Film Committee!