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Author
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Topic: showtime calculation software
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Frank Angel
Film God
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Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-23-2004 02:28 PM
Well, this is not a direct answer to what you are looking for Matt, but years ago I found a great little aid in preparing Time Schedules. I use a sexigesimal calculator to help in figuring out the times. This unit looks like a regular calculator, but it can be toggled to compute either in decimal or sexegesimal allowing you to input hours, minutes, and seconds and then do computations on those numbers. It is was made by Casio. So for example, if your starting time is say 12:30pm, you enter the hour, 12 and the minutes 30. Then you add the attraction reel running time, say 17m and then add the feature time, say 114m and you will get when the feature starts (12:47p) and the exit time (2:41p), and then you continue like that for the rest of the day. It doesn't print out anything and you would have to enter the times it computes in whatever program you do find, although I would think you could construct a spreadsheet in Excel that you could just plug the times in as you calculate them and print out from there.
It may seem silly to most that one would need such an aid, but for the unfortunate few like me who have a stunted right side of the brain and who have a hard enough time figuring regular decimal numbers in my head, let along figuring a 60 base system for time (which isn't two bad until you are figuring across the 12 to 1 hours), this little baby has been glued to my desk for decades.
I am not sure if Casio still makes this calculator, but with computers today, I can't imagine that you couldn't find a software sexegesimal calculator or more to the point, a small Time Schedule program designed specifically for this application without having to run (and purchase) a huge theatre operation software just to get a time schedule function.
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Dominic Espinosa
Phenomenal Film Handler
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Posts: 1172
From: Boulder Creek, CA.
Registered: Jan 2004
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posted 06-23-2004 02:34 PM
I've often though about writing a program like that. There are a lot of variables to take into consideration though if you're doing showtimes-done-right.
What I mean by that is, newer films should be given times that are on quarters of the hour, for example, it's easier for customers to remember 12:45 than 12:40, 12:45 is more of a mentally satisfying number. In addition bigger houses need longer intermissions for cleaning etc. You must also take into account 'dead times'. Times from 5:00 to 6:00 seem to be a little harder for customers to remember. For a long time we used a schedule that had 6 sets durring summer with sets beginning at 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 4:00, 7:00, and 9:00, sometimes later, such as 10:00's or 11:00's.
An excel spreadsheet maybe the solution to your needs. Hope this helps in some way.
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