Frank Price - Blog 2

Transcript of Frank Price, Part Two

Frank Price: Number one, we worked on the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times. Fortunately, they liked what they saw, what we screened for them. And we were able to get six major articles out of them over the next year on various aspects of India, Gandhi, so on. Jo Reed: That’s a feat. Frank Price: Yes. Oh, yes. Well, if you don’t have the movie, none of these things happen. It all boils down, “Do you have the goods or not?” We had it. So the important thing was to sell it properly, sell it right. So the other thing we did was to work out an arrangement with the National Educational Association to put into classrooms throughout the country information about the Gandhi story. Because we felt that we’ll start with schools, and make the young people aware. They’ll even maybe talk to their parents, saying, “Have you heard of Gandhi?” so on. So, that educational thing went on. Then we carefully scheduled when we would open the picture. We wanted to open it on Christmas Day, where the adults would be available. And we'd open it on a very limited basis. Platforming, so-called, so that we’re not in many theaters at that point. We’d would open on that day very close to the time of the Academy Award nominations. What we were wanting is open it, get our reviews, get our Academy Award nominations, which we then trumpet in our advertising. And then, of course, we roll up to the actual Academy Awards. We wouldn’t depend on them, but we’d be prepared for another burst there. So it all worked, because we swept the Academy Awards.