Mathematics for Business and Personal Finance

Unit 5: Making Business Decisions

WebQuests

Good Movies for a Great Cause

Introduction
Your school's Movie Fan Club wants to start movie series featuring classic and cult films from years past. The series will offer discounted tickets and donate all proceeds to a local children's charity. The Movie Fan Club hopes to increase students' interest in movies and raise money while having fun.

Since the series' proceeds are going to a good cause, a cinema in town has offered the group a reduced rate. They are willing to rent one screening room for $300 a night. The cinema will show a different movie a week for eight weeks. Based on initial research of students in your school, the Movie Fan Club expects to sell an average of 75 seats per screening.

Now, Club members have to determine if the series will generate more income than the cinema charges. Some students worry that the series won't generate enough revenue. They worry it might even cost the Club money. To pull this off, the Movie Fan Club needs to do some careful planning!

Task
The Movie Fan Club has identified three ways to generate revenue:

selling tickets for admission,
selling concessions, and
selling advertising space to local businesses.

As the Club Treasurer, your task is to determine what, if any, net profit the Movie Fan Club can expect from the series. You will prepare a proposal for your fellow members. At the next club meeting, you will outline this proposal in a five-minute presentation to the group. In order to be effective, you will need to research your options carefully and provide evidence.

Finally, each member of the Movie Fan Club will suggest one film to be included in the proposed series. (Since this is an all-ages show, the Movie Fan Club will not screen any movies which are rated R or include violent or explicit scenes.) You will research one film and try to persuade the group to include your choice in the series.

Process
1. First, research the price of tickets at the other cinemas in town. Contact at least three cinemas and determine the average ticket price. Your series is not showing first run feature films, and some students may have seen the series' film selections before. To make the series more attractive to students, the Movie Fan Club wants to sell tickets at half the average price in town.

2. The cinema has agreed to let the Movie Fan Club keep the net profits from the concession stand. Based on the concession stand's performance on a typical night, the cinema has provided the following data:

Item	Cost per Item	Markup Rate	Items Sold per Screening
Fresh Fruit	$0.25	200%	10
Regular Popcorn	$0.20	1000%	30
Large Popcorn	$0.25	1000%	15
Mini Pretzels	$0.50	300%	12
Bottle of Juice	$1.50	200%	25
Bottle of Water	$1.00	250%	30

(The cinema will provide ice, salt, butter topping, cups, and utensils at no charge to your customers.) Using this information, determine the net profits the Movie Fan Club can expect per screening.

3. Before the film, the Movie Fan Club plans to show ten minutes of advertisements purchased by local businesses. Contact local cinemas to learn the current rate for this ad space.

4. Based on your research, determine the net profits the Movie Fan Club might expect to receive for each screening. Then determine the net profits for the entire eight-week series. For your presentation, use charts or a spreadsheet application to display this information in an organized way.

5. Choose the movie you want included in the film series. Write a brief synopsis of the film. Research its stars and any awards won. Then research the film's performance in ticket sales, gross receipts, and home movie rentals. Use this information to promote the movie you chose. Since only eight films will be selected, make sure you build a persuasive case for yours.

6. Print out a copy to hand in to your teacher. Then, present your proposal to your class. Once everyone has presented, the class can vote on which movies to include in the series line up!

Resources
Here is a list of Web resources to use when planning the film series:

Ticket Prices

Fandango
Moviefone

How Movie Theaters Earn Profits

"The Popcorn Palace Economy"
"Straight to DVD"

Advertising Rates

Film Research

Evaluation

	Beginning 3	Developing 6	Accomplished 9	Exemplary 12	Score
Research	Information is inaccurate or inadequate	There is evidence of only a little research	Research is thorough and relevant	Research is thorough, and the information selected is detailed and interesting
Proposal	Little relevant content is included	Some relevant content is presented	All content relevant to the topic is included	Content is complete, and additional interesting details are included
Writing Quality	Most of the writing is not in complete sentences, and most capitalization and punctuation are not correct	Some of the writing is in complete sentences, and some capitalization and punctuation are correct	Most of the writing is in complete sentences, and most capitalization and punctuation are correct	All of the writing is in complete sentences, and proper capitalization and punctuation are used
Organization of Information	The layout and organization are confusing	Information is organized consistently	Information is organized in a meaningful and attractive way	Information is extremely well organized, and the design eye-catching
Presentation Skills	The presentation is difficult to follow or too short	The presentation is complete and organized	The presentation is detailed, and student refers to notes only occasionally	The presentation is interesting, thorough, and memorized

Conclusion
The Movie Fan Club is impressed and persuaded by your proposal, and the film series is scheduled to start next semester. Thanks to your careful research and planning, the Club plans to make an important donation to the local children's charity. At school, other student group leaders want to talk to you about starting their own charitable fundraisers. This looks like a promising new trend for your school—talk about a happy ending!