UltraStar Cinemas one of Southern California’s largest privately-owned movie theater groups has formed a public-private partnership with the Xiamen Culture and Art Center and Xiamen University of Technology to create an organization dedicated to education and training in digital cinema management. Together they will establish the XMUT UltraStar Academy of Digital Cinema Management with a multi-disciplinary curriculum developed jointly by all three entities. The curriculum will be offered at the Xiamen University of Technology a public university under the major of Digital Cinema Management beginning in 2012. “The Academy of Digital Cinema Management aims to equip Chinese workers with the understanding experience and skill set necessary to operate digital cinemas as high quality profitable businesses ” says Terry Guo executive president of XMUT College of Digital Arts. The curriculum will incorporate Chinese business employment and cultural standards in order to create an effective synthesis of management practices used in China and by UltraStar’s U.S. locations. Instruction and hands-on experience will be provided by Chinese educators and UltraStar representatives in areas such as: digital cinema design and construction; cinema management principles; cinema marketing techniques; booking and buying of content; digital equipment usage and maintenance; digital content alternatives; concessions management; human resources; and customer service. “Chinese audiences represent a tremendous market for digital cinema and the associated exhibition of alternative content ” says John Ellison COO and co-founder UltraStar Cinemas. “This partnership combines the resources of one of China’s leading cultural institutions the talents of a highly-respected technical university and our 40-year experience as one of North America’s most innovative and successful exhibitors.” “By establishing a network of digital cinemas across China we believe we can serve an important cultural purpose and create successful businesses incorporating leading-edge technology for the 21st century says Tony Gaston manager of UltraStar Asia’s operations. The digital medium will allow network locations to exhibit the wide array of entertainment and educational content now available to audiences and fine tune programming to meet the specific demand of culturally diverse populations across China.” “Box office has grown rapidly in recent years and in the first quarter of this year our cultural output increased by 37 percent ” says Xu Xiang Ming vice director of the Xiamen Culture and Arts Center. “In China we still have to fully develop the infrastructure necessary to receive and exhibit and digital content. The advent of digital cinema also requires individuals trained in digital cinema management and operations. We are thrilled to partner with UltraStar the world’s first exhibitor to go all-digital to create a course of instruction that will expose Chinese students to all aspects of the business and prepare them for leadership roles in this industry.”
