What is RunPee for, anyway?
The RunPee tagline says it all: Because movie theaters don’t have pause buttons. The RunPee app will give you several Peetimes of 3-5 minutes in each movie when you can run and pee.
We also let you know if there is anything during or after the end credits that you should stick around for. No more waiting 8-10 minutes for nothing! Better yet, now you can sit confidently while everyone else leaves, knowing there is something extra after the end credits.
In addition, the RunPee app gives you a synopsis of the first 3 minutes of most movies, just in case you’re running late.
When are Peetimes for a newly released movie posted?
Fortunately, we have a movie critic working for us now, who has access to movie screenings before a movie is released to the public. She will help out with the big blockbuster movies.
The RunPee family handles the bulk of the movies. We always go and see the very first showing we possibly can and upload the Peetimes ASAP. In most cases, we can see the opening showing at 7:00 PM Eastern on Thursday evenings.
Who writes the Peetimes?
It’s the RunPee Family (Ginger, Christene, Jilly, Dan, and Vera ) who sees most of the movies. We also get help from Dana Simone, Shani Ogilvie, and Shanee Edwards (our L.A. movie critic)for the big blockbuster movies, so that we’ll have Peetimes before the movie is released in the USA.
Our Thursdays/Fridays pretty much revolve around getting to the theaters to see the earliest showings we can, and then coming home to read through our notes and create Peetimes.
How come some of your Peetimes suggest leaving at important plot points? I thought the Peetimes were for the boring parts!
Actually, it’s super hard to find Peetimes in good, well-edited movies. But we don’t want to leave you with nothing. So sometimes the Peetimes are simply spots in the movie that can be easily summed up, so you won’t be lost when you get back.
For example, in Harry Potter 6, we have a Peetime where you miss Harry getting his Advanced Potions book. It’s important to the plot, but honestly easy to miss: he gets the book and realizes someone smart – but unknown – owned it previously. Easy to sum up and now you know what is going on.
There has to be a scene of at least three to five minutes where you can skip out…and not worry you wasted your hard-earned movie ticket money. We want you to be able to slip back into the movie and be able to pick up the gist of things. So we look for scenes that can be described in a few words.
We know that no one wants to miss the funniest lines, or best action, or most dramatic plot points, so we are careful to avoid those scenes. But sometimes we might make a Peetime during an action scene, as long as it’s not the best action of the movie. That’s the sort of thing we look for. We also try to find Peetimes over a variety of different types of scenes, and then let you know in the notes section — below the Cue — which ones have what. That way if you don’t care about long chase scenes, we’ll have a Peetime for you.
How do you get the Peetimes for each movie?
It’s probably much more difficult than you would imagine. We wait until about 30 minutes or so into the movie, and then start looking for cues — scenes or lines that stand out. When we see one, we write it down and mark the time. Then we start taking notes. If we can go for 3 to 4 minutes without anything really funny happening, or any great action, or important plot twists, or character development (you get the point) we label it as a Peetime…as long as nothing that someone would hate to miss occurs.
Let me emphasize we assume you are watching a movie you really enjoy. It drives us nuts when someone says, “The RunPee app says you can run and pee anytime during [insert movie title here].” For every movie you may think is a waste of time, there’s another person who counts that same movie as their favorite ever. We’re trying to do Peetimes for the person who loves the movie — even if we don’t enjoy it ourselves. Love the film? — we try to have your back!
Where are the Limited Release Movies? And the Independent Films?
We just don’t have time to add all the limited release movies. However, if there is very popular limited release movie, like Black Swan or The Kings Speech, then we’ll make every effort to go see it ASAP.
Is the number of Peetimes for a movie a good indicator as to how bad the movie is?
Not at all. Really, the number of Peetimes is proportional to the length of the movie. (Longer movies = more Peetimes.) We start looking for Peetimes in a movie about 30 minutes after it starts, and we stop looking with about 20-30 minutes remaining. In between, we try and find a Peetime about every 30 minutes or so.
Obviously that is harder to do for some movies than others. Inception was a very hard movie to find Peetimes for, for example: it’s a case study of in-depth plotting and confusing set pieces, requiring multiple viewings to really understand. Most movies aren’t this hard — we’ve gotten really good at finding Peetimes over the years.
Concession Stand
I have never been to a movie theater with a confession stand!!! What do they do at those? I usually get my popcorn at the concession stand hrmmmmmmm
polyGeek
@Concession, thanks for catching that typo. Very witty comment. 🙂
Jilly
You can do all KINDS of things at Confession Stands. I think every theater should have one or two. Makes the Multiplex more multipurpose. 😉
Esme
May I ask…what’s the average site visits for Runpee per day?
polyGeek
@Esme, It’s really hard to say because mentions in the press can spike traffic from day to day. The best I can tell right now is that we’re getting around 3000 uniques a day and that’s increasing by about 5% a week.
Movie Lover
I don’t think I’m the only moviegoer who’s greatly bothered by the rudeness of people using their cellphones during films (and yes, even silently, as the light itself is incredibly distracting). If I’m understanding your app correctly, you’re not only encouraging that rudeness, you’re actually hoping to profit from it. Am I missing something? If not, I’m afraid I have to root against your success.
polyGeek
@Movie Lover, no, I’m not promoting rudeness at all. If anyone wants to use the app they should be able to read the cues before the movie begins. Then when they see one of cues during the movie they get up, leave the theater, go pee and can read the synopsis of what’s going on. Now if people want to be rude they can certainly do so. We did take this into consideration by making the app mostly black. But our big hope is that the soon to be added feature that vibrates the phone about 2 minutes before each PeeTime will really help people use the app without bothering others.
By the way, I was watching “Aliens in the Attic” yesterday and some teenage girl sitting right in the middle of the theater popped her phone open 3 times to send a text message. I was in the very back corner – so that I wouldn’t bother anyone while taking notes. I wanted to walk up and thump her on the head. I can’t believe the people behind her didn’t do it for me.
DAVID
How come all movies are not listed? How can we suggest you add a movie? As an example tonight a group of friends are going to see 500 days of Summer. There is no listing on your site or my Iphone site.
Thanks,
David
polyGeek
@David, All of the movies that are in wide release get added to the database. I really wanted to see 500 Days of Summer but I was in Tampa at the time and it wasn’t showing anywhere near me. In fact it wasn’t showing anywhere in Florida when it first came out. Now I’m in Orlando – to stay for a while – and it’s showing at an independent theater about 20 miles away. I’ll try and see it tonight or tomorrow.
Strange
When can I pee with my Blackberry Bold?
polyGeek
@Strange, looks like we’ll have a Blackberry version out around the end of August.
Forty Eight
polyGeek- Are you Jordan Palmer?
Dan Florio
@Forty Eight, no – I’m Dan Florio. You can read more about me at blog.RunPee.com/about. Why you would want to is beyond me but it’s there if you do. 🙂
walt
I thought it said the app was free for the iphone and android but the appstore says its $.99
Dan Florio
It was free until a few days ago. I forgot to update the website until another user pointed it out to me. It simply came to a point that I’m spending too much time and money on keeping this app up to date with new movies to keep doing it for free. I hope you understand.
Dave L
Just want to say I love the app. Use it everytime I go to the movies for the “anything after credits” feature. I always talked with friends about creating an app that tells people if they should wait around after the movie or not and I couldn’t believe it when I stumbled across a movie app that had one. I know a lot of people probably get on here to ask you questions or bad mouth you… I just wanted to say I appreciate all the hard work you and your family do and I use your app everytime I go to the movies. Great App!!!
polyGeek Administrator
Thanks Dave. I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me that. Thankfully, I don’t get much complaining from people. When I do it usually starts off with, “I love the app, but…” That’s nice to hear. The majority of the comments have to do with the vibration working correctly, which works great 99% of the time, but can sometimes be problematic, especially on iPhone.
I’m always working to make the app better and add more useful features. Don’t hesitate to let me know if you ever spot something that’s wrong or that you think I can do better.
Dan
Queen
I don’t understand how this works. How many coins do you need for a movie you plan on going to see?
Dan Gardner Administrator
Just one. Each Peecoin gives you access to the Peetimes Screen and all of the Peetimes for that movie. And you can come back to that movie without spending another Peecoin.
Ben
Why does RunPee cost money now? I’ve been using this app for free for years, now you want me to pay?
Dan Gardner Administrator
Previously, the RunPee app was entirely ad supported. We lost the sponsor and had to adapt to a new model. You can still use the app for free by viewing ads. Just tap the “Get more Peecoins” button and that’s an option. You can also purchase Peecoins. We make just under 1 cent for each video ad that users view. That isn’t enough to keep RunPee going, but it’s better than nothing. I did want to leave an option to people to use the app for free. However, if you want to support our ongoing costs for adding new movies each week then please purchase Peecoins. We make 7 cents off each purchased Peecoin — after Apple/Google take their 30% cut.
BTW, I hope you understand, it costs a lot of money and take a LOT of time to keep RunPee updated. This is my fulltime job, and I get help from half a dozen people to help get Peetimes for new movies. People don’t work for free, not even family. 🙂
Kenny McLean
I love your app, however…
I have just tried to earn peecoins by watching ads. I know you say that three videos = one peecoin. While watching the videos it still says “1 video = 1 peecoin”
The site also indicates a peecoin value beside each video.
I watched a 7,5,2,2,2 and earned three peecoins.
I think an update is required
Dan Gardner Administrator
Hi Kenny,
Thanks for pointing that out. I forgot to log into TapJoy and change the text there. It’s updated now.
The numbers beside each ad don’t apply to the RunPee app. They have to do with TapJoy’s virtual currency. I added a one time popup in the RunPee app to the effect of “ignore those little numbers,” but it’s easy to miss.
Question: you watch 5 videos, correct? So you should have 1 2/3’s of a Peecoin.
Kenny McLean
Wow, quick work.
Yes, I got the 2/3 coin. I hadn’t spotted it but when I went to look it was there. I watched four videos and now have only full peecoins.
I was confused by the multiple tokens as there is no mention of you using someone else’s back end to run the videos.
Things are now clear
Thanks for your help.
R.J.
Love the app and am glad you’re making money on it now – it always surprises me to see comments from folks who don’t recognize that the developers of the apps you love making money is a good thing!
I’ve always wondered what your experience is like generating these peetimes in a movie. I assume you’re attending pretty packed showings to get peetimes up early, so are you writing things down without any additional lighting to avoid disturbing other moviegoers? Do you get comments/questions about what you’re doing all the time?
Thanks again for all your hard work. I honestly can’t see movies in theater without this app.
Dan Gardner Administrator
Hi RJ. Thanks for your understanding. I really appreciate that.
We’ve written about the experience of getting Peetimes here on the blog, but basically we sit in the back-right corner so that we can use the light from our phone screen to give us enough light to write by. If someone is sitting next to us, which is very rare, they still can’t tell that we’re taking notes. The majority of the time we have the back row almost all to ourselves. I usually get tickets days in advance so that I know I’ll have the back-corner.
Please let us know if you think of anything we can do to make the app better for you.
Kathy
We have been using RunPee for years and LOVE this app. Thanks for taking time to do this. We are always checking to see if there are any credits after a movie and share it with other movie goers at everym time we go to the theater.
Dan Gardner Administrator
Hey Kathy. Thanks so much for sharing the RunPee app with others. That is the meat, potatoes, bacon, and gravy of our advertising campaign: let other’s do it for us for free. 🙂