We're Not Who You Think We Are
by Jim Connelly
So I just finished watching the opening sequence of the new thriller Lucky Number Slevin on my TV. I wasn’t watching a bootleg or an illegal download. Rather, I was watching the teaser that the Weinstein Company has made available on YouTube in the hopes that it will go viral and goose the box office.
According to the Weinstein Co and YouTube, this is yet another first in terms of using the Web for film cross-promotion, and it’s a pretty interesting experiment, at the very least.
by Jim Connelly
A least one movie studio has seen the future, and in early May, is going to offer film downloads that will burnable to DVDs which will be easily watchable on your TV.
That studio: Vivid Video, one of the leading producers of hardcore porn.
Last week, Jim wrote a concise analysis of “why people download shared music”. I’m going to continue that theme — possibly ranting a bit more than Jim. Today’s hot news is that the studios are (gasp! sigh! swoon!) going to allow consumers* to download movies on the same day the DVD is released.
Needless to say, this isn’t the giant step forward for mankind that you’d imagine. And not just because “same day” can mean “same day” or within 45 days. Your choice. As the Los Angeles Times notes:
OMG, OMG, OMG! I so wasn’t going to finish the week with another article on the shrinking windows issue, but I just can’t help myself. How can I, in good conscience, let this reasoning for theater owners freezing out Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble pass?
We want to put up on the large screen a product made with that format in mind. Bubble, and some of these other direct-to-video titles, are simply not. We want to serve steak, not hamburger.
Now setting aside the satisfaction that comes with a good hamburger, hello? Has this guy (Peter Brown, CEO of AMC Entertainment) watched any of the crap that masquerades as a “feature” film? We’re not talking hamburger. Think dog meat. He’s clearly forgotten that DVD is where the money is printed with black instead of red ink. Of course, every film is made with the DVD format in mind — one way or another.
by Jim Connelly
King Kong is coming out on DVD on April 10th. In and of itself, that isn’t extraordinary — it’s been a few months since it hit the theatre, and now those interested in Peter Jackson’s take on the tale, but didn’t want to be bothered with sticky floors, ringing cellphones, commercials and overpriced vats of food can watch it in the privacy of their own homes. (Why they even had wait a few months is another discussion for another time).
That week, millions of people will trundle off to their local Best Buy or Blockbuster or rip open a package from Amazon, and pop King Kong into their DVD player. Unless they live in Europe, where instead, they can download it.
For the first time ever, a major Hollywood movie will be available for downloading on the same day as the DVD release. A non-self-destructing file, unlike other downloads in the past; and while it is more expensive than just purchasing the DVD, they will also send a physical copy of the DVD. Right. A physical backup copy for the downloaded digital file. And also, to give the consumer more choices on when and where to play the movie.
If successful in Europe, it’s only a matter of time before they try it here: and that will be long after shared copies of those downloads have already made it here. Given the time difference between here and Europe, it’s possible that a shared download of Kong will be played on some college kids laptop before his local DVD store even opens.
But maybe, just maybe, the movie studios will look at what they call “piracy” as indicators of demand — what people are willing to pay for if it was only available — as opposed to indicators of just how contemptible their audience actually is. If so, it’s another major step to anything, anytime, anywhere.
Used to be that you could count on the solid, steady pace of windows. Just as seasons follow one another in stately procession (though Winter can be unruly at times), so do media windows. Or, rather, so did media windows.
In their ongoing effort to prove that initial theatrical release is no more than a giant, rather expensive marketing campaign for the DVD release, the period before a $50 million grosser hits the DVD market has dropped to 4.5 months. It remains unclear why this time frame remains so long, but maybe that’s because tradition is hard to shake. We’ve talked about the idea of simultaneous releases more than once here at Medialoper.
One of our mandates here at Medialoper is to bring light into the minds of those who can’t see. We are proud of our commitment to public service. Today, we turn to the theater owners, who clearly need our assistance.
As you may know, attendance in movie theaters is dropping. There are a multitude of reasons: lousy movies, incredible hassle, paying to park, paying far too much for lousy movies, paying too much for food and beverages, and, okay, rude people in the theater.
So it’s important to focus on the latter — in order to help boost attendance, the theater owners are thinking of asking Congress to change the law to allow for cell phone jamming (presumably, they’ll create an exception for medical personnel and law enforcement). Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m all for stopping the insane use of phones in every public space (except the pink ones). But when you review the list of reasons people are skipping out on the theater-going experience, two bigger, better, more powerful common themes emerge.
I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by repeating them. Okay, yes I will. Cost and quality. Quality and cost. You want to bring back the paying customers? Give them a reason to leave the house.
I’m going to tell you a little secret: Hollywood is in a state of panic (it’s also in California, but that’s another issue). Those of you who have been paying attention have surely noted that the new media is moving at warp speed. Now you could say, in the studios’ defense, that this rapid turn of events has been, well, rapid, but the Dawn of the New Media has been predicted since Amazon.com sold its first book.
Hollywood has been actively digitizing product for years now. Every studio has been scrubbing and remastering and relicensing music in anticipation of a digital windfall. Maybe it’s that DVD has been so dominant, so profitable for so long, but the studios remain unprepared for the future. Item Number Ten on the Absolute Value analysis of Google’s Analyst Slide Show asks the question that has Hollywood biting its nails:
Do you know exactly how many assets you have? By assets, I mean all the content you’ve ever owned or created. Do you know exactly? Do you have the count? (Remember, I’m a computer scientist. I have to ask these things.)
[Read more…] about What Really Keeps Studio Executives Awake At Night
by Jim Connelly
Lots of recent sabre-rattling directed at YouTube, who have come out of nowhere to be the one of the most-trafficked video web sites. In the past couple of weeks, they’ve been hit with a pair of high-profile “get that thing off of your site” letters from uptight copyright holders, making people wonder if they can avoid being tagged the “Video Napster.”
by Jim Connelly
Just a few scant weeks after Steven Soderbergh’s “Bubble” was available simultaneously to theatres, cable and video, here comes another major test for what they are calling the “day and date” strategy of multi-platform releasing. IFC and Comcast have announced a deal to release several indie films this year to both their theatres and cable on-demand services on the same day.
“Bubble” could have been written-off as an anomaly, a confluence of a maverick director and a maverick eccentric billionaire (Mark Cuban), but this, my friend, this is a trend.
And it will work because indie film people who live in areas who that don’t have a lot of theatres that show indie film, but happen to have Comcast cable (like, say, in Fresno, California) can watch the first-run movies that they’ve been reading about on various film sites and not have to wait months for the DVD to show up.
This could be the same boon to indie film that iTunes and eMusic are to indie rock.