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Originally Posted by hacker
You haven't rented a DVD recently, have you? Most of the DVDs released this year (from major studios) prohibit you from jumping past the commercials into the main menu of the DVD. You HAVE TO watch the previews and commercials before your DVD player's remote control buttons for the menu navigation work.
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I have noticed the trend towards non-forwarding commercials on DVD's, but the difference is that at home you can be doing other things while that crap is playing: making popcorn, one last bathroom break, brushing the dog,... The commercials that ruin movies come after someone has planned to see the movie, synchronized their schedule with their woman to get there on time, spend time parking, walking to the theater, waiting in line, paying too much for the tickets, waiting in line for the concessions, finding a seat (and praying that you're not sitting behind a beehive hairdo or in front of a loud-ass kid who's kicking your seat and
then having to sit through 20 minutes of commercials and another 10 minutes of trailers. At home, you can start the movie in the DVD player without even turning the TV on, because the commercials will play out and then the DVD will hang out on the menu screen until you tell it what to do.
The theater experience needs to be streamlined and made more comfortable to the audience then it's become. When the paying audience is waiting for movies to come out on DVD instead of jumping through all those hoops, a paradigm has shifted and the studios need to adapt.
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Originally Posted by Chaos
The exception I've noted to the rule over the past few years, is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even months after the movies have hit theatres, they were still being advertised. I suppose that's because LotR were actually pretty good movies, as opposed to most of the current movies which are crap...
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I agree with you that LOTR had staying power, I think basically because the Tolkien fans (70 years worth) had such high hopes and the movies were done so faithfully that they were enjoyable to the books fans and to neophytes of the stories. That positive buzz generated ticket sales that lasted over a period of several months. I think studios know that their movies suck (for the most part) and try to create buzz and heat for those first weekends box office, before negative reviews and bad word-of-mouth kill the theatrical release. Ever noticed how a movie will be in the theaters only for about 3 weeks? It's because the studio was just happy to get it into the theaters and get more money and buzz for their DVD sales then they would've by just taking their chances on Blockbuster's crowded shelves.
I work on a lot of low-budget indy films that no one's ever heard of and probably never will. (I'm not just a purist who's only into it for the "art", I'm just kinda low on the totem pole behind the guys/girls who have the 20-30 years experience. I'd've loved to have worked on Matrix 2-3 or Hulk, even though I would have never watched them in the theaters.)
Some of these filmmakers are just trying to create some buzz in the community that they can attach to their names to make fundraising for the next project even easier. I know that they're hopeful that a studio will pick their film up after seeing it at one of the festivals, but realistically they want to get into the festivals, maybe win "Best Of" somewhere, and be able to put that on the DVD box and hope that it'll stand out on those crowded shelves and maybe make money in the long-term. If a movie gets picked up at the festival level, the filmmaker has essentially hit the jackpot. Now they will have more leverage in negotiating DVD sales and a little more notoriety and credibility when it comes to getting more money for the next project. (And hopefully they get more money, hire us all again at something more akin to our day rates and we all grow together. Unfortunately, most filmmakers move on to more "professional" crews when they get their money if they even decide to make more movies. Some are content having turned $100,000 into $200,000 and basically retire from the film biz.)
I'm glad the studios stopped trying to guilt-trip the paying audience away from piracy with those lame testimonials that made it seem like piracy was affecting the crew menber, when it really only affects the studio.
POL9A