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Author Topic: Iron Man prints have locks (here we go again) Mark Lensenmayer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1605 From: Upper Arlington, OH Registered: Sep 1999 posted 05-03-2008 01:24 PM                     I checked the REGAL website, and all theatres in Orlando have IRON MAN.  |  IP: Logged Christopher Duvall Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: Denver, CO Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-03-2008 02:27 PM                     I know for a fact that DID NOT HAPPEN in Florida. As Brad said...scare tactic.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-03-2008 03:32 PM                     Yet the funny part about that is I'll bet there WERE theaters in Florida who had their cans opened the night before.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-03-2008 06:01 PM                        I am told that IRON MAN is already on the internet. And it's not a theatre screen copy. So much for their idiotic locks.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-03-2008 09:15 PM                     At the risk of descending into grey areas..according to vcdquality.com, a pirate web site that rates pirated copies of films but does not actually distribute them ("plausible deniability"), there are at least two copies of Ironman floating around Internet filesharing the networks. The first, labelled "SUBBED.CAM" is a through-the air capture with asian character subtitles, presumably from an international release; it is dated Thursday, May 1st. The second, labelled "PROPER.CAM" appears also to be a through-the-air capture, but without subtitles. Dated Friday, May 2nd. I think this means Paramount is right to be concerned. (However, Frank, your argument is broken. If in fact the pirated versions already available were not from theatre prints, that may simply mean that their security is effective. You simply cannot win this kind of argument without access to massive amounts of data about the piracy and their profit and loss and what kinds of security measures are too costly.) The reality of this piracy is that it is a multi-pronged effort, fighting against both large organized crime groups and random guys with camcorders who might work in theatres (and also random guys with camcorders who sneak in to theatres). Sure, locks on a print are not going to deter a determined pirate with a quarter-million dollar telecine in his private meth/film lab. But for everyone one of those, there are a hundred opportunistic theatre employees who would tape a preview screening. (And for every one of those, there are a few thousand people who sneak into theatres with camcorders; I'm making these numbers up.) I have a lot of sympathy for the studios on this. They're trying to do all they can, which isn't much. Of course, in my theatre, if you get me a decent print twenty-minutes before it needs to be on-screen, I'm happy (changeover). Obviously there should be better communications between studios and exhibitors, but really you can blame this on the chains. They're the only exhibitors with sufficient market clout to negotiate these issues in a way that really matters. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Carey Barber Expert Film Handler Posts: 143 From: Newport News, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 05-03-2008 09:27 PM                     When Transformers had the locks on the can we later saw the lock combination appeared in the movie (it was the main character's online username). I was told by one of my projectionists that the Iron Man code appears when Gwyneth Paltrow enters a pass code to get into a door. I have not been able to verify this myself, but I was wondering if anyone else had caught it...  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-04-2008 03:21 AM                        What really bothers me is the lack of communication. If not for Film Tech, I probably wouldn't have known about the locks until my print arrived Wednesday evening. I didn't receive an email or a fax from Deluxe about the locks. Aside from the lack of communication, it wasn't really any different from a regular delivery of a Technicolor print. The one thing that does concern me when we don't get the print at least one day before the opening (especially for a Friday opening), is that there is little opportunity to get a replacement reel ordered before the weekend if it's needed. With Matrix Reloaded, we had a reel that almost went black for about 30 seconds and we weren't able to get the replacement reel until the second day of the run (seems like that would have been Friday morning).  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-04-2008 06:00 AM                        John, I am really not making an argument that studios shouldn't do everything they can to stop people from stealing from them. They should. I am just pointing out that some of their ideas aren't not too bright and, how shall we say....less than effective. Locks on prints being one of them. Trailers telling my good patrons who have PAID and admission to a movie, that the theatre is potentially full of evil, thieving pirates who are willing to take the food out of the mouths of a lighting gaffer's children, is another. Believe me, I sympathize with the studios as do you. I would be the first to call the cops if I caught anyone caming off my screen. I guess what I can't stomach, and which you obviously hear it come out in my posts, is the MPAAs continuous PR barrage of pronouncements about the billions of dollars they loose to pirates and then invariably in the same breath, they point fingers at exhibition as the reason. They either directly or indirectly let it be known that it is the THEATRES and those pirates aiming their cams at screens all over the country that cost them these billions. I find this disingenuous and much more obnoxious than the questionable legitimacy of their monetary loss assessment, which, to me, admittedly, sounds like numbers pulled out of their asses. But, you are right....as you say, I am not privy to any inside workings of the studios' accounting departments, but again, as dubious as those numbers sound, that is not what irks me (all businesses spin the numbers to their advantage). My big complaint is that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that at least a very big portion of those lost nebulous billions are not entirely the fault of theatres and exhibition personnel who are for the most part decent and honest people and who don't want to see the entire industry -- the studios AND exhibition -- hurt by the bootleggers. It is pretty clear even to a non-studio outsider that it is the studio side where these pristine copies originate. Yet you rarely hear pronouncements about the dishonest people in the studios' own house that are in one way or another supplying pristine, master quality copies which you and I both know are certainly worth much more in the world of piracy than off- screen copies. Bet there are no locks on the editing computers. Academy screener copies float around all the time. I think I may have mentioned that at a gathering of some industry people who were working on a major release, the title of which I won't post here for obvious reasons, one of the members of the editing team had his laptop; he asked if we wanted to see the film he was working on. He opened the laptop and WITHOUT SO MUCH AS ENTERING A PASSWORD, played this soon to be released BO hit movie. It was nearly complet except for some of the music cues were not in the right place. Other than that, if someone other than my very honest friend had gotten a hold of his laptop, they would have had a very lucrative, marketable bootleg. And putting my ignorance of bootleg economic aside, I will bet THAT copy would be allot more damaging economically to the studio than anyone videotaping off a movie screen. Yet, the studios always seem to put their efforts on only one side of the isle. To me, that's offensive and deserving of righteous scorn.  |  IP: Logged Kevin Baglow Expert Film Handler Posts: 135 From: Yeppoon Qld, Australia Registered: Dec 2000 posted 05-04-2008 06:43 AM                        When I was running an independent theatre in Australia against the Major chain BCC. We were doing better business then them so they got even by holding our print of ''Lord of the rings''(the final film) untill the morning of our opening screening. We had a full house, and had to make up the first two reels to the platter to get started and then stop the show after the first two reels and thread up again. A few wanted refunds --not to mention it did spoil the show a bit,The antics the majors got up to to interfere with my business could fill a very entertaining book or even a movie.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-04-2008 07:19 AM                     Frank, where the heck do you get the idea that the studios "seem to put their efforts on only one side of the [aisle]"? It is simply untrue. They have put lots of effort into dealing with leaked copies from inside. And I think they have also been very successful. I don't follow this very closely so I cannot cite hard evidence to you, but it is my understanding that the fraction of pirated films available prior to their first-run debut has dropped by a huge amount. My sense is two orders of magnitude, like around 100 more rare. (I also don't think it is a good idea to draw broad conclusions from the one example you witnessed. I don't think it is indicative, and how sure are you that you saw what you thought you saw? My laptop has a fingerprint reader, it can be quite subtle. Also a timeout, so it may not prompt me for a password if I've used it sufficiently recently.) --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-04-2008 10:16 AM                        I would have more sympathy for the film distributors if they would stop making outrageous claims about the losses that they supposedly suffer due to piracy. Whenever figures are quoted, they always seem to be based on the assumption that every pirated copy of a particular film results in a lost ticket sale. This is clearly untrue. Does the existence of pirated copies of movies result in some lost ticket sales? Probably so. Is this loss significant? Maybe. I don't know, but I can confidently say that the loss is far lower than what the MPAA and friends would want people to believe. If the anti-piracy groups would be a bit more realistic about their claims and base them on actual studies and not numbers pulled from thin air, I would be more sympathetic to their needs.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 05-04-2008 11:21 AM                     By the way, Justin, if you're really concerned, why not call up DFS (800-734-3969) and ask why you didn't get the fax? Maybe your theatre's fax number isn't in their database and it is an easy fix? Scott, I guess that's true, but as I look at it, the MPAA and studios are big companies, and they have a big marketting division that does its best to promote the message "piracy is bad and costs us money." That they are somewhat imprecise on the details and choose to use the biggest estimates they can for their losses? Well, that's what marketing people do. They try to paint the biggest sharpest most compelling and most convincing argument that they can. I can just imagine a meeting with studio CEO and a marketing vice president: CEO: What are you doing to help get the message out about piracy? MVP: We're telling people how much we think we're losing. CEO: OK, so you're telling people the worst-case estimate? MVP: Well, we think we're losing somewhere between $5 billion a year, and 5 cents a year. We're really not sure which, so we've decided to tell the customers that piracy is costing us only $5.00/year. Are you OK with that? ... On the other hand, I do continue to wonder, especially for small arthouse movies, whether they actually WANT them to be pirated. For a movie like, say, In Bruges, do you suppose that the increased word-of-mouth from a pirated version might actually translate into higher box-office take and DVD sales? I don't know, but it's at least conceivable. I always wonder about it when the studios send security dudes with night-vision goggles to some advance screenings, but not others... --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-04-2008 01:22 PM                        quote: Frank Angel you rarely hear pronouncements about the dishonest people in the studios' own house that are in one way or another supplying pristine, master quality copies which you and I both know are certainly worth much more in the world of piracy than off- screen copies. I thought this was an Iron Man thread, but...It wouldn't do much good for a studio to run a trailer in theatres telling people about all the piracy that originates from studio screeners. The trailers are simply to inform audiences that pirated movies are bad, and that some of it does happen in auditoriums. The intent is just as much to discourage people from buying bogus movies as it is to catch camcorders. We get an emailed spreadsheet from NATO every month that lists all the instances of camcorder piracy that are stopped at theatres...it's a pretty good long list every month. I think the camcorder problem is more serious than many of us here would like to believe.  |  IP: Logged Derrick Huggins Film Handler Posts: 27 From: Gotham City Registered: Feb 2008 posted 05-04-2008 01:38 PM                    well one good thing.. i needed a new locks for my shed and gate..so thank you paramount for the free locks we dont have to return them right?>  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 05-04-2008 01:45 PM                     There is allegedly a sub-run theatre that has a Transformer's lock somewhere.  |  IP: Logged

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