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Topic: DCinema equipment lifespan - why so short?

Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 04-09-2008 08:20 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Maybe if the studios woke up and realized if they worked harder to improve the quality of movies and theaters in every aspect they would make a lot more money. Theaters would do much better. People would see more movies in theaters. And then having enjoyed the experience to a higher degree there it would translate to increased home video sales. I guess the "suits" can't seem to figure out that one.

THANK YOU!!!! Maybe somebody from the studios will read this and steal it as their own idea. There is a lot more opportunity to "double dip" if more people see and enjoy movies in a theater. If they had an enjoyable experience the same person that already paid to see it will buy the DVD when it comes out. Also, the more that see it in a theater the more "word of mouth" advertising there will be for the DVD release.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-10-2008 10:33 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Maybe if the studios woke up and realized if they worked harder to improve the quality of movies and theaters in every aspect they would make a lot more money. Theaters would do much better. People would see more movies in theaters. And then having enjoyed the experience to a higher degree there it would translate to increased home video sales. I guess the "suits" can't seem to figure out that one.

You guys are really smokin gobs of that I-15 stuff big time! The reality is very definate... the studios could care less about movie theaters... they would much rather go direct to video and save all the distribution ( and personel involved) costs completely. Wake up... Smell the skunk, because it isn't going away!

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 04-10-2008 10:55 AM

We know what they DO care about, Bobby was commenting on what they SHOULD care about. If they would take the time to think about it, they might realize that if they did more business in the theatrical realease it would translate to even more revenue from their precious home video release and they would have already gotten more up front from the theatrical run.

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 04-10-2008 12:54 PM

quote:
the studios could care less about movie theaters... they would much rather go direct to video and save all the distribution ( and personnel involved) costs completely.

If that's the case then why waste time making deals to help pay back the money to finance the conversion. Just say fuck it we don't care about you. We don't care that your industry makes us billions of dollars in box office revenue a year.

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 04-10-2008 01:15 PM

Mark could be right if ever once the studio's had made a big profit on a direct to video release. They haven't even with the extremely reduced cost of direct to video they have to show anywhere near the profit from a blockbuster wide release film shows only on that portion.

Mark said

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I hope I will have less maintainance work to do and in theory that should happen. I've watched D-Cinema reliability increase beyond belief. In my case though it'll be my kidneys that preclude me from working, not any lack of services needed.

Again Mark you miss the point of what I said just as chose not answer the question if a projector can't be used to run movies what alternative use will give them the same income with the same amount of use.

The point was that people are worried about their jobs and feeding their family. From your answer I garner you don't understand their concerns or just don't care if they can feed their family or not. The fact remains that people are worried about keeping their jobs and nothing you say every addresses this at all.

We may as well do away with the hourly staff, & management staff perhaps keep the cleaning staff. We can just set up automated ticketing, vending machines and when the theater is full one of the customers can walk to the screen and push play oh way that is called home theater.

Why is it that you can't empathize or sympathize or comprehend the fear of not being able to support your family?

[ 04-10-2008, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: Ron Funderburg ]

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-10-2008 06:26 PM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
You guys are really smokin gobs of that I-15 stuff big time! The reality is very definate... the studios could care less about movie theaters... they would much rather go direct to video and save all the distribution ( and personel involved) costs completely.

Does that mean you're actively looking for a new job? Just have to wonder if all movie theaters are doomed. Why bother wasting another moment of one's life in a business that has no future? Talk about "smoking gobs of I-15 stuff!" But then I'm not the one who lives near I-15.

I'll say it again. If there are no movie theaters there will be no movie industry.

A movie industry that tries to exist only in a straight to video model is doomed. Without theaters, any movie will only be yet another thing I can only watch on my TV. Those movies will have to compete with all the other stuff I can spend my time watching on my TV.

Without theaters any movie will lose its sense of prestige of being a real movie rather than just another damned TV show. Major releases won't be able to stand above the mountainous piles of forgettable straight to video shit. Seeing that problem, distributors won't be able to spend what they currently do on movie productions. Say goodbye to all those epic summer movies. Oh well, they're getting a great head start on making movies "smaller" by continuing the switch to shooting with video cameras.

Movie distributors would be reduced to the status of mere video production companies and would be left trying to compete for network and cable broadcast air time. Movie companies like Touchstone Pictures would be folded into ABC-TV and completely disappear. Why should a media company with one major TV network and its product development pipeline keep another one around in the form of a movie distributor? It's a waste of money.

The United States' dominance of the movie industry worldwide may disappear. Most of what we see in our movie theaters and on video store shelves is American product. That could change radically.

If movie theaters in the United States go out of business, that in no way at all means movie theaters in other countries will disappear. Countries like China and India could start flooding the American market with bigger budget content than some video production company that used to be a movie studio would be able to finance. Hell, we may even see lots of American actors going overseas to get work. The world's biggest movie premieres could be happening in Mumbai instead of Los Angeles. All of that is a possibility.

Porn is able to work as an entirely direct to video-based industry. But it does so for a number of different reasons, such as very limited lines of product delivery.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-10-2008 08:57 PM

Bobby, Couldn't tell ya but I will be retiring at age 60 anyway.

Mark

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Brad Allen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 688
From: Evansville, IN, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 04-11-2008 12:37 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
they pass judgment against all movie theaters anyway and even take the stupidly destructive stance that movie theaters aren't needed. "I'll watch all my movies at home!" They don't realize that a movie is not a legitimate movie unless it was shown in commercial movie theaters. Without movie theaters there will be no movie industry. Movie studios would be reduced to mere video production studios selling low budget straight-to-video shit and clamoring for limited amounts of space on various cable and broadcast networks to show their best stuff. The epic, big budget movies that make new formats like Blu-ray really fun would be history.

I disagree, I think as Hd tv's take further hold, and as the film co's take advantage of new product delivery platforms, theatres are going to suffer. It's obvious the film co's are training the younger customers to accept watching it anywhere but a theatre. I was setting at a restaurant the other night waiting to be seated, out of 50 people in the waiting area there was about 20 between the ages of 15 and 21, 100% of that group was watching video on their cellphones the entire 45 min's I waited to be seated. It was so noisy they couldn't even hear what they were watching.

quote:
The reality is very definate... the studios could care less about movie theaters... they would much rather go direct to video and save all the distribution ( and personel involved) costs completely. Wake up... Smell the skunk, because it isn't going away!

I agree completely. And I don't believe that day is all that far off. 10 years?

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Darryl Spicer
Film God

Posts: 3250
From: Lexington, KY, USA
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 04-11-2008 02:52 AM

quote: Brad Allen
out of 50 people in the waiting area there was about 20 between the ages of 15 and 21, 100% of that group was watching video on their cellphones the entire 45 min's I waited to be seated. It was so noisy they couldn't even hear what they were watching.

I see the same thing while people are sitting in the auditorium waiting for their movie to start.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 04-11-2008 04:16 AM

Actually, paid cell phone video did not take off like they expected. People might be watching free clips and things but in the US the cell carriers are not getting the expected revenue from paid video.

Different story in Japan but in the US it doesn't seem like teens even want to watch movies on a 2" screen.

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 04-12-2008 03:09 PM

Brad the young people were still there to watch a movie, the cell phone thing was just to kill time. And were they watching video or text messaging most of them are text messaging here not watching anything.

Kids have always been nosy even when I was a kid!

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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 04-15-2008 10:38 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'll say it again. If there are no movie theaters there will be no movie industry.

With all due respect, this is just a matter of perception. Effective marketing and time can change perception to whatever the people paying the money want it to be.

How many people thought 10 years ago that it wasn't real news if it wasn't published in a newspaper or on a TV station? Now, blogs are breaking news and covering topics and events just as much as traditional media (and sometimes, more effectively). Yeah, there's dross out there, but there's dross on the airwaves and in print as well.

Movie theaters are very fortunate in that the movie studios continue to hold onto the standard release process. Without exclusive access to movies, I think it would be very difficult for movie theaters to compete with the other ways that people are able to enjoy movies.

Currently, only low-profile, low-budget, non-blockbuster movies go straight to home video. What would happen if a studio decided to forgo the theatrical release on a major movie and go straight to home video? Maybe the first one wouldn't do all that well, who knows.

The studio could still structure the release so that they would have the traditional home video release afterwards. For example, the movie would be available on PPV and VOD for two weeks, then maybe a higher priced Blu-ray edition for another couple of weeks. Once the sales of those die down, the standard Blu-ray and DVD release at regular prices.

Everyone can scoff at direct-to-video releases when it's stuff like Wild Things 4 and The Architect, but what happens when it's something big like Iron Man or Harry Potter?

My point is not to be doom and gloom about movie theaters, but to say that the movie industry is doomed if not for movie theaters is just not looking at things with a wider perspective.

I think movie theaters should see going to digital cinema as an opportunity to provide their customers with entertainment and an experience that they can't get at home.

So what if the equipment won't still be used in 50 years? Welcome to the realities of just about every other business out there! To theaters, I say: Run the numbers, know your price, and jump in when you're willing to. Every theater needs to balance the cost of adopting something new with the risk of missing a critical opportunity.

The days of being able to purchase a piece of equipment and use it for decades is over. That may be putting things too harsh, but I don't think it's too far off the mark, either.

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Tristan Lane
Master Film Handler

Posts: 444
From: Nampa, Idaho
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-16-2008 02:34 AM

Scott,

Your comments are spot-on. If we all adopted the "doom and gloom" attitude towards our industry, it would leave us all wondering why we still work in it.

Instead, why not accept change and adapt to it as much as we all can so that our services can continue to be valued and demanded?

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-16-2008 01:16 PM

quote: Scott Jentsch
Movie theaters are very fortunate in that the movie studios continue to hold onto the standard release process.

Because it works, that's why they stay with it. A straight-to-video release is seen as cheap, a cash-in, a last-ditch effort to wring money out of a title. Whereas a theatrical release is seen as an EVENT and drives the whole chain of events that follows.

Just because some people are content to watch a movie on an iPod or on a crappy TV set at home, that doesn't make that the way a movie should be enjoyed, marketing notwithstanding.

TV can't conjure up "event" status the way a movie release can. The exceptions are things like finale episodes where there are years of buildup. And the bottom line still remains that most people just wanna get out of the house from time to time.

quote:
So what if the equipment won't still be used in 50 years? Welcome to the realities of just about every other business out there!

You're right on that point, for sure. Hell, almost nothing that was in my theatre even 20 years ago is still there. We've replaced the guts of the lamphouse, the sound system (all but the speakers), the popcorn machine, ice machine, pop machine, seats, and the screen. Pretty much everything except the projector/soundhead and the platter. However, I think digital cinema equipment needs to have a longer lifespan than most other types of computer-based equipment if it's going to be viable.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-16-2008 02:11 PM

quote: Scott Jentsch
With all due respect, this is just a matter of perception. Effective marketing and time can change perception to whatever the people paying the money want it to be.

Visibility in advertising and the perception people have of movies that play in theaters are two major factors that cannot be discounted in what makes movie marketing effective.

Theatrical movie releases enjoy a much greater, unique level of visibility than any movie made for television or direct to video distribution. Because they have a unique venue of commercial movie theaters, that gains those movies a much greater sense of legitimacy. That sense of legitimacy creates more marketing opportunities, like web sites that carry movie trailers. Apple rarely carries anything TV/video related in its movie trailer site.

Movies made with theatrical release in mind can afford larger production and marketing budgets. The same model doesn't work for anything strictly for home viewing. Investors aren't going to pony up $150 million+ for production and another $50 million+ in marketing for a movie made only for home video release. Without the traditional theatrical packaging the movie won't seem as worthy of a big budget much less be seen as likely to pay a return on the investment.

quote: Tristan Lane
If we all adopted the "doom and gloom" attitude towards our industry, it would leave us all wondering why we still work in it. Instead, why not accept change and adapt to it as much as we all can so that our services can continue to be valued and demanded?

Exactly how would a movie theater be able to "adapt" if it suddenly has no more product it can sell?

If movie studios chose to release movies both in theaters and on video at the same time it would be a deliberate act to shut down the movie theater business. They might as well just release the show to home video only. Very simple math is involved.

With day and date releases far too few film fans would still choose to see the movie in the theater -far too few to keep theaters in business. Most people would choose to save a lot of money and rent the video if it was already available. A family would still be saving money if they bought a copy of the video to watch numerous times versus seeing the movie only one time at a theater. The current economic situation where high food, fuel and utilities prices are squeezing the finances of many would only amplify the negative effect one would see from day and date release lunacy.

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