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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Your opinion on the future of exhibition
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 11-22-2005 04:10 PM
Something else in the long list of things that bother me: This perception that the movies are "too expensive." People don't seem to have a problem spending $30,000 for a small car, or $100,000 for a motor home, or $150 to see the Eagles in concert, or $75 to see a damn basketball game.
The movie industry needs to find a way to let people know that they're listening to a $50,000 sound system, sitting in a $200 seat, looking at a picture generated by a projector worth up to $100,000 (or whatever) in a multimillion dollar building, and the popcorn machine costs $10,000, and the film company gets 3/4 of the money they spent on their tickets. Then maybe they'll realize they are getting a frickin' bargain for their eight bucks.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 11-22-2005 07:30 PM
I agree with many of the points in Patrick Goldstein's article.
However, I think he is way off the mark trying to apply the analogy of how music is sold to movies. People don't listen to music the same way they watch movies. MP3 players, boom boxes, satellite radios and more are popular because people can be entertained by music as a background stimuli while they're doing something else. People listen to music while they work, while they exercise, while they fish, while they chat with other people, while they screw and more. You can't do that with movies.
Movies demand your attention. I've tried playing music versus movies on my 2nd computer monitor at work. I can keep working while some song plays. But if a movie is playing on the other monitor it becomes distracting.
With that stated, I don't think making movies more flexible or portable is really the right idea. A very fundamental thing is missing from mainstream movies: new ideas. Corporations who run Hollywood studios don't like new ideas. They're unpredictable. The board can't make forward looking statements and guarantee investors a dividend payment on new ideas. To them, new ideas are unproven and therefore worthless. To them, making more sequels or turning more TV shows from the past into movies is a safer and more financially responsible idea.
quote: Paul Linfesty
It's not just that studios are making bad movies — they've been doing that for years. They've lost touch with any real cultural creativity.
Movies used to be one of the primary things that drive our culture. They can still do that. Simply making a movie faster, cheaper and more flexible for more kinds of media isn't going to help. It's just going to be the same old shit, just piped out in a wider array of packaging.
It takes a lot of time and development to make a good movie. That's how it has always been. And it won't change either. If a studio works hard on more worthwhile projects rather than putting most of their development dollars behind derivative shit they're going to get audiences back into theaters and later into stores to buy DVDs.
quote: Dave Williams
This involves a medium that is visual and audio, not just audio as its primary source. Visuals cost money, and money is precisely what the consumer is trying to avoid paying. There has to be balance, and the consumer is not bright enough to realize that they will not get any better quality movie or experience by demanding cheaper and quicker content.
I disagree with that. First, I disagree with the view that customers are expecting cheaper and faster. No. That's what the corporate guys in Hollywood are expecting. That's the whole scam with shrinking release windows. Borrow a ton of other people's money and then get a return off it as fast as humanly possible to minimize those interest payments. Hollywood is honestly being run by a bunch of stodgy old bankers.
What customers are expecting is something different than the same old re-hashed "we've seen this a thousand times before" corporate boardroom formula style movie producing dreck. It's no accident DVD sales are down as well. Movies that are shitty on the big screen aren't going to smell any better on DVD. And average people have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to buy or rent some movie just because a studio spent a ton of money on it.
It kind of reminds me of a quip I heard from some movie, "you know what you get when you put shit on top of shit? You get even more shit."
Patrick Goldstein is right on the ball with one comment: the dreamers have left the building. Like them or not, they are what make the movie industry live or die. Many of the best writers have defected to television for more creativity and better paychecks. Some actors still in their prime are going the TV route.
Even the artistic types are defecting from Hollywood. When I was growing up, the "dream job" for any commercial artist was landing an animator's job at Disney or a staff job at a visual effects studio or movie production design team. The "dream job" today for lots of artsy types: game developer. The pay at video gaming studios is better and such studios are often found well outside of Hollywood in areas where the cost of living is much more tolerable.
quote: Scott Jentsch
Perhaps it's just my local market (Milwaukee, WI), but I don't think I have ever seen a TV ad for a theater. Why not? It's common marketing sense that you have to advertise to get business, and when business is slow and money is tight, you need to advertise even more.
It's a good idea, but there's a couple problems with that.
#1. Most movie theaters don't have the ad budget to support TV.
#2. TV doesn't reach anywhere near enough viewers to honestly be worth it, particularly on the local TV ad category.
Movie theaters will get more advertising bang for their buck simply by investing in their "store front personality." Decades ago most movie theaters spent serious amounts of money on fancy marquees and blade signs blazing with neon. And most of these theaters were single screen houses, or perhaps twins. Even drive in theaters had some cool signs. Lots of new theaters have pretty boring looking signs that don't really stand out from the average restaurant sign or anything else. Some are very plain. And I'm not even getting into the signs that have fallen into disrepair.
Of course, elaborate blazing neon, chase light-encrusted displays cost a pretty decent amount of money. And then they cost some money to maintain. The banker mentality takeover of an otherwise creative industry has led to just about every aspect getting more conservative and boring. That's exactly what the movie industry does not need.
quote: Mike Blakesley
People don't seem to have a problem spending $30,000 for a small car, or $100,000 for a motor home, or $150 to see the Eagles in concert, or $75 to see a damn basketball game.
For most people, a car is a necessity. But not everyone spends $30,000 on a car. I see a lot of people driving "pre-owned" cars around here. The other items mentioned are high extravagances. Even if I had a lot of money to throw around, I wouldn't pay $150 for a concert ticket.
For a great deal of people, a trip to a first run theater is indeed an expensive item. Many of the folks who can drop $50 or more to take their family to the movies are still staying away because there's so much high profile bad product out there. Sure, some good movies are available. But most people aren't going to do a bunch of research to find out what's worth seeing. It's too much trouble to them and they can always resort to other forms of entertainment, such as that new XBox360 sitting in front of them.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 11-22-2005 10:13 PM
The whole idea is planting the name brand bug in someone's head in the most efficient manner possible. Effective store front signs do that better than any other form of advertising media. If the sign is effective, when a customer thinks about seeing a movie not only will they think about that movie chain they'll remember that specific theater location as well.
To get back to the negative perception thing, General Motors has made big news over the last couple days. They're going to shut down a big assembly plant in Oklahoma City, and over 2000 people will lose their jobs. Yay!
GM and other American auto companies are in trouble for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest factors is the long standing negative perception of American car quality. Even when a good American made car is built, the constant drone coming from most customers in knee-jerk response is, "buy a Honda." Most customers aren't going to search around to find a good American car. They're just going to put that glob of grey mush in their skull on auto pilot and just buy Japanese. Simple as that.
The American car companies are allowing that to continue because they are approaching their business like bankers rather than guys who make cars. The Ford 500? BORING!!!!!!!!! The only thing the American car companies can sell well at all is pickup trucks and SUVs. I say that's only happening because another demographic of customers has had their brains on auto pilot as well. But high gas prices have changed that. And now they're starting to buy small Japanese (and Korean) cars too.
It doesn't matter how one tries to argue how much of a bargain a trip to the movies may be. When the customer starts seeing more bad movies than not, and having bad overall experiences at the theater they're going to stay at home.
GM and Ford need to reinvent themselves, very aggressively. They need to study what companies like Apple Computer did to become successful. I'm not talking the beginnings of Apple either. Apple was in deep trouble in the late 1990s. But then everything turned around. Very good yet remarkably different products were at the center of that.
I think the movie industry has a more simple path to follow. They've gotta start taking chances again. It's the only way how they're going to start releasing ground-breaking movies again.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 11-22-2005 10:45 PM
Bobby, your store-front point is a good one. There is a theatre at Thanksgiving Point, Utah -- fairly new 8-plex -- with an absolutely beautiful, old-fashioned triangular marquee. (Mark G -- maybe you've got a picture of it?) Anyway, my wife and I made a 20 mile drive out of our way last year to go see a movie there, simply because of that sign. It's awesome.
quote: Bobby Henderson
For most people, a car is a necessity. But not everyone spends $30,000 on a car. I see a lot of people driving "pre-owned" cars around here. The other items mentioned are high extravagances. Even if I had a lot of money to throw around, I wouldn't pay $150 for a concert ticket.
I guess my point was that many of the same people who are bitching about movie prices are the ones buying the expensive cars, concert tickets and etc. People seem to have the ability to find the money to buy what they REALLY think they want, whether they can afford it or not. So our job is to get people to REALLY want to go out to the movies. If we can do that, the money will magically be there.
[ 11-23-2005, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: Mike Blakesley ]
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John T. Hendrickson, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 889
From: Freehold, NJ, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 11-23-2005 07:55 PM
Mike Blakesley said:
"Warners could have made a yearly seasonal classic out of Polar Express. Instead they chose to DVD it for huge one-time sales, and they withdrew all the 35mm prints so the Imax release could be "exclusive" this year. We would like to play Polar for a holiday show this year, but can't. There are probably thousands of other locations that are in the same boat. The nearest Imax playing the movie is 900 miles from here. The studios are run by big-city, corporate suits, who don't know or care how the middle 2000 miles of the country works."
Right on, Mike, and for that matter, here on the east coast as well. They took a wonderful picture and gave it a rotten opening date. It should have been released after Thanksgiving last year, not before. And... the marketing for this release was horrendous as well.
I don't think the suits at Warners realized what a gem they had here. As usual, adherence to the "formula" and downright greed won the day. And lest there are those who are thinking this is "Monday mnorning quarterbacking", I was saying these very same things this time last year, along with a lot of other people in the exhibition field.
But who the hell pays attention to exh ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ibs? Everyone knows the distribs have "All The Right Moves". ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 11-28-2005 04:15 PM
quote:
#1. Most movie theaters don't have the ad budget to support TV.
#2. TV doesn't reach anywhere near enough viewers to honestly be worth it, particularly on the local TV ad category.
I suspected as much, but there's gotta be some air-time that's affordable. I see some pretty small businesses advertising during non-primetime hours.
How about billboards?
quote: Lyle Romer
In florida we have a bunch of Muvico theatres. All of the new built ones seem to be packed all the time. Muvico spends a ton of money making themed theatres (outside and in the lobby). There is nothing spectacular about their presentation but people flock there because of the building. Now there is some debate about the return on investment they are getting because from what I've heard their construction costs are twice what other chains pay but it does put asses in the seats.
I agree completely with this sentiment. There are some pretty boring theater marquees around here, and one chain is so dominant that when you've seen one of their marquee's, you've literally seen them all. It's like the McDonalds golden arches, and even they break things up once in a while with their themed restaurants...
While at ShowEast, one of the showings was at the Muvico Pointe 21(?) in Orlando, and that was place was a wonder to behold!
It was such a refreshing change of pace, that I couldn't stop telling people about it when I got back.
While I understand that there are financial realities at work in the industry, I don't understand the shortsightedness of not understanding the showmanship part of the equation. I've seen photos of DIY home theaters that are done better than most multiplexes!
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