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Author Topic: Why are they sneaking Ratatouille? Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 06-23-2007 12:19 AM                     The numbers might have been reported separately but they were added to POTC:AWE weekend gross. It is referenced in many articles on last weekend's box office.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-26-2007 10:26 AM                        OTS (Off the Screen) bootleg DVDs are not what costs the studios their claimed billions in lost revenue -- it's the PERFECT copies that come from INSIDE the studios' own post production houses and from those AMPAS private screener copies. THESE are perfect DVD copies and can be duplicated by the millions in foreign markets. THAT's what cost the studios, not the practically unviewable OTS junk that are sold on street corners to people who probably wouldn't pay to see it in a theatre in the first place. Or, who are so into the franchise movies (PIRATES, HPOTTER, STAR WARS, etc) that they will by the junk street copy and then go see it in the theatre anyway. Besides, sneaks are policed a lot closer nowadays. Studios put people with detector wands at the doors to be sure people aren't "carrying" (camcorders that is). The studio sends a security guard to walk the print up to the booth and sit with me and watch me while I run it (because everyone knows it's the projectionists all across the country who are the evil movie pirates).  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 06-26-2007 11:04 AM                     Frank, can you justify that claim? We seem to hear it a lot, but repeating over and over does not make it so. (As far as I can tell, the problem is both. And neither the person downloading the movie off the Internet nor the person selling DVDs on the streetcorner with ties to organized crime -- neither of those people are very discriminating.) If one looks at how the pirate "content verification sites" rank pirated versions of films, quite a lot of them, I'd say a majority from a casual glance, are classified as "CAM." --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Damien Taylor Master Film Handler Posts: 493 From: Perth, Western Australia Registered: Apr 2007 posted 06-26-2007 11:06 AM                     I assumed most of the early pirate copies are telecines of work prints, screeners or R5s.  |  IP: Logged Anslem Rayburn Master Film Handler Posts: 476 From: Yuma, AZ, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 06-26-2007 07:03 PM                     The few pirated movies I have ever seen were all screeners, except for "Home Alone" which we watched in school with a "Property of " crawl along the bottom, stating to call this number if you saw it as it was an unauthorized copy. The others I have seen were all videotaped off of the screen, and looked a lot better than one might think. I still would prefer to watch them at the theater and/or buy a studio released DVD, but screeners don't seem to be the primary source for pirating, at least from what I have seen.  |  IP: Logged Mike Heenan Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1896 From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-26-2007 07:49 PM                     There's a Hostel 2 workprint floating around now, that's clearly a screener copy (since it's a workprint with minor differences).  |  IP: Logged Damien Taylor Master Film Handler Posts: 493 From: Perth, Western Australia Registered: Apr 2007 posted 06-27-2007 08:25 AM                     Let me preface with saying i'm anti-piracy. As someone on the verge of possibly thinking about contemplating making a movie someday, I don't like to see other artists ripped off. I wasn't particularly clear in my last post. I personally haven't seen any Ratatoullie pirate copies at all. The last "cines" I did see were a while back, maybe a year or more at a huge lan, they were all workprints complete with the annoying timers, although it wasnt of Ratatoullie. I would much rather see these films in the cinema, I won't even read the back blurb of a DVD if i've never seen it . These days the scenes a little different, the MPAA have cracked down tight on screeners, and theres just not that much being made that I can't wait to see at the movies. My knowledge of the past of telecines was grounded, but truthfully enough, my estimations of the current popularity of telecines are without warrant, and rightfully open to criticism.  |  IP: Logged John Wilson Film God Posts: 5438 From: Sydney, Australia. Registered: Dec 1999 posted 06-28-2007 03:48 AM                     Ratatouille's on the net. Regardless of it's a cam or screener...it's been there for over a week.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Pitt Master Film Handler Posts: 266 From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK Registered: May 2007 posted 06-28-2007 03:40 PM                     I'm also completely anti-piracy as far as feature films are concerned. I like to go and see a movie in a cinema first, then if I decide it's really good I buy the DVD when it comes out. If it's not worth buying on DVD, I just wait for it to be on regular TV or on the cable company's pay-per-view service. I have seen people selling pirate DVDs and VHSs before, especially in street markets, and my parents have purchased a couple. In all cases though, when the official DVD comes out I buy that and destroy the pirate copies Pirates I have experienced in the past: The Lion King - VHS, recorded with a camcorder in the auditorium. The pirates have edited out the bits where people walked past the camera and when the staff came in (forcing them to hide the camera)! Harry Potter (1st movie) DVD - looks like it was recorded with a camcorder through one of the portholes in the projection booth; sound coming via cable from the headphone jack on the amp unit. Haunted Mansion DVD - very good quality pirate; except for the fact that the picture goes B/W at various points and has superimposed text so was clearly made from the review copies. Wallace and Gromit Curse of Were-Rabbit DVD - looks like another cinema recording, sound is very low quality but picture is good. My parents say that the camcorder recording issue was a very short-lived thing in cinemas. These days, pirates tend to make copies of the review DVDs that are sent to the BBFC for rating. Also, with so many movies coming out in digital, people have cracked the format and made pirate copies this way.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-28-2007 03:47 PM                     quote: Thomas Pitt Also, with so many movies coming out in digital, people have cracked the format and made pirate copies this way. I highly question the validity of this statement. I have heard that people have found encryption keys for HDDVD and Blu-ray but not the actual digital cinema systems. That's a whole different ball game.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 06-28-2007 10:16 PM                        There is no doubt that it will be done. "Bigger lock just needs a bigger key." Louis  |  IP: Logged Jonathan M. Crist Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 531 From: Hershey, PA, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 06-30-2007 09:51 AM                     quote: Lyle Romer The $300 million mark for "Pirates" is important to Disney for reasons other than ego and a press release. In my area the drive ins are doubling up Ratatouille with Pirates.... even at venues which have never played Pirates before. I am sure part of the Ratatuilee gross will get allocated to Pirates so that Pirates is assured to hit 300 million. Lyle is right. Disney needs to get POTC3 over $300 Million. The reason may not be obvious to those of you who do not get involved with booking but it has to do with Disney's relatively new national fixed terms policy. Under this policy what every theatre in the nation which plays the picture pays for EACH WEEK of the engagement (no longer do the percentanges drop the longer a picture is held) is now dependent on the final "reported" national gross of the picture. The payment percentage is a sliding scale (the more the "reported" national gross ... the higher the percentage). Under this published scale once a picture hits $300 million the percentage jumps up to 60%. And of course who determines that it has grossed this magic number? Why the studios themselves. Might that not be an incentive to inflate figures and/or play games?  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 06-30-2007 10:41 AM                        quote: Jonathan M. Crist drive ins are doubling up Ratatouille with Pirates.... even at venues which have never played Pirates before. I am sure part of the Ratatuilee gross will get allocated to Pirates so that Pirates is assured to hit 300 million. Maybe. But it's also part of how Disney makes its pictures available for packaging as double features. When you book a Disney on the break, you just about have to have one of their pictures as the second. Otherwise, the percentages are too high. One thing is certain. This is the longest double I've run. Brad's platter ring is a tight fit, and I do mean tight! A stickapoo overlaps the platter! A lot of people are staying to the end of the night, though.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 06-30-2007 11:13 AM                    In my drive-in days you had to split the gross across the board. Basically as long as it was the same film company a certain percentage of the gross went to the main feature and the other remaining percentage went to the second feature. This is how you had to record it in the reports that you filed with the distributors. This was back in the 80's so I am not sure how they do it now.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-03-2007 04:58 AM                        quote: John Hawkinson Frank, can you justify that claim? We seem to hear it a lot, but repeating over and over does not make it so. Sure it does, just ask any politician. And that said, just because the MPAA keeps saying they loose BILLIONS every year to cam copies and street vendors selling them for 5 bucks (that's a WAY lot of street sales) and barely watchable internet downloads, that doesn't make it so either.  |  IP: Logged

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