A great post showing Hollywood’s thickheadedness.
So Elaine and I scored some advance passes to “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” tonight, 7 PM, at Cinerama. She left work a bit before 5 to get in line and hold our place; by the time she arrived, the line was already down the block, and the show was clearly going to sell out.
I got downtown from work around 6:15, joined her in line, and we spent the half hour chatting and catching up on the day.
So the line moves, we’re at the doors to the theater, turn in our passes, get our hands stamped, and then they want to look through our bags for camcorders, etc. I take off my backpack, open it. It’s all work stuff – binders and folders and notebooks, really – and then I open the front pocket, which has my wallet and my iPhone.
(Which is off.)
The woman’s got a flashlight and a little stick that she’s using to do security screenings, and, once she sees the iPhone, says, “I’m sorry, you can’t go in.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“No cell phones allowed.”
I point out that it’s off, and she says that doesn’t matter. “The rules are clear. No phones.” She then suggests I leave it in my car.
“I don’t have a car,” I tell her. “I just came from work. On the bus. All my stuff is with me, and I don’t have any place to put it.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, in a very I’m-not-at-all-sorry-voice. “The rules are clear. No phones.”
I blink, look at Elaine, blink again, shrug, and then we leave, walking past the hordes and noticing that replays of this conversation (“What? It’s my cell phone. I have it on me all the time…”) are happening all over the place.
So now Elaine has wasted two hours of her time, we’re not seeing the movie, and the studio (Warners) clearly doesn’t give a hang about it. I understand the need to combat piracy – I really do – but pissing off honest moviegoers with ridiculous (and ridiculously ineffective) rules like this is insane.
Be warned. Leave your phone at home.
As for us? We’re planning to rent something on DVD … and preferably not made by Warner Brothers.
The studio told the theaters, “no cell phones”, because some phones can record video. Never mind that cell phone video quality is awful, movie execs are freaking out industry-wide over piracy. Hollywood seems content to put their own anti-piracy responsibilities on their customers. Bad move. Seems similar to the RIAA suing teenagers for downloading songs.
Cell phone searches will likely end when the movie is released. Still, theaters nationwide should use readily available technology to fight piracy. Night vision goggles are great at spotting illicit recording, and I’ve seen them used effectively. Seems like a better plan than turning people away.
Yeh but an iPHONE could grab the very essence of the movie and … with a few twigs form Harry’s broom … pretty sooon there is nothing left.
I winder, did they also ban still cameras? Many of thes e have movie modes.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....ors11.html
Is this the kind of freedom that AWOL coward Bush wants to export to Iraq?
This exchange between me and Proud Leftist is so good, I am going to post it in every thread on HA from now on. It destroys the Publicans’ stupid talking points – period.
“I’m working really hard to understand how President Bill Clinton’s actions act as justifcation for the righties. Read this fuckwads.
If your lame ass argument is that Bill Clinton was a bad President – which is what you say – and if your argument now is that the AWOL coward GW Bush is in someway comparable to Bill Clinton, what you are actually saying is that GW Bush is NO BETTER THAN CLINTON.
Does it hurt to be that stupid? I really want to know.
proud leftist says:
RES @ 18
You’ve hit it on the nose. The rightwing fringefucks consider Clinton to be the personification of evil–indeed, he is the devil incarnate in their twisted little minds. Nonetheless, their justification for all of the Bushites’ sins is, always, “well, Clinton did it, too.” Methinks they never studied logic.”
And what’s better, is that the rightie traitor keeps pointing out that this is true. Thanks MTR. Please keep proving my point for me.
While as far as I know this is the first instance of this happening in Seattle, it’s sadly not uncommon elsewhere. And it’s absolutely ridiculous.
Sooner or later one hopes that if the movie studios want to escape from whatever downward spiral they may currently be in, they will do two things:
1. They will start making movies people want to see. Harry Potter obviously fits this category, but for every Harry Potter there are going to be a hundred “Dude, Where’s My Car?” (Please replace that with a recent dud. I’m not familiar enough with the current crop of movies to be able to cite one.)
2. They will stop treating customers like criminals.
Why didn’t they just have a coat-check-type area where people could stow their cell phones?
Oh well, we’re about 5-10 years away from movie theaters being mostly obsolete.
Is there really that many people who would pay 10 bucks to watch a movie, but would settle for a grainy poorly shot camera phone video. Those things mostly just serve as competition between the various pirate groups.
The real problem comes from people pirating the screeners that are often DVD quality. Now there are probably lots of people who would take a free DVD quality version over paying 10 bucks for a larger screen. However no amount of searching will tackle that.
Remember kids downloading music and movies helps the terrorists win!
Lee said,
“Oh well, we’re about 5-10 years away from movie theaters being mostly obsolete.”
====
You’re absolutely right on that one, pardner. I see the day when movies will skip the big screen all together and just be available on DVD or whatever media to view at home. I’ll miss the good popcorn but not the high prices.
5
I’m not entirely sure about movie theaters going the way of the Stanley steamer (although they could if the MPAA doesn’t catch on reeeeeal quick), because the movie experience is vastly different between a movie theater and a home theater system, no matter how good it is.
Most movies are made to be seen on a big screen. To take an example that most people are familiar with, think of the opening sequence of Star Wars. I can sit in my front room, roll the tape of Star Wars, and watch the Imperial cruiser filling the screen and go, “That’s one big muckin’ starship.” But it’s completely different in the theater when you see the rebel ship go past, guns blazing, and think, “Cool,” and then the Imperial cruiser completely fills the screen for 10 or 15 seconds and you’re just left going, “whooooah” as you get a sense of just how big it’s supposed to be.
There’s also the experience of being in the theater with a bunch of strangers and being part of a group experience. I went to see Transformers last week with my family, and the place was packed. It was fun watching everyone from people my age whose kids watched the cartoons to teenagers who weren’t even born yet when Transformers were big the first time around react to the movie.
8
I could be wrong in #9, but if that happens, it’ll be a shame from the group experience point of view. Change is inevitable, though. It’s hard to find good vaudeville these days. (You could for a while after the theaters converted to movies — it just changed its name to The Ed Sullivan Show — but again, even the best variety show on TV leaves out the idea of going out for an evening and doing something outside the house.)
Plus, many’s the time my wife and I used to take the kids to the dollar movies when we lived in Texas. We didn’t even much care what was on as long as it was appropriate for their ages. We didn’t think of it as spending $6 to go see a movie, we thought of it as renting air conditioning for $3 an hour. Sounds pretty good today, as a matter of fact.
@9
Key word in my comment was mostly. Movie theatres will still exist, but they’ll be more about cultivating an experience than about just being the sole gateway for seeing new things. In the end, there will be much fewer of them as certain ones get better at the new niche.
And full disclosure, I do work at a company that is aiming to be a big part of these changes…
Libertarian,
I have no doubt that the free market will solve your popcorn problem. :)
Lee-
Personally, I’d hate to see movie theaters go away. As stated elsewhere, seeing films on the big screen with an audience is an experience that is not directly convertable to the in-home theater.
That said, movie theaters gotta stop fucking up. Gavin’s cell phone experience was very unfortunate.
Also, people need to SHUT THE FUCK UP during the movie. It’s not your living room, and I don’t care what you think about the plot twists or what that actor is wearing. SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP.
Libertarian,
I have no doubt that the free market will solve your popcorn problem. :)
===
Well, I certainly am not looking for the government to buy it for me.
Well, I certainly am not looking for the government to buy it for me.
Haha, yeah. I don’t think they need to be in the popcorn business.
At my old office, they had one of those mini-popcorn machines. Buy stock in that shit, it’s going to become a popular in-home item soon as the price of widescreen TV’s keeps dropping.
Will,
As stated elsewhere, seeing films on the big screen with an audience is an experience that is not directly convertable to the in-home theater.
Also, people need to SHUT THE FUCK UP during the movie. It’s not your living room, and I don’t care what you think about the plot twists or what that actor is wearing. SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP.
I think this is a big reason why people will stop watching regular movies at the theatre and only go for films where the widescreen-soundsystem adds a lot to the experience. It’s part of why I hate to go to the movies any more.
The “pigopolists” of the entertainment industry are facing changing times, and instead of trying to adapt they’re fighting tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. The current flap about royalties for Internet radio illustrates this–it’s all about power and control. The executives of the major entertainment corporations it’s their birthright (and society’s obligation to fill it) to the big offices, the Bentleys, blondes, blow jobs and villas in the South of France. With the vast resources available to them, you’d think they’d be able to entice us with better product. Instead they spend their money lobbying Congress to sanction them as a legalized oligarchy.
Superficial security can be defeated by superficial compliance. Instead of attempting to reason with the droid you should have stepped outside the theater, out of its sight, and stashed the iPhone in your shorts. (Obviously, tighty whiteys are better for this) Re-enter the theater, present your uncontaminated backback for inspection, and enjoy the movie.
I am working for an entertainment company right now, so take what I say with a pound of salt.
The opinion of our stakeholders (i.e. the ones who drive these “no cellphone” rules) is that they need to maximize profits. While the Harry Potter franchise is pretty much a license to print money, the film industry as a whole is not very profitable. If you throw darts at a board, and invest in a random film, your expected return on investment is about 2.5% annually. There’s a reason why film production companies (as opposed to distributors) are usually privately held. It’s a high-dollar, high-risk investment that makes throwing money at tech startups seem sane by comparison.
If you go to boxofficemojo.com, and look at the gross vs the production budgets, bear in mind that there are a lot of hands out looking for that money.
If you make a film for, say $20 million dollars, and you gross $40 million, you’ve broken even. Or not. It may take even more than that.
I suspect (but have never heard absolute confirmation from the guys that hold the purse strings) that, like the record biz, they count on the one or two movies every season that print money to cover for the 150 others that don’t.
There’s a bigger question of “Why does it all cost so much?” I don’t have a good answer for that. I’d mutter something about “market forces” and “well, we can make movies of two guys sitting in a cafe talking shit really cheap, but you won’t pay to see that. You pay for blockbusters, and blowing up Los Angeles is really expensive.”
I have wondered about the issue of why does it cost so much too. It seems to me that with cheap distribution there is an opportunity for a vastly expanded market for low priced product. There is, for example, very good TV produced in a lot of the owrlkd but non of it ever gets here. I assume the cost fo bringing this stuff in would be very little.
What’s going to happen in a HELL of a lot less time than 5-10 years is that the most important distribution channel will be download/online streaming of digital copies of films, and hand-held cameras will be by far the least of their worries.
19
To make a good movie that people will want to watch more than once you have to have two things, in my opinion. You have to have well-defined characters, and they have to do interesting things that get you involved in the movie. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer and not a pyrotechnician that I hold this view (although I’m in pretty good company among critics, as far as I can tell) but a well-written, well-acted story will often run rings around the cinematic equivalent of Pop Rocks — pretty exciting for a short time, but ultimately unsatisfying.
I know it’s on TV, but one of the ultimate examples of this is Red Dwarf. The show looks like it was made with a special effects budget of £4.95 (for a six-show run, not per episode), but the writing and the characters sell the show.
One rather interesting development in the theater world is the advent of places like The Big Picture or the theaters associated with a couple of the McMenimen Brothers’ properties. A nicely-decorated theater, all spic and span (no sticky floors or busted seats), showing first-run flicks and serving good food and/or adult beverages. The profits from the latter help maintain reasonable ticket prices, and the whole experience is elevated above “just going to the movies”.
@22
Definitely! I saw Trainspotting at a theatre in Europe where beer was served. Now that’s a quality theatre-going experience.
SeattleJew @ 19:
What is this cheap distribution you speak of?
I know many people who are interested in it.
You can stream shorts on YouTube and get your work out. Lots of people do. There is some really amazing stuff out there if you know where to look.
Expected revenues: $0.00.
Getting a film out in a way so that any money comes back is a tricky problem. The general path to do so is through the major distributors (Disney, Miramax, Universal, and so on). They are very conservative and very dollar-oriented, like most large public companies tend to be.
Film is like a lot of the arts. If you want to write to tell your story, that’s easy to do. If you want to write and see a dollar at the end of it, that’s a much harder nut to crack.
Unfortunately, unlike writing, which requires a computer, a few sympathetic (or not) pairs of eyes, and an infinite quantity of your personal time, making movies is just plain expensive. If you’re sinking $30,000 of your own money into a film (yes, it can be done), you probably want to see something at the end of it.
If you’re sinking 2 million into a film, which is about as cheap as you can do these days for a real release, you definitely want your money back.
And there’s the rub.
Meanwhile, we’ll interrupt my cynical remarks on the view from inside the sausage factory with something truly uplifting.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jrxg2N97ucA
(requires speakers. Contains one or two bad words).
It’s all about control and teaching you to be obedient, no matter how moronic the rules. They want a society of people who will NOT tell the Emperor that he has no clothes on.
Now run along, stop arguing, and do what you’re told.
Tuor:
Are you making that remark to someone in particular, or are you just being reactively anti-authoritarian for the sake of being anti-authoritarian?
I *am* anti-authoritarian, so I don’t really need any reason to spout off about it. :P
But whenever I see stories like this one, I think about how conditioned people have become. The guy working for the theater just mindlessly enforced what he was told to enforce, regardless of how absurd the rule. I see it all the time, and not just by minimum wage slaves. People just do what they’re told, usually without any sort of reflection at all.
Individualism and common sense seems to be dying away in our society, and I for one am not happy about it.
And, BTW, my comment was in response to the story posted by the OP.