Film piracy

[Fusion]

Nothing beats the cinema experience and i dont feel like some sort of saddo saying it!

Agreed, although it can be replicated in the home- at a cost. Unless you're talking about the adverts and sticky floors. As for the guy that complained about the quality of film reels, I must disagree. Typically, I've found the quality of cinema screenings excellent, although I do tend to see films earlier in in their lifetime of showings, so the reels haven't been worn much. I've never been to watch a film and thought to myself 'the quality of this picture is shocking', though.

 

[Sequoia]

wrong, they already retail at that price in america, canada, and several other countrys. but here in england which is what i am concearned with, we pay more and for no good reason. as far as getting wrid of the excess crap, most people just want the film, they dont want tassles and tie backs, expensive baubles and trinkets, just the film, nothing else. this then cuts out a nice chunk of post production costs.

It's not wrong. I live in the US, and I see retail pricing, and I see discounting after premium pricing after discounts start to set in.

Cutting out the crap would not make much difference to overall costs, because the crap is a very small part of costs. I'm an investor. I've had a lot of money in films, and I DO know what I'm talking about.

I agree most people don't want a lot of extras. I certainly don't. But, firstly, some people do, and secondly, it doesn't cost much to add.

also they could release the film on a proper site endorsed by the movie industry to download for a fee of £5 to £7. id gladly pay to download it and i bet you a large chunk of the 16 million people on broadband in the U.K. would too...

Yes, they could. But it's not going to happen until the film has been through the premium route, because so much of the recovery of cost comes from the premium route. Also, part of that revenue process involves segmenting markets, and if you allow downloads, you either have to restrict site access geographically, or you mess up that segmenting. Maybe some brave company will test your distribution method, and maybe it'll be a raging success, in which case every will jump on it. In the meantime, who is going to risk making a huge loss by trying it? Not me.

what you mean is if they dont make millions the actors will no longer be able to be paid several million a pop for a film. What is the most expensive aspect of any large business? its wages.

Yes, A-list actors get paid very handsomely indeed, but they also bring in audiences and ell DVDs. They are marketable, and they know it. They put bums on seats and they sell DVDs because they are in the movie. If they lose that marketability, they lose their giant pay checks too. So unless you can think of a way to break that cycle, we're all stuck with it. If one studio refuses to pay market rate, they go to another one that will pay market rate. However much we might all wish it wasn't the case, it is the case.

i was a finance officer for the largest HIV charity in europe, i think i can understand simple economics.

Then you should understand the concept of profit taking at the margin. Which is how the film industry works.

I'm a chartered accountant with 40 years business experience and have been running my own businesses for 20 of them. I've been an investor in movie production for 12 years and I STILL don't fully understand movie accounting. That's why I pay an expert. If you haven't been fully involved with movie accounts, then you really have no idea of just how arcane they are. Believe me, it's a minefield. And before anyone comments on how I can invest in movies without understanding movie accounting, it's simple - I have lawyers that know how to write contracts and they DO understand movie accounting.

your just not looking at the distribution methods available, they can save millions on packaging, advertising, actors wage packets and they can adapt to the new media distribution hub of the global economy, the internet. but they dont want to, its that simple. they dont want to cut the actors wages, they dont want to use more economical packaging methods, and they sure as hell dont want to start full scale selling of DVD films on the internet.

It's not about costs. It's about profits. The methods that are used are used because they are tired and tested. Distribution via internet has been looked at, and may come. But up until very recently, the infrastructure simply would not support large-scale high-quality transmission, and I rather doubt it would now. Then there's the DRM issues, copy protection and so on. Maybe it'll happen, and maybe some studios will take a flyer or two. But don't hold your breath.

You seem to be making a common mistake ... that of thinking that just because you'd pay a low price for a heavily curtailed product, that everybody else would. You're missing the point totally. At the price level you're talking about, the profit margin is dramatically reduced. If you halve the price, you may generate the same turnover if sales double but you don't generate the same profit. And, unless you know the cost structure, you can't even predict whether profits go up or down for any particular combination of price and sales volume. The profit models for a dynamically-priced item like a film release are VERY complex, because profits change very quickly in such a market. And if you forego those premium sales, you forego exactly that part of the process that pays most of the advance costs. At least in the immediate future, you may get low budget movies released like that, but it's not going to happen with Hollywood blockbusters.

theres talk of them releasing the DVD on the same day of the cinema release in order to cash in on media hype (many of you may have noticed DVD releases are getting closer and closer to the cinema release anyway), many influencial people in the industry are pushing hard for it, which if passed (and i hope it is) is really gonna put a nice dent in your "released in a controlled way" methodology.

It's not "my" way, it's the way the movie industry works. You can believe me or not, but it's not some abstract theory of mine. It's how things are.

 

[Amp34]

to tell you the truth, it must be making a diffence because within the past 6 months compared to last yr...... the number of movies that have been leaked onto the net have been very little.

Thats because Stevenage cineworld which was the source of 50% of pirated films in the UK has started checking every bag and pocket! I had to take my wallet out of my pocket to show it wasnt a camcorder.

Edit: they didnt want my phone though.

Here is the news article as well.

 

[seaviewuk]

China is the place to go where the hard done by film industry are releasing dvd's for around $1 to try and combat piracy.

I don't take a moral stance on this at all.

I'm not going to condone or criticize film piracy.

I think the studios and the retail sector are just as bad with the pricing models.

OK, so a small time actor gets put out of work Do I care? Not a jot. They can re-train as I have had to do to get another job.

Exactly the same applies to the music industry and games industry.

In fact it applies to ALL forms of entertainment. They are out to squeeze every last penny from Joe Average. Well luckily not everybody falls for their tactics

 

[stoofa]

What I'm finding quite funny about this thread is the usual aggressiveness that seems to surround so many people these days.
When did we become an aggressive nation?
It's scary and I just cannot help feeling we are becomming closer and closer to the US on a daily basis.

What I'm seeing are posts such as:

"I wouldn't hand my phone over, they could *******"
"Bunch of thieves, they could *****"

You get the idea...as if some massive security guard was standing there taking mobile phones off people and if they weren't admitting to having one then out were coming the rubber gloves.
Then we get the:

"It's gotta be illegal"
"Yer, take my phone, I'll sue their a*****"

Immediately the aggressive stance once more...legal, money, sue.
How about the following options instead:

As you are going in you are told that camera phones will not be permitted. You now have a choice, you either go into the screening and you do not take your camera phone in with you.
Alternatively you simply don't go tot he screening and you leave with your phone.
No aggression required, no talk of legality and suing.
The management have made their rules clear, you have a choice to make.

The facts on if it's right or wrong really don't matter.
The cinema make up their own rules on admission and as long as the reason for refusing admission was not based on race and simply a rule for that film baring anybody from taking any kind of recording materials in with you I don't see the problem...walk away, don't go in...everyone's happy.

 

[pinkegobox]

i used to work in a big inner-city cinema (thefilmworks, manchester) and was there two years, in which time in only know of one film that we had to take cameraphones off of people. it was "hitchikers guide to the galaxy" preview, and we showed it quite some time before it was released (and it was uk release first i believe, so it wasn't already out in america).

we didn't take cameraphones, but the two film company supplied security guards did. it's not just the punters they don't trust either, we all but on reel of the film delievered the day before and then on the day a security guard brings in the missing reel.

ott in my opinion, but they that's not my decision to make. this was a good while before the film was release though, possible even 2 months+ but i can't be sure about that.

oh, and i've seen people recording bits of film on videophone before. i get for a normal film that it's not worth bothering about, but on a still very secretive film even 10 seconds of footage could be valuable to them and will no doubt get passed all around the net with hours.

Rob

 

[Craig321]

Just been into Brum to watch a preview screening of Confetti with the gf (not bad if you're into that sort of film), and upon entering was greeted by a guy who said he was from Fox security (tis a Fox film).

He was checking all bags and asking to look at mobiles and was taking any camera phones of any description off people and bagging and tagging them. When we came out there was an enormous queue as people waited to reclaim their stuff. Luckily I'd left my mobile at home and the gf's doesn't have a camera so he let her hang on to it.

Virtually every film you see these days has the anti-piracy warnings before it but this was taking things to a new level, obviously because it was a preview screening they're paranoid about people recording it. Anyone else come across security like this at a film?

It's silly taking mobiles off them, you can't get good enough quality from camera phones yet - nobody would want to download that. If it was put on bit torrent or something the speed would be terrible because people wouldn't share it because it'd be rubbish.