Back from Hollywood: A brief summary of our trip, plus: CLONES, SPIDER-MAN and MORE! (1 Viewer)

[oscar_merkx]

Patrick
I think that the Sunrise DVD is getting more exposure than you think through all your posts lately. Any other silent film you want to recommend btw.
have you seen The Iron Horse (r2) from John Ford
http://www.bfi.org.uk/collections/ne...ewdvd.html#top

 

[Robert Crawford]

Patrick,
You're starting to sound like a broken record. Please, give it a rest!



Crawdaddy

 

[Patrick McCart]

Ok, I'll refrain from more replies...I kind of got carried away.
But hey, I'm passionate for silent cinema!
(BFI's The Iron Horse DVD looks pretty good...who has U.S. rights to BFI stuff?)

 

[David Lambert]

Here is the scene I referred to:

This scene is 1:46 into the movie. The entirety of Chapter 26 on the 2nd Edition DVD. It features sunrises and sunsets from films like: Sunrise, Nosferatu, Don Juan, Gone With The Wind, & Superman. Afterward, he is shown leaving the theater after a showing of Tequila Sunrise.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Wow!

They even got the Movietone aspect ratio correct for Sunrise.

 

[oscar_merkx]

David
Thanks for the info and screencap
Patrick
The Iron Horse is awesome and produced by Kevin Brownlow Productions

 

[George See]

Great report i'm drooling at the thought of episode II,

It's A little depressing to hear that walmart is dictating Pan & Scan...yes my walmart sells more Pan & Scan than widescreen...of course my walmart hardly ever carrys the widescreen version of duel format films, so it's hardly fair to put any weight behind these sales numbers. From various comments i've heard on this forum I was always under the assumption that wide screen outsold pan and scan. I am so happy with the widescreen TV i bought 6 months ago that I shudder to think Pan And Scan is going to win.

 

[Seth Paxton]

It's probably damn smart to get an internet distribution partnership going for titles like this. (thinking like outsourcing the shipping to some pre-existing net entity but selling via Fox.com)

By jumping the debate back a track to an already understood point it ends up making the thread spin its wheels.

 

[Seth Paxton]

To clarify -

Current
Fox makes X copies of Sunrise.
Orders for (free) copies arrive via Internet/Mail-In.
Copies are shipped out.

Could Be
Fox makes X copies of Sunrise.
Orders with payment for copies arrive via Internet/Mail-In.
Copies are shipped out.


What part am I missing here? How is "current" better or easier than "could be"? Which method better gauges the true popularity of Sunrise?

As best as I can make out the approach here is that many people who wouldn't buy it will be willing to pick it up "on a goof" since its free, after buying several FOX classics.

Because the people that buy the other titles just to get Sunrise would certainly be buying copies anyway and thus would not increase the demand for Sunrise copies under the "free" system (which is the only thing I can guess at with the assumption that FOX wants to get needed numbers up for cheaper production).

Maybe an ADVANCED order system would be of benefit cases like this. I think most classic fans would shell out the money beforehand to FOX directly which would allow FOX to know the numbers needed up front AND give them some cash-in-hand to use on the actual production.

Sunrise is not exactly the last classic title that I think people would be willing to pay for ahead of time. And smaller companies have already taken this approach to some titles (like My So Called Life IIRC). Not saying it goes as well with those companies, but then they don't have their shit together like FOX does either.

I'm just trying to think of reasonable solutions that allow studios and fans to both be satiated here.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Seth, great minds think alike . See my post of yesterday morning in the other thread: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...35#post1040635

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Sorry, there is a snag, and that is for a lot of people, there is NO WHERE ELSE TO GO. Walmart 'moved' into town and wiped out whatever mom & pop stores that were there, and now they are all stuck with Walamrt merchandise only.

Their only alternative would be to drive to whatever city has another choise or to buy from the Internet. SUCKS

Glenn

 

[Trace Downing]

Wal-mart is not god.

Tell that to Wal-Mart, and they'll have a van at your door in 15 minutes.

 

[Scott Shanks]

Questions I have to ask are these. Are the studios going to do the smart thing and start releasing OAR only?

Geesh!

NO! THE STUDIOS ARE GOING TO DO THE $MART THING AND RELEASE BOTH PRODUCTS - OAR AND MAR!!!!!!

The studio has no financial motivation to release OAR only when there is a HUGE market for MAR.

The only valid argument I've read regarding Walmart is that how can Walmart dictate that a studio release a title MAR only and say, "Oh, by the way, we are not going to stock that title."

 

[Lee_eel]

Changing the subject slightly does anyone know if there are any Spidey reviews online yet?

 

[oscar_merkx]

there are several online
r2 www.r2-dvd.org from today
r4 www.darkhorizons.com & www.michaeldvd.com.au
both are from last friday I think

 

[LarryH]

Having spent the better part of the last two hours plowing through every post on this thread, I feel inspired to make some comment: My observation is that I can see no justification anywhere in any of the arguments or even speculations above for any studio feeling obligated to release a film in ONLY a cropped version. If they could sell X number of OAR versions two years ago and make money, can they not still sell X number of OAR versions today and still make money, even if they are now selling 4X MARred versions? Even if the vile WalMart carries only MARred versions, how can they possibly dictate that the studio release NO OAR version? Can the studio justify to their shareholders that they are willing to dump the OAR market completely?

 

[Steve K.H.]

Larry, same boat, and it's funny cuz I was going to state virtually the same thing...
Prior to WalMart's decision to adopt the DVD market as a segment to exploit, sales of DVDs were occurring. So let's look at WalMart for a second... who do they cater to?
Essentially it is the low to middle income earners... those for which the day to day purchases chew up virtually all of their weekly paycheck. Little if anything is left for the luxury items... I venture few and far between have funds available for an Digital WideScreen TV, let alone an HT system.
They are however willing to move to a superior viewing experience, even if it is on a $100 DVD player and a $300 Television. To get these consumers to buy into OAR on their 21 inch television is simply not viable.
Ultimately, the P&S market is the mainstream of the WalMart consumers.
That said, there are other segments. Were not the studios realizing a profit on sales on their OAR releases? The answer is likely... yes they were.
The struggle is of course not alienating the P&S crowd. To avoid this, Special or Limited Editions are released. This begins to address those areas that we, as HT enthusiasts seek. Certainly the numbers play into this... A special edition of an obscure title that market surveys suggest will have limited sales do not support releasing in varied formats.
If it was not for the P&S adopters, we would likely not see the number of Classic Releases that are currently available.
Still, I struggle with this... if the studios were realizing profits on an OAR release, and now the P&S crowd has lead to a mushroom effect on sales, does it stand to reason that a studio should release a title in P&S only? Same applies with the DD and DTS questions.
Yes, personal attacks are unjustified and stated out of what I perceive to be ignorance.
Questioning the basis for some decisions made should continue.
(I'm tired...)

 

[Ken Situ]

To clarify -
Current
Fox makes X copies of Sunrise.
Orders for (free) copies arrive via Internet/Mail-In.
Copies are shipped out.
Could Be
Fox makes X copies of Sunrise.
Orders with payment for copies arrive via Internet/Mail-In.
Copies are shipped out.

may be something like this might happen:
Could Be
Fox makes X copies of Sunrise.
Orders with payment for copies arrive via Internet/Mail-In.
Copies are shipped out.
-- Hire extra people to handle incoming payment, those people demand half of the revenue.
-- banks demand the other half of the revenue.
-- Accountants complaining extra works, and demand yet half of the revenue.
-- Auditors complaining extra works, and demand yet another half of the revenue.
-- Hire extra staff to handle bounced cheques, those staff demand yet another half of the revenue.
-- Banks demand another half of the revenue for processing the bounced cheques.
-- Hire extra employees to field complains and process defectives DVDs and refunds because of those BLACK BARS,
-- and on and on....

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Still, I struggle with this... if the studios were realizing profits on an OAR release, and now the P&S crowd has lead to a mushroom effect on sales, does it stand to reason that a studio should release a title in P&S only? Same applies with the DD and DTS questions.

Exactly. At best/worst all this should mean is that a studio could gain additional market by offering a P/S option in addition to OAR (like dual-release or dual-aspect-ratio-single-disc release). It doesn't make sense how offering P/S-only and loosing the OAR market is profitable or desirable.

Of course...the bad guys who are falling prey to that practice are MGM (Chitty), Warner (Follow That Bird), Columbia (Karate Kid), and Disney (Muppet T.I.).

-dave

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Ken, that was a great story. Unfortunately, it went something closer to this. If they made 5 mil on DVD sales in 2000 with OAR, they made 50 mil the next year with P&S. Columbia and most other studios would have been so overjoyed at the simple math that told them that they'd sell even more if they didn't even bother with the OAR at all.

Yeah, it's a huge mistake on their part, but now we are so small it doesn't matter to them any more. Of course you can add to this that if/when widescreen TV's become the norm, all of the P&S DVD's will have to be repurchased by J6P, so there is more money to be made there too.

When I think about it, I really think that is the 'BIG SECRET' they we won't hear about. They are planning on reselling everything over again in a few years in OAR. Gee, is J6P gonna be mad!

Yeah, and I can see Walmart in on this too. Behold the crying customer - 'You mean to tell me that this DVD has been available in widescreen for six years, and you guys didn't carry it?' Or worse - 'You guys actually told the studios not to issue the widescreen versions so that you could soak us twice?

Well, I'd be steaming. Hava a good day!
Glenn