Don't Blame studios for non oar (1 Viewer)

[Ryan L B]

blame the director, cinimetographer designer and so on. They have the last decision on how it gets released. for example, Riddly Scott refused to put out Hannible in full screen even though the studio pressued him to. Michael Bay wanted the vhs version in a mared widescreen for pearl harbor. If it was the studios decision, the director would never have a say.

 

[AaronMK]

Most directors do not have that kind of power. Also, the relatively few directors that do would not have to use it if studio execs were more supportive of OAR in the first place. They are the biggest root of the problem, so I do continue to blame the studios.

Any single studio could have a strict OAR only policy, and would not see lost sales, since the casual viewer will not stop renting and buying movies over this issue. If they adopt a P&S only policy, they will loose a great amount of sales since their biggest customers will not touch their product.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

Man, I'm way too much of a newbie here to be the one point this out, but if the director is important enough (e.g., Ridley Scott), his voice will carry weight and it will get done his way. On the other hand, if the director is nobody (yet ) or doesn't care one way or the other, then the studio is going to do it their way and to hell with the director.

 

[Michael Reuben]

blame the director, cinimetographer designer and so on. They have the last decision on how it gets released.

And Ryan, you know this . . . how??

M.

 

[Ryan L B]

ap now, the cinemetographer insist the widescreen ratio for dvd to be 2:00, jay roach, same thing for ap1.

 

[Edwin-S]

I do blame the studios. All they have to do is stick to a strict OAR only policy and eventually this issue would die out. The studios like to use the excuse that they are being pressured by retail outlets like Walmart to provide P&S'd movies. Do the studios really expect anyone to believe that retail outlets like Walmart would stop carrying their products if they told them that they were not providing anything but OAR versions? Not bloody likely. If OAR was the only game in town and people really wanted to own the film, they would buy it regardless of black bars. There is plenty of evidence that this already happens. Look at Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, that film does not have a P&S version on DVD and yet it sold millions of copies.

 

[LukeB]

I find it ridiculous that the directors have to ASK at all to NOT have their movies cut up to fit some schmoe's TV screen.

 

[Michael Reuben]

ap now, the cinemetographer insist the widescreen ratio for dvd to be 2:00, jay roach, same thing for ap1.

That's two films. You might want to wait until you acquire more knowledge and experience before posting general pronouncements about how an entire industry operates.

M.

 

[Nick Graham]

Guys like Ron Howard, $pielberg, Cameron, and Lucas, could ALL insist that no video release of their films is in P&S and the studios would have to listen. Unfortunately, it's all about money, not art.

 

[Bill J]

It is definitely the studios' fault. I would say that only 3% of the directors have that kind of power, Ryan.

All they have to do is stick to a strict OAR only policy and eventually this issue would die out.

I agree, that would be a good solution.

 

[Jason Hughes]

Education, education, education.

Why these studios can't educate JSP is beyond me. It won't convert all of them, but it will help. And it would be a little to no expense.

 

[Julian Lalor]

jay roach, same thing for ap1.

In R1 perhaps. However, this film was released in 2.35:1 in R4. So, perhaps Jay Roach didn't have that much say after all. Very, very few directors or DoPs have the clout to require a Studio to release their films in OAR.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Woody Allen got United Artists to have Manhattan in OAR-only on every video and TV transfer ever. The CED, LD, VHS, TV transfer, and yes, even the DVD is WIDESCREEN only.

Despite Monty Python and the Holy Grail being the first official letterboxed (matted) video, Manhattan paved the way for widescreen on video.

I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is letterboxed on most media, too.

 

[JeremySt]

I can only confirm whathas already been said. About 3% of directors have the power to control how the studio releases the film to video. Of course, they can ask that the studio to do OAR, but thatdoes not mean that the studio has to comply. Unless otherwise stated in their contract, the director/dp/ etc. have NO CONTROL over how the film is released to video.
ps 923 post in 2 months, Ryan? WTG!

 

[Carlo_M]

As said above: VERY FEW directors have this kind of say. The STUDIOS own most of the movie rights. Only a very few (Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, etc) retain full rights and control. Usually when a director makes a movie, it belongs to the studio from that point on.
Why do you think there are so many "Who owns the rights to [insert name of movie] ?" Or "Paramount please release this title" or "Fox, please put out these titles" - there aren't any posts saying "Stephen Hopkins, please release this movie" or "Harold Ramis, please release this movie"

 

[Ryan L B]

i just thought that the director had some say. So does this mean that, say I were to direct a movie and I was struggling but got picked up by a major studio. If I said I don't care the studio has the last word (it depends on the studio) but if I said oar only but the editor or cinimetographer hated oar and the studio was warner, then I would be shut out on dvd.

 

[Malcolm R]

If you are a run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen director (i.e. everyone says "Who!?" at the mention of your name), you have no say. The studio will take the film right out of your hands and recut it to suit their whims if they want to. And this is sometimes for the initial theatrical release, let alone how it's presented on video.

The studios finance these films, own the rights, and can pretty much do whatever they want with the final product. Major name directors (Spielberg, Scott, Woody Allen, Cameron, etc.) with prestige and/or commercial clout may have more to say about the final presentation. Even then, they're not immune to being overruled by the studio suits. I doubt John McTiernan wanted the new "Rollerball" to end up the way it did but he was working for a studio and, at the end of the day, had to do what his "boss" wanted.

The only way a director, or anyone, has true, unequivocal control over their movies is if they finance them themselves (like George Lucas) or work for your own studio (like Spielberg). But if they're simply a director-for-hire working for a studio, all bets are off.

 

[Nick Graham]

I agree with your point, but these major directors that DO have a say are setting a bad example. And Spielberg co-owns Dreamworks, and is the golden boy at most studios, so I think he could theoretically make every Dreamworks release OAR only if he wanted to. Sure, the marketing execs at the studios distributing the DVDs would flip, but in the end, he would still hold more clout....and could quite possibly make it happen.

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Spielberg does a major disservice to OAR. The one guy that not only owns the films but owns the damned studio and he still releases a P&Sed AI. Its very disappointing.
Do Scorsese, PT Anderson, Gilliam, Fincher, Malick, Allen, Lynch, or any other director with integrity release a P&S DVD of their work? I don't believe so....

 

[GregJ]

This is a question of economics and not of art. As DVD players find there way into more and more homes of people who think of them as placements for VCRs the market for fullscreen, or P&S, also grows. I can't tell you the number of times new DVD player owners have asked me how to remove the black bars on the top & bottom of their TV. They think there is a switch on the player that can turn off the letterboxing. These same people don't understand widescreen and in short they don't like it. Another fact of this rapidly expanding group is that they don't buy movies to add to a collection, they like to go to Blockbuster on Friday night an rent a movie. Most of us on this and other DVD sites are in a market segment called early adopters, these are people who are drawn to the cutting edge and are purists in their believe that movies should be seen as they were released in the theater. The truth is that this group made DVDs what they are today but this group is not growing very much. On the other hand the VHS crowd is exploding by leaps and bounds and these people want fullscreen movies for their 4:3 TVs. So when Blockbuster buys 100,000 movies plus Walmart, Best Buy, and Targer buy another 100,000 movies all aimed at this growing market, you bet the studios hear this. This is all about money to the DVD producers, including the directors, so there will be fullscreen versions of most big releases and if this trend keeps on this track we may see DVDs of some future movies only in fullscreen.

Greg