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"People have stopped going to the movies in great numbers for only two reasons:
1.) Movie tickets are too freakin' expensive.
2.) Too many movies suck."
While the above is an easy sound-bite, it is factually incorrect on a number of levels.
The PERCENTAGE of people going to movies is down from the golden age of the 1930s for a number of reasons. The primary one is that there are many more choices vying for the entertainment dollar and time. In the 1930s, radio was just coming into full flower. TV was experimental. If you wanted to do something other than read a book or listen to the radio, you went to the movies, or dancing, or to some group activity. Movies were a relatively inexpensive option, and there were theatres in most towns.
To have people coming to movies, you have to have theatres for them. Thirty years ago, the rule of thumb was that in rural America, the county seat or a town with a population of over 15,000 could support one sub-run theatre, that didn't play the first week of national releases, but rented the films AFTER the high percentage rentals had been reduced. In cities, the movie page of the paper was usually filled with ads from the little theatres and the major releases took out their own double truck ads. The number of failed theatres from then to now is amazing, and that obviously cannot be from the effects of bad 3-D films.
Economics drives the movie industry, just like it drives every other industry. The economics of getting numbers of people together for entertainment rarely make sense anymore. How much vaudeville do you see? How many live-action play venues are still around that are not heavily subsidized? How well-attended are the minor-league baseball games compared to the past? How many people still go to the horse or dog track?
What currently "works" are the mega-events and the mega-theatres. Successful major leagues can pack stadiums (the losers lose big bucks). Successful mega-theatres that can also package in restaurant services and wine and liquor are holding their own. Small theatres continue to fail. People are busy with TV, the internet, video games, hometown sports, and not interested in following every movie that a star makes, or every film that a good director makes, as was the case in the past.
Quality product does not put bottoms in seats. The relation of quality to revenues just isn't there. Few audience members even have an inkling of what "quality" is. Plot lines that are easy, even childlike, and that follow familiar paths are loved. Sequels make money. When presented with a movie like "Landscape in the Mist" or even "2001, A Space audacity" 99% of the audience scratches there collective head or other body part and goes "HUH??? What was that all about?"
What brought people to 2001 was the pretty colors, and to a lesser extent, some really cool space scenes. What brings people to movies is a reflection of current interests or archetypes. Vampire movies do great now, Agatha Christie movies did great in the 1970s. Star Wars clicked from 1975 for about ten years. Quality product? How do you explain the success of "Blair Witch Project?"
The reality of movies today is that the people ages twenty-five and up largely abandoned movies long ago in favor of HBO and videotapes. The prime audience is now rug-rats, pre-teens, and teens. The movies are designed to appeal to them for simple economic reasons. They come in flocks and spend money. In many cases, they don't even care about the movie, they just want to be seen and see others, and get a chance of hooking up.
3-D itself is NOT a gimmick. The Keystone company and Viewmaster did quite well. Matthew Brady was not promoting a gimmick in the way he recorded the Civil War.
I have to keep repeating myself on this because nobody seems to get it. 3-D movie-making is a different medium than 2-D movies. The use of 2-D cinematography conventions does not work. Movie theatres are not the proper venue for 3-D movies. The angles are wrong. The dimensions are wrong. I could detail technical reasons, but the bottom line is that there is a POTENTIAL for 3-D tv, shot properly, and viewed in a properly constructed room, to be KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF GREAT! I know. I've done the experiments. I've done some rear-projection stills that make you think you are IN the scene.
Now, about the cost of movies. Movies historically have matinees priced at an equivalent price to that of one hour's work at minimum wage. Evening pricing is typically somewhere around double that. It has been so for over a century, and will likely be so until the media disappears entirely. The "too expensive" has been a winge for over one-hundred years. Deal with it.
Quality product does not put bottoms in seats. The relation of quality to revenues just isn't there. Few audience members even have an inkling of what "quality" is. Plot lines that are easy, even childlike, and that follow familiar paths are loved. Sequels make money. When presented with a movie like "Landscape in the Mist" or even "2001, A Space audacity" 99% of the audience scratches there collective head or other body part and goes "HUH??? What was that all about?"
What brought people to 2001 was the pretty colors, and to a lesser extent, some really cool space scenes. What brings people to movies is a reflection of current interests or archetypes. Vampire movies do great now, Agatha Christie movies did great in the 1970s. Star Wars clicked from 1975 for about ten years. Quality product? How do you explain the success of "Blair Witch Project?"
Harry when do you think was the turning point when the script writers and directors started to consider the teen audience as the main one? What decade?
I'm not sure the change of focus can be pegged to a single decade, but I'd say that 1995 to 2005 saw the greatest overall change towards teens and kids to the exclusion of adults. Kiddie films were always considered summer fare or holiday fare, since parents were looking for cheap babysitting (especially before the insane fearmongering of the media about child molestation from strangers instead of addressing that it was primarily family members who molested). Now kid features have expanded to all seasons even though kids are in school all seasons.
In the 1950s, the drive-ins and cheap second features of horror and sci-fi were certainly aimed at teens, but the hardtops catered more to adults. Both types of films co-existed and when the two types competed day and date they didn't have much negative effect of boxoffice receipts of either.
Oddly, one of the driving forces that pushed the change favoring teen films was the MPAA rating system. Prior to that, Catholics had their own system and local towns enforced their own censorship systems. With a national system, one of the rites of growing into an adult became seeing an R or even X rated film. Owners and managers still had a pretty good idea of the local situation, and let slide the ratings on some R films, while being strict on others. For the teen who wanted to be out with friends, the ratings also meant you could ditch little brother. "Sorry kid, not tonight. The film is R, so you can't get in."
Adults began thinking of [X] as porno, and [R] as smutty, so the ratings had an effect of driving away the conservative and church going types. Of course there was inevitable confusion once ALL films no longer had to conform to the Hayes Code. One memorable moment for me in the 1970s was watching a cashier gently counseling an octogenarian woman who wanted a ticket to "Mister Beethoven." The film was "Misty Beethoven" and back then there was some question as to whether she really knew what she was about to see.
Teen horror had an October slot for years, but that spread in the 1980s with the Freddie movies and others of the genre. Times change. Technology changes. People change.
3-D itself is NOT a gimmick. The Keystone company and Viewmaster did quite well. Matthew Brady was not promoting a gimmick in the way he recorded the Civil War.
Your analogy lost me there. What does Matthew Brady (I'm assumign you're talking about the Civil War photographer) have to do with 3D movies?
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
I have to keep repeating myself on this because nobody seems to get it. 3-D movie-making is a different medium than 2-D movies. The use of 2-D cinematography conventions does not work. Movie theatres are not the proper venue for 3-D movies. The angles are wrong. The dimensions are wrong. I could detail technical reasons, but the bottom line is that there is a POTENTIAL for 3-D tv, shot properly, and viewed in a properly constructed room, to be KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF GREAT! I know. I've done the experiments. I've done some rear-projection stills that make you think you are IN the scene.
I have yet to see an example of a KNOCK MY SOCKS OFF 3D movie. Every one I have ever seen is blurry and gives me a splitting headache after about 20 minutes.
But the entire concept strikes me as a solution in search of a problem. There's nothing wrong with movies in 2D. We don't need the 3D. It adds nothing.
And it says a lot when today's talented filmmakers are beginning to come forward and say, "I hate 3D. I refuse to make my movie in 3D."
Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea
Now, about the cost of movies. Movies historically have matinees priced at an equivalent price to that of one hour's work at minimum wage. Evening pricing is typically somewhere around double that. It has been so for over a century, and will likely be so until the media disappears entirely. The "too expensive" has been a winge for over one-hundred years. Deal with it.
I don't buy it. When I go to the second-run movie houses (ticket prices for any show are $2), the theater is always far more crowded than when I go to see new releases.
It's simple economics. If a family wants a night's entertainment, they have the choice of spending $50+ to go see a movie once, or they can go to the closest red box and see 10 movies for $10. It's not a hard choice for most people.
So studios are trying to add an incentive to get the audiences back to the theater. "You MUST see this in 3D!" It's gotten so bad that studios are taking movies that were not shot in 3D (Clash of the Titans and the Airbender movie are two recent examples) and forcing 3D on the film.
"Your analogy lost me there. What does Matthew Brady (I'm assumign you're talking about the Civil War photographer) have to do with 3D movies?"
Obviously nothing about the MOVIE part, but the dissing has been aimed at the 3-D aspect of movies as being distracting and not adding anything. FWIW, some of those old stereographs COULD be made into a 3D program.
"I have yet to see an example of a KNOCK MY SOCKS OFF 3D movie. Every one I have ever seen is blurry and gives me a splitting headache after about 20 minutes."
Precisely. I couldn't agree with you more. It doesn't have to be that way with 3D tv IF the material is shot correctly.
"But the entire concept strikes me as a solution in search of a problem. There's nothing wrong with movies in 2D. We don't need the 3D. It adds nothing."
The way it is currently done, I'll agree that it adds little. It doesn't advance the plot, and with all of the "effects" it not only destroys that fabled "suspension of disbelief" it stomps it to the ground and kicks it into 3D pixels. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE DONE THAT WAY. Cinemascope was once labeled as "suitable only for parades and bed scenes" because of the wide aspect ratio. It wasn't until the numbnuts finally figured out how to use it that it became a valid medium. 3-D is harder to figure out, and the "money" is scared to take a chance on going against the flow and using different scripting and shooting styles.
"I don't buy it. When I go to the second-run movie houses (ticket prices for any show are $2), the theater is always far more crowded than when I go to see new releases.
It's simple economics. If a family wants a night's entertainment, they have the choice of spending $50+ to go see a movie once, or they can go to the closest red box and see 10 movies for $10. It's not a hard choice for most people."
Uhhh... you are talking with someone who has EXTENSIVE experience in the industry. I've managed dollar theatres, I've seen the P&Ls. Magic Johnson attempted to create a chain of dollar theatres. It failed. One of the few remaining second run discount theatres is a customer of mine. If he wasn't able to browbeat the landlord, he would be out of business. I had a couple of other customers who couldn't make it even WITH browbeating the landlord.
You aren't really disagreeing the point anyway. You are correctly stating that the cost of tickets to a first run movie in the evening is greater than the cost of Redbox. The cost of a new car in a showroom is greater than that of an old Mercedes being sold third-hand as well. I'm stating that the inflation adjusted price of tickets at mainstream locations has been roughly tied to minimum wage for longer than we've both been alive. Those are two different concepts.
I agree with your comment about economics. Take a look at how many video rental stores are closing up shop. Economics and public whim have done them in as well. Remember "gamerooms?" Video games all lined up against the wall, with the place packed with players? Gone. Movie theatres have been headed the way of those dinosaurs, but at a slower pace. Over my career, I directly managed a number of theatres, some of which were the top grossing theatres in the areas. A few years back, I took inventory and did some checking. Except for one subsidized "palace" converted back to live plays and events, every single one of those theatres had closed or been torn down.
The teen audience has been the savior of many locations, and the current offerings (3-D or not) cater to them. In the exhibition end, it can be a tricky tricky job to manage a theatre in a way that the teens keep coming and have enough leeway that they continue to come, while still keeping the place safe and not totally alienating the rest of the audience. I saw one location where a new manager cracked down too hard on teens and managed to lose enough income that the theatre had to close. In another location, it got so out of control that there was live gunfire in the auditorium. People have predicted the end of movie theatres for many years. In some small areas of the country, that prediction has come true. Eventually, unless the anti-trust laws that broke up the ability of movie studios to own exhibition halls are repealed, there will only be subsidized token theatres in major metropolitan areas.
FarNorthDallas, I feel your pain. Not only is the current style of 3D physically nauseating, I find that there are "flat" features that trigger this. "Sherlock Holmes" had some rapid movement scenes that were sickeningly excessive and a poor excuse for cinematography, and some of the shows on tv are SO bad that I have to fast forward, still frame, or view with only one eye open to be able to watch the content. I'm of the opinion that in a few years, the camerawork of today's "product" will be looked at as a low point in visual arts, and common perception of the techniques by the public will be "boy that was kitschy crap!"
Precisely. I couldn't agree with you more. It doesn't have to be that way with 3D tv IF the material is shot correctly.
Millions people all over the world who watched Avatar in the good theaters like IMAX or Real3D said, "Avatar KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF, they said it was mind-blowing experience". Those people who watched Avatar in the mediocre theaters said, "Nothing special".
It's ok there's only one or two good 3D movies so far. You know 2D also surprise me rarely.
"Sherlock Holmes" had some rapid movement scenes that were sickeningly excessive
Many films and MTV video clips have the very rapid movements these days. Just compare the video clips of the 80s and the modern ones. Now the clips are very fast-paced. I assume it's another thing that is aimed to the teens.
i said it from the start 3D will suck.. especially when you can watch it on your home tv.... i saw the Last Airbender in 3D... it sucked. it hurt my eyes more than anything..
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