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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Theatrical Exhibition of DVDs
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
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Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 09-05-2006 04:57 PM
quote: Ryan Navaroli Oh, and what about internation films on DVD that don't have any type of distribution in America. Is it legal to show those without paying people (not that I want to stiff people).
You'd have to find out who holds the US theatrical rights and license your screening from them. Where you got the DVD from makes no legal difference. The only issue is that in a small number of cases, the versions of a film prepared for distribution in one country aren't the same as in another. Sometimes this is due to censorship, but usually it's due to rights issues.
So for example, there are some British prints of The Big Sleep in which the scene with Lauren Bacall singing in the nightclub was completely cut, because the song's British publisher refused to license it to Warners for use in that territory. Were you, for argument's sake, to get hold of a copy of the British cut version, Warners probably wouldn't let you show it in the US because they'd prefer you to use the complete version. So if you are proposing to run theatrical screenings of a DVD obtained from overseas (or a film print, for that matter), it's important to tell the rights owner so that they're sure that they're legally allowed to license the screening for you. Cases like that are unusual, but by no means unheard of.
Theatrical rights are separate from home video rights: sometimes the same distributor owns or controls both, but not always.
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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler
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Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 09-05-2006 07:08 PM
Are you in a position to even try to obtain 35mm prints?
Remember that standard DVDs were never designed for large-screen projection. Certainly, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (saw an excellent demonstration of the former just today) will change that, but for the moment it's SD rather than HD one is working with.
The other thing is that mastering quality can vary enormously, as has been pointed out here before. For older material, your DVD may be coming off an old broadcast 1 inch, especially for older and cult material.
And, the display devices out there can vary enormously in quality becasue unlike film, you're faced with different picture technologies (e.g. LCD, DLP) as well as different light levels, contrast ratios, colour balance, etc.
Sure, the 35mm prints may be unavailable or so badly damaged they're unwatchable, and a good DVD setup on a fairly small screen (say 12ft) may be acceptable, but it is a compromise.
(NB - I'm sure that if you do use DVD that you'll make this clear to the audience in your publicity. There are some serious problems over here where DVDs are being shown publicly but are being branded as "film screenings" and "cinema". A breach of consumer law IMHO, but when I sought an opinion from a Consumer Agency here they said that because film is a moving image, and DVD is a moving image, then film = DVD! Interesting...so that means apples are oranges, because apples are fruit and oranges are fruit...)
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Bill Enos
Film God
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Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 09-06-2006 11:58 AM
DVD thru a high end projector with adequate light in flat is better than 16mm. Projected in full screen scope is another matter, the both are about the same. DVD will likely be in the correct format and have digital multi channel sound, the 16 at best can do AM radio quality mono. DVD runs a wide range of picture quality too. The original DVD release of Raiders of the Lost Ark looks pretty good, the "collectors edition" boxed set looks terrible on the full scope screen. The DVDs provided by Swank and others have not been as good as the ones bought retail. The distributor provided discs go directly to the feature without all the warning B.S. and menu screens though. I was incorrect about the boxed set, it was the collectors edition of Raiders We use DVDs for private screenings and frequently for midnights. Groups usually prefer to save the cost of print shipping. Midnighters are there for the group fun and we've asked about screening of DVDs, about 90% don't care, midnights are about the party atmosphere more than serious movie watching. On a couple of the occasions when we ran 16, there were lots of complaints about the square cut off picture and the crappy sound. One who bitched, when informed that 16mm was the only way his favorite was available said not to show it rather than do it that badly. [ 09-06-2006, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: Bill Enos ]
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Scott Norwood
Film God
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Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-06-2006 02:49 PM
Agreed, completely. DVDs are a crappy exhibiton format.
My personal favorite was one which was a) in PAL, b) region-coded to something other than North America, c) opened with upwards of ten minutes of unskippable crap, and d) required navigating a series of menus in Chinese to turn on English subtitles (if I spoke Chinese, I wouldn't need to turn on subtitles, damnit!). Returning to the menu required sitting through the unskippable crap again.
This was even more fun than it sounds because a) the person responsible for the show didn't tell me that the subtitles needed to be turned on, b) the DVD player was controlled by a Crestron unit that wasn't programmed for all of the functions necessary to navigate the menus, and c) the actual remote control for the DVD player, when I finally found it, did not have batteries.
Yes, that was a truly memorable show. Give me 35mm, 16mm, Digi-Beta, Beta, or HDCAM any time over this junk.
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