Originally posted by Bobby Henderson
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Are the streamers runnign out of st(r)eam?
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Originally posted by Lyle Romer View Post
I wouldn't think it would be too expensive to have automated systems that can monitor the audio and video and report issues like channels not functioning or blown speaker drivers. An automated test pattern image and test tone sequence after each show concludes could be checked by a system and then issues can be reported to the management or responsible technician. I'm sure it gets expensive to have automated calibration like IMAX but just monitoring and reporting should be doable for a reasonably low cost.
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I have a strong feeling that problems are getting noticed in many theaters run by the big chains (AMC, Regal, etc), but are not being fixed anyway. Deferred maintenance to stretch a buck. "Do the customers really need all those speakers to work? Or can we get by with just enough speakers? If a customer finds a hacked up, vandalized seat can't he just move to another one? We don't need all the seats do be in perfect shape do we?"
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I think it's just butt-headed budget keeping.
There's a place that I know of where management spent a bunch of money to build a guest lounge with a fridge, a coffee bar then outfitted it with all, brand new, custom furniture. Then, when people ask for tools to do their jobs they are told that they can't afford it.
If you ask about why they spent so much money, the answer is that they want to have a place where potential customers who visit the plant can be comfortable.
Umm... What visitors? Visiting has been curtailed due to COVID!
Several of the employees at that place have been joking around and saying that they should all chip in and buy a pound of Kopi Luwak coffee for the managers to drink.
I'm willing to bet that the same kind of thing is going on at AMC.
Customers watch shit movies while bosses sit and drink coffee.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? Customers watch good movies while bosses drink shit-coffee?... Made from real shit!Last edited by Randy Stankey; 05-03-2022, 04:26 AM.
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I've given some thought to Bobby's assertion that if cinemas made more money, presentations would improve.
I can't think of (and haven't seen) any evidence supporting this idea. Even Bobby seems to agree that the profits would probably just go to owners, shareholders, and corporate management.
But it isn't difficult to find evidence to the contrary.
I reported the green light shining across the screen in auditorium 9 at Regal's Continental at the end of 2015.
The following year, 2016 saw the second highest U.S. box-office ever. 2018 was number one, at almost twelve billion dollars.
In the six years following my complaint, Regal has been unable to set aside $25 to buy the plywood, black felt, and screws that could be used to rectify the problem without diminishing the effectiveness of the exit sign.
I still maintain that ending the release window would be the best thing for the moviegoing experience. Yes, large number of screens would vanish, but a large number of screens aren't currently providing an acceptable experience. The theaters doing a good job would hopefully thrive and people who cared about presentation would be more likely go to the cinema. People who didn't would stay home. Currently, the opposite is increasingly true.
Maybe the exhibition industry would be unable to survive, as Bobby asserts. I'm hopeful. The moviegoing experience can be magical and there are plenty of services and activities with smaller customer bases that still find a way to be profitable.
If there are other ideas about how to improve the moviegoing experience, I'd be curious to hear them.Last edited by Geoff Jones; 05-03-2022, 09:43 AM.
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Originally posted by Geoff JonesI've given some thought to Bobby's assertion that if cinemas made more money, presentations would improve. I can't think of (and haven't seen) any evidence supporting this idea. Even Bobby seems to agree that the profits would probably just go to owners, shareholders, and corporate management.
Originally posted by Geoff JonesI reported the green light shining across the screen in auditorium 9 at Regal's Continental at the end of 2015.
Originally posted by Geoff JonesI still maintain that ending the release window would be the best thing for the moviegoing experience. Yes, large number of screens would vanish, but a large number of screens aren't currently providing an acceptable experience.
Texas Instruments won't continue to make DLP chips for d-cinema projectors if the number of theaters in the US dwindles down to just a few hundred screens or less. The same goes for the rest of that projector hardware and other specialized, industry-specific equipment. All of those product lines will disappear. No one will start making film projectors again as a back-up plan either. The only remnants that would survive are speaker and amp components that can work in other kinds of concert/event sound systems.
A 100% day and date release plan will put more than 90% of cinemas out of business in a matter of months. I'm pretty sure if 9 out of 10 cinemas closed the entire release platform would be abandoned.
Originally posted by Geoff JonesThe following year, 2016 saw the second highest U.S. box-office ever. 2018 was number one, at almost twelve billion dollars.
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I wasn't ignoring your point. I attempted to acknowledge it it with the comment "there are plenty of services and activities with smaller customer bases that still find a way to be profitable."
You may be right that theaters wouldn't survive if the release window came to an end, but you aren't suggesting any other ideas about improving the industry.
If the moviegoing experience continues to be the shit-show that you and I and so many others keep describing, what difference does it make if the industry continues or not?
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If the moviegoing experience continues to be the shit-show that you and I and so many others keep describing, what difference does it make if the industry continues or not?
I would bet that if you polled random moviegoers (not Film-Techers, who are notoriously picky and rightly so), you'd probably find the level of complaints is no higher than it might be for any other service industry, restaurants or concerts for example. It is impossible to please 100% of the people all of the time, it just can't be done. So you do the best you can with the resources you have. It's not like our industry is the only one where there are issues now and then.
So quit being so high-and-mighty about how you think an entire industry deserves to be flushed, just because it doesn't always meet your lofty standards. I'm not making excuses for the chains and their cheapo policies, and I can't speak for the other theater owners in the country, but I'm doing the best I can, and I expect many others are as well.
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- Bright green light shining across the screen
- One half of the screen is noticeably darker than the other
- Missing audio channels
- Audio channels coming from the wrong direction
- Audio channels coming from the wrong goddamn movie
If you polled random moviegoers about the moviegoing experience, I doubt you'd find many complaints, because most of those who care about presentation have given up on commercial cinemas.
In this discussion I've actually been trying to find ways to help improve an industry I love. My thought was that if all the crappy theaters shut down, the ones run be people who cared about presentation would actually make more money. I'm rooting for those sorts of operations. But whatever. You be you.
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Originally posted by Geoff JonesI wasn't ignoring your point. I attempted to acknowledge it it with the comment "there are plenty of services and activities with smaller customer bases that still find a way to be profitable."
Originally posted by Geoff JonesYou may be right that theaters wouldn't survive if the release window came to an end, but you aren't suggesting any other ideas about improving the industry.
Theaters with crappy presentation quality are not a new thing at all. There were lots of film-based theaters that were absolutely terrible. The difficult thing for commercial cinemas today is audio/video standards for home viewing have improved enormously. HD is now standard definition in the home. That has raised the floor of what is passable for minimum quality standards in commercial theaters.
The movie distributors have cannibalized various parts of the home movie sales market via this broad shift to streaming apps. To me it looks like the theatrical release platform is the only area where there is money left on the table to be made. There are no legal barriers to prevent movie distributors from taking a more hands-on approach with cinemas. I think the distributors should sink a good bit of money into theater projection and sound as well as better new venues. They should do that as a way a better showcasing their product. Leaving up to the theater chains to foot all of the bill isn't working.
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Sorry. I guess I still wasn't being clear. Obviously, if cinema chains made more money and then devoted some of that money to improving their presentations, presentations would improve. The ideas I was looking for are related to: what possible incentive could lead to that happening? What could make the higher ups in theater chain management be willing to invest in maintaining high (or even adequate) standards of show quality? To me, that's the crux of the problem.
There are no legal barriers to prevent movie distributors from taking a more hands-on approach with cinemas. I think the distributors should sink a good bit of money into theater projection and sound as well as better new venues. They should do that as a way a better showcasing their product. Leaving up to the theater chains to foot all of the bill isn't working.
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- Bright green light shining across the screen
- One half of the screen is noticeably darker than the other
- Missing audio channels
- Audio channels coming from the wrong direction
- Audio channels coming from the wrong goddamn movie
Of course those kind of problems should be addressed. I never said they shouldn't.
What could make the higher ups in theater chain management be willing to invest in maintaining high (or even adequate) standards of show quality?
I think a general manager should get in the habit of visiting each and every auditorium at least once per show just to look and listen, and report every problem every single day. The next step would be to enable someone on site to fix problems, rather than putting them on some "to-do list" in some office somewhere, which is a place where tasks go to die.Last edited by Mike Blakesley; 05-04-2022, 11:58 AM.
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Originally posted by Geoff JonesObviously, if cinema chains made more money and then devoted some of that money to improving their presentations, presentations would improve. The ideas I was looking for are related to: what possible incentive could lead to that happening?
For decades the distributors have been marginalizing the theatrical platform in order to chase after money that just isn't there on the home viewing side. There is no way they can be making nearly as much money on a per title basis with streaming as they were with retail DVDs 20 years ago. Today a new movie can go from the cinema screen to streaming app to completely forgotten inside one calendar year. I don't see any legit reason at all to speed up that process faster.
The bean counters at movie studios and parent media companies have sped up the total life cycle of a movie as a means of playing some kind of cash flow game, one that doesn't make any sense to me. The movies aren't even the point anymore. It seems to be more about positioning a company to buy other companies or be sold to another company.
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I will say that the studios really did seem to come to the realization that a movie really does need a theatrical release with a window to bust out of the crowd and be noticed. That was strongly evidenced at CinemaCon this year, and noted in a couple dozen articles about it that I have read since. So maybe we can quit being the Rodney Dangerfields of the movie industry.
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