For several years, the film industry has watched the implosion of CD sales in the music industry caused by the ease of file-sharing online, and waited for the same planet-killer asteroid to strike the DVD market. While DVD sales flattened then actually declined in recent years, the refrain has been, “well, at least DVDs can’t be ripped like CDs — yet.”
As internet download speeds have increased and consumer viewing habits have shifted more and more towards computer and mobile, the industry has been anxiously waiting. The big blow may have landed this week with the announcement of RealNetwork’s new RealDVD software. For $30, consumers can download the software and burn digital copies of DVDs to their hard drives. The software has lots of restrictions on how many times a film can be copied or moved, and fees for burning the film onto DVD-R too many times, but the introduction of RealDVD opens the floodgates to legal DVD copying and sharing.
Of course, anyone with a computer can tell you that lots of ripping and file-sharing of movies and TV shows already occurs, but it remains a relatively small segment of total film consumption. What makes RealDVD different is a) it’s legal, at least until the MPAA drags RealNetworks into court; 2) it’s professionally engineered software from a respected corporation, not illicit encryption-cracking software like Mac the Ripper; 3) it is simple to use, according to the hype, requiring a single click to copy; and 4) it offers lots of bells and whistles like browsing titles by cover art and sorting by actors, genres and other info.
Easy, legal, cool and backed by a multi-million dollar ad campaign? I think there’s reason for worry at the studios. DVD sales and rentals, though not as robust as they once were, still generate twice as much revenue as theatrical receipts (and much, much more in net profits). There is absolutely no evidence that the industry can find new revenue streams to replace DVDs if the DVD market collapses.
I struggle a little with conflicting feelings towards copying. I feel like I should be able to make copies of something I bought, yet recognize as a practical matter that there’s going to be a hell of a flood once the digital levee is breached.
What do you think?
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September 10th, 2008
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Just a quick, non-work related note on my weekend. I attended a wedding in rural New Jersey on Saturday, and I have completely reconsidered my impressions of the state. The wedding was in an old mill in a valley along the Delaware River, and it was beautiful. Lush green fields, tree-lined streets, wonderful river views, and even better people. Congrats to Phillip and Lauren!
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August 24th, 2008
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I tend to be positive when reviewing other peoples’ work. As a marketer, I am trained to look for the strongest features of a film and emphasize them. As a film lover, my inclination is to try to enjoy everything I see, and resist the temptation to pick it apart.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t occasionally enjoy someone else’s snarky commentary. I clipped out Jeannette Catsoulis’s snarky review of MIRRORS from Saturday’s New York Times (August 16) because her assessment star Kiefer Sutherland made the smartass in me smile:
“Wearing his ’24′ face throughout, Mr. Sutherland is believably beleaguered, though not even as Jack Bauer did he ever pull a gun on a nun. It’s good to see him stretch.”
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August 20th, 2008
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I attended SilverDocs last month, the terrific documentary film festival co-hosted by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel, and failed to post my thoughts and observations. Until now!
First, the festival was exceptionally well-programmed (shout out to Patricia Finneran and Sky Sitney!). Three films which were highlights for me, which are in theaters now:
The English Surgeon: This film was the talk of HotDocs in Toronto in April, where it won Best International Feature Doc, and again wowed audiences at SilverDocs. The basic storyline is powerful: Henry Marsh, a British neurosurgeon, spends his vacation time providing his services for free to brain cancer patients in Kiev, with his friend and protege, Ukranian surgeon Igor Kurilets. In the hands of director Geoffrey Smith, the film is imbued with moral quandries, pathos, a couple of squirm-inducing surgical scenes, and a gripping humanity.
The Garden: Winner of the Best Documentary Award at SilverDocs, Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s emotional film covers the fight by a group of Latino farmers in Los Angeles to save their community garden. The garden — the largest of its kind in the United States, covering 14 acres over two city blocks — was founded by the city in the aftermath of the 1992 riots as part of its community rebuilding efforts. Fourteen years after the city created the garden, though, they sold the land back to the man they had taken it from and told the farmers to vacate. Kennedy takes viewers into the fray as the farmers organize, resist their eviction notices, fight amongst themselves and ultimately face off against the bulldozers threatening to storm the gates.
Man On Wire: This film joyously recalls the famous stroll Philippe Petit took between the World Trade Center’s twin towers in 1974 — more than 1,000 feet above the ground. Petit’s highly daring, highly entertaining and highly illegal tightrope walk lasted around 45 minutes, but the plotting to stage the stunt took eight months, and the idea was borne more than six years before Petit stepped out into the Manhattan sky one August morning. Director James Marsh tells the story like a caper film, with Petit the impish joker masterminding the “artistic crime of the century.”
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August 13th, 2008
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I am happy to be keeping my promise to myself to regularly contribute to my blog. Hooray, me!
OK, enough self-congratulations. In my first post, I pointed out a few of the many, many problems facing independent and documentary films trying to enter the current US marketplace. I promised to follow up with some explanation as to why I would choose to stay in the film industry at this difficult time. Here goes:
1. I LOVE TELLING STORIES. Documentary filmmaking is a calling — a calling that promises neither wealth nor fame. People who create docs do it for the love of the craft, out of their need to tell a particular story in a way it has never been told before, and/or because they find their muse in the documentary idiom. For independent narrative films, the motivations vary more widely and include dreams of Hollywood (not a bad thing, in my book — creative people should aspire to share their art with the biggest possible audience), fame, money and immortality, not to mention the possibility of meeting people who are stunningly physically attractive.
2. I THINK THE NUT CAN BE CRACKED. As a marketing and distribution consultant, I am convinced that there are ways to successfully release films in the current environment, provided the filmmaker is a) willing to make the effort and b) willing to make the effort. If that seems redundant it is, for good reason, because marketing and distributing a film requires a lot of repetitive grunt work that creatives often disdain. I’m not in any way suggesting filmmakers are lazy — making a film requires a ton of hard work, crazy hours and mad passion — but they often seem unable to muster the same enthusiasm for promoting their work that they channeled into creating their work. However, filmmakers who are willing to evangelize for their projects can succeed where the existing, broken distribution model is failing.
3. NO CUBICLES. ‘Nuff said.
4. THE CHALLENGE. I have a personality quirk that drives me to tilt at windmills (literally, in the case of CAPE WIND: The Fight for the Future of Power In America). So, instead of a cushy desk job with casual Fridays and rush-hour traffic, I choose the path less travelled by, and hope I make a difference.
Next up: SilverDocs 2008
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July 8th, 2008
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