Cinemas: No wonder we're all pirates!

Darksun

The high prices, poor service and various other factors have put me off visiting the main cinema chains. Luckily I live within walking distance of two of the best independent cinemas in the UK

bosseyed

The problem with the cinema is its full of other people.

Hell is other people apparently, particualrly when they're all gathered in the dark being a big group of teenagers.

And agree with the image about how much rubbish you have to wade through with a genuine retail film compared to the pirate copy. Take a look at PC games, in most cases its simply easier to play the pirate copy than to go through the copy protection that is dumped onto the retail release. I remember when Half Life 2 came out on PC in 2004, if you bought retail you had to have and active internet connection and set up an additional steam account and it took a while to get the thing running. If you bought pirate (cracked within a couple of days of release I believe) you just stuck the disc in, installed and were playing within 20 minutes.

Having said that, I tend not to pirate films. I like Blu Ray stuff and I like downloading the HD films off Xbox Live so I tend to wait until films are released - theres generally nothing I want to see so badly I go looking for a torrent.

techno12

goater78 wrote: »

Its all down to personal choice, you could say the same about going to a gig, why pay £50+ a ticket? When for less than a tenner you can buy the cd and listen at home, or why pay to see a comedian when their tour always comes out on DVD afterwards. You don't pay just to watch the film, you pay for the atmosphere, the big screen, the surround sound.

Yes, the atmosphere. The £10 a ticket at my local mickey mouse cinema, the idiots yapping throughout the film and the even more annoying people with their mobile screens lighting up as they text during the film.

I'll stick to fast downloads direct to my Popcorn Hour - normally takes 10mins or so ;-)

3D being the big exception of course, I loved Tron at my local IMAX despite the whispering couple behind me (grr)

Slow UK release dates are annoying too - for instance True Grit isn't out until Feb yet a 'near DVD quality' screener is already out as it's Oscar season.

I think the movie studios are missing a trick as there's a demand for a paid service to download movies at the same time they're released in cinemas. Whoever does this first will nail it - I'll sign up for one...

roddydogs

Only £10 since the VAT increase? its £11.80 in mine (Esher)

Astuteboy

fozmcfc wrote: »

Rarely go to the cinema but if I do, always book online, choice of seat, turn up, get tickets from machine job done.

Yeah; same here. If you're having trouble finding a cinema to watch a film, and you have the internet as the OP evidently does, then surely it makes sense to book online.

The only thing I find quite annoying about that is the booking fee. All cinema chains seem to have agreed amongst themselves that this is acceptable but to have to pay more to book online than via other methods (which require staff overheads etc) is quite backward in my opinion. I know there's 3rd parties involved and so on and so forth, but still.

I also take the point about prices; wasn't that long ago the Cinema cost £3 or £4 a ticket - think it was £7 or £8 (Cineworld Parrs Wood) when I took the other half to see Harry Potter a few weeks ago, not cheap really for what you get.

paddyrg

The film industry is full of power plays and corporate interests which largely force the hands of the cinemas. In thic case, Odeaon, Vue etc are probably having their hands tied. Distributors control what goes into cinemas and when. Whilst it is illegal to say "take film A if you want film B", it is still quite implied, so the programmers don't have a free reign. And these blockuster type films take 95% of the door, so the cinema has to make its money on popcorn.

Producers do not usually make money from theatrical release (cinemas) as it is the distributors job to promote those movies so heavily with press/tv/cinema/lobby ads. All of those costs come out of anything that is taken from theatrical revenues. You've seen those big complex cardboard lobby things which look like they cost hundreds of pounds? They do, and they send them (at the producers expense) everywhere. They send £40 vinyl banners to every cinema in the country, many of whom just throw them out if they haven't the space. And quads (uk-sized film posters) are brilliant quality print, with a reverse image on the back so they look good in lightboxes - but expensive to print. Yet every cinema gets them, whether showing the film or not.

The point of theatrical distribution is to generate hype for a film, they know hype and blanket marketing will get people to watch films they know are weak. But as the distributor is keeping more or less the whole of the cinema revenue, that hype feeds the PPV/DVD/BluRay markets, which is where the money is made. This is why the distributor won't typically allow a simultaneous release, and why films go first to PPV, then disc, then pay satellite, then premium satellite, then free-to-air networks, and finally into auxilliary (eg prisons). Then after a few years, once every last penny has been wrung out of it, finally given away iin newspapers. The success of all those later stages depends on the success of the theatrical release, hence the blanket coverage of Gulliver. If you find Potter booker out, whilst you're at the cinema you "may as well" see gulliver - so that increases the film revenue, meaning more "$xM at the box office" headlines, making it easier to sell the other forms of release.

What can you do? Very little. But avoid big-hype movies, ones where there are no press previews with nationwide "big bang" launches. They know it's a lemon if they have to make all the money in one weekend before the reviews kick in on Monday. Learn to distrust any numbers the film industry tells you, if not outright lies, they are creative accounting. Do Colgate tell you how much it costs to make a tube of toothpaste? It's a crazy idea, yet films love to talk about being a "$10-12M budget". Here's a hint, can the producer, a money guy with real tax returns, not know to the last CENT what it cost to make a film? Yet the figures are wishy-washy "within $2M" - the numbers given out are all for the public and media hype. Likewise "box office" is how much is taken at the cinemas, not by the producers, so is before all that waste paper and plastic and advertising is taken out of it. People like big numbers, so think that must mean a good film... if it is a good film, you'll have plenty of opportunities to give the producers your money in the future, so don't fall for the opening weekend or other herding tactics they insist on using.

Katie-Kat-Kins

The last time I went to a major chain cinema the quality of the picture and sound was so poor I may as well have been watching a pirate video....... We complained and got a refund (eventually after making a fuss) but to be honest it had ruined a film I was looking forward to (based on my favorite childhood book) seeing it again wouldn't be the same because the impact had gone and yet the ongoing problems with the picture and sound meant that the film made little sense and was frustrating.

Now I either go to my local independant, for £7 I get a luxury seat, which is allocated, and instead of over priced junk food I can buy a slice of homemade cake and a glass of wine. Or I wait for it to come out on TV.

The fact our local independant sells out weeks in advance and has a waiting list for "membership" shows how sick people are of the big chains. They ony have one screen so you do have to wait for films, and they don't get everything, but on the otherhand they show smaller films that the chains aren't interested in and re-show old films. The fact that their owner recently said to me that they don't need to advertise because they operate at full capacity most of the time is testament to what a good job they are doing.

Incidentally they have also won awards for the sympathetic restoration of a historic building in a world heritage site - excellent business to support.

lucylucky

Katie-Kat-Kins wrote: »

The last time I went to a major chain cinema the quality of the picture and sound was so poor I may as well have been watching a pirate video....... We complained and got a refund (eventually after making a fuss) but to be honest it had ruined a film I was looking forward to (based on my favorite childhood book) seeing it again wouldn't be the same because the impact had gone and yet the ongoing problems with the picture and sound meant that the film made little sense and was frustrating.

Now I either go to my local independant, for £7 I get a luxury seat, which is allocated, and instead of over priced junk food I can buy a slice of homemade cake and a glass of wine. Or I wait for it to come out on TV.

The fact our local independant sells out weeks in advance and has a waiting list for "membership" shows how sick people are of the big chains. They ony have one screen so you do have to wait for films, and they don't get everything, but on the otherhand they show smaller films that the chains aren't interested in and re-show old films. The fact that their owner recently said to me that they don't need to advertise because they operate at full capacity most of the time is testament to what a good job they are doing.

Incidentally they have also won awards for the sympathetic restoration of a historic building in a world heritage site - excellent business to support.

Sounds great and I am pleased that these places still exist.

There used to be two independent cinemas within 10 minutes walk of me, one a listed building which was sold then vandalised by it's new owners and is now a crap restaurant, as is the other!

I still enjoy the cinema experience and try to go at relatively quiet times when I can.

Katie-Kat-Kins

The one I mentioned is a relatively new business so no "still around" about it. It is a family business, and they bought an old building which had decades earlier been a cinema and renovated it and opened it as an independant. It goes to show that there are models that can make a profit out of these old buildings and can also offer an excellent customer experience.

System

I went to see Inception at the printworks with a friend, for the first ten minutes the film was completely silent. My mate turns to me and goes "this is very brave film making" Then a guy from the odeon comes in and tells us that the sounds broke! Great movie though