piracy nonsense
Earlier today I went along to my local cinema (handily placed about 5 minutes walk away) to see the film Syriana. It’s a very good film, with a satisfyingly complex plot. Probably also worth mentioning that, because the film is about the oil industry and Middle Eastern geopolitics, you don’t get a gaggle of teenagers sitting behind you wittering throughout the film. This is a film for grown-ups.
Before the film, they showed the now standard “piracy is bad, don’t do it” advert. First they present some striking scenes from a forthcoming movie, then show how they might appear on a pirate DVD (i.e. muddy incomplete picture, interference, etc). At one point they say the pirate DVD may even include the shadowed form of people getting up to go to the toilet halfway through the film. This is accompanied by a silhouetted figure superimposed over the representative pirate film doing just that. For this reason, they say, pirate DVDs simply cannot compare to the cinema experience.
Except that the problem of people standing up and obscuring your view is common to both the cinema and pirate DVDs. On account of the pirated film having been recorded in a cinema in the first place. Do they not think these warning videos through before broadcasting them?
Mind you, the cinema experience is miles better than any DVD. Pirated or otherwise.
Clare says:
It’s amazing what a difference a cinema makes, isn’t it?
It always makes me sad to see how empty our local cinema is the majority of the time. You frequently get an auditorium to yourself. I like it when loads of people show up and interact with the film, making you feel a part of something. And (sort of) for that reason… I’m actually finding the idea of a pirated DVD complete with people nipping to the loo, and maybe cheering when the bad guy gets it… rather tempting.
Clare spoke at 22:15 UTC on March 23rd, 2006 link
Richard says:
Hi Clare, thanks for dropping by.
It is striking how much difference the cinema makes to some films. I saw the Woody Allen film “Mighty Aphrodite” at a packed cinema in Lancaster once. All the folk there were obviously Woody Allen fans and laughed uproariously at the jokes. I thought the film was great. Then I saw the same film on TV and didn’t seem as good, I barely laughed.
I’ve only seen one pirate DVD. There were no people getting up to go to the loo, but the film (Alien vs Predator, I think it was) had french subtitles on screen. The film was rubbish. I certainly wouldn’t have paid to see it. They’d have to pay me I think…
Richard spoke at 22:22 UTC on March 23rd, 2006 link