WOSU – 3/22/2010
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wosu/news.newsmain?action=section&SECTION_ID=4
I love movies. Now that the award shows are over and the blockbusters have been released to the dollar theatre I can go and catch the ones I missed on the first run. One thing I’ll miss out on at the dollar theatre is the 3D version of the movies.
Seeing Steve Martin host the Oscars after so much talk surrounding the new 3D glasses technology made my wife and I chuckle. In his movie The Jerk, Steve Martin’s character creates “the Opti-Grab eyeglass clamp” which was all the rage until Carl Reiner, playing himself, went cross-eyed wearing them. Ok, so I’m not actually afraid that the new 3D glasses will make me cross-eyed but the new technology doesn’t have me running out to the theatre either.
Last year I watched a hundred or two full length films and tons of short films. Sadly, I can count on one hand how many of those I went to see during their first run. Much to Hollywood’s disappointment – I’m sure – I didn’t choose to stay home because my movies weren’t in 3D. I stayed home because of the ridiculous expense.
For my wife and I to see a first run movie tickets are $9 or, if it is in the new 3D format the cost goes up to $14 for tickets, add another $14 for refreshments; wait, $14 for popcorn and two drinks? According to a 2008 report by ABC news that’s a 1300% mark-up; talk about making me cross-eyed! In all that’s $40+ without including the dinner half of the “dinner and a movie” date.
So for the film industry to attempt to draw people like me back to the theatres by increasing my costs just doesn’t make sense. To bad Hollywood is counting on the higher cost 3D movies to save the movie house.
It’s clear that movie theatre’s are struggling, not just from the economy but because media is changing. Most of the movies I watch I download from Netflix. All of those short films I watched, you can chalk those up to websites like Vimeo where artists are making their content available for free as a way of building their audience.
And for me that’s the thing; it doesn’t take a lot of expensive technology and gimmicks to tell a good story. In fact those things often cause the focus to shift away from good storytelling. Those artists who are making incredible films and essentially giving them away online are able to do so because they use technology as a way of making production and distribution cheaper.
Many of them wouldn’t even be making films if it wasn’t for cheap technology.
So I hope the next technological revolution in film isn’t the Opti-Grab for 3D eyeglasses but a real look into using the technology we already have to lower costs for film makers, theatre owners and ultimately me, the hopeful theatre goer.