FrightFest

Sometimes I don't think distributors help themselves though.. With DVD when region coding became easy to bypass peole started looking for the better releases, importing etc for extras and better transfers or to beat release windows which started to vanish when publishers realised that region coding could be affecting sales.

Now we have bluray and fox is the biggest culprit for using region coding again to put those release windows back in place. Marmaduke hits cinemas here but already had it's theatrical us release and as it hits cinemas here gets released for homes in the us. whip It was out on home release for weeks when it hit cinemas here... Machete is another where we have a big release window.

Release windows will also affect peoples decisions to download things because if its online, they'll see it and they'll get it!

I think society is getting very blatant with it though and it shows especially with a Serbian film. I know I'm guilty of downloading things. Downloaded both REC films but now they're both on the way on bluray

La Horde is getting released here at 90 something minutes while France and Germany get the 110 min cut which is only talking but people might go online to get the longer version or even a hi def version since it's not being released here on bluray.

There's no excuse for downloading and my bluray 'habit' always leaves me penniless at the end of the month.

I think people blaming distributors for their own criminal activity (i.e. illegally downloading films) is an easy excuse, as is ignorance and lack of knowledge about how the film industry works (i.e. asking your local cinema manager if a film is likely to be shown there - as if they have as much knowledge on the film industry as someone say, working in distribution - it's not right, you DO have a choice and you certainly should have more sense than to brag about on a public forum.

Please lets leave it at that. This thread has strayed somewhat from the original post about Adam Greens (rightful) outrage at people stealing his film and having the audacity to come up to him and tell him so.

This is such a good thread, really, really interesting. Good to hear everyone’s views and arguments on downloading.

I’m completely torn, not in regards to film, my collection is ridiculously big, I like having a hard copy and not watching things on my laptop.

BUT reading through I’ve been questioning my other activities. I used to download all my music, I go to at least 4 festivals a year and gigs on top of that, I love music I just don’t have the money to buy albums that’s how I justified it. It was wrong and I know that.
Thank god for spotify. Since then everyone has (near) unlimited access to virtually everything and no moral quandaries. I’ll still listen to the national non-stop but have never bought their albums. I have however seen them live 5 times this year.
This is exactly what I was doing 4 years ago but now it’s ok to do it.

Television on the other hand.
True Blood, Mad Men, The Wire, plus countless others.
Every week without fail I stream the new episodes of True Blood and Mad Men when I get in from work on a Monday. I have every series on DVD and will buy them when they are released, and can’t take the however long it will be until they are broadcast over here. I will be setting my Sky+ to record for each so I have a copy and can re-watch if it’s a while before the DVD release though.

In this instance I feel it wont be long at all until all studios follow the 4od model. It’s ok to stream any programme that Channel 4, or the BBC, have ever made through this service, as well as South Park on their official site, but not others. I’ve got a lot of channel 4’s comedy on DVD, Garth Marenghi for instance, but a couple of times this month I’ve streamed it simply so I don’t have to get out of bed.

ah sorry kimblebee, didn't see your post.
back on topic, I agree with everything Adam Green said.

But next you'll say importing blurays/DVDs is wrong because the uk distributors won't get my money because I've bought it from another distributor...

Sony would certainly like the practice of importing stopped... Liksang anyone?

ed. wrote:This is such a good thread, really, really interesting. Good to hear everyone’s views and arguments on downloading.

I’m completely torn, not in regards to film, my collection is ridiculously big, I like having a hard copy and not watching things on my laptop.

I think I'm nearing the five hundred bluray mark.... Urk... Almost caught up to my DVD collection half of which I sold off... Doh

I'll be making the change soon, Blockbuster have been doing some ridiculous deals recently, so cheap to make a good start on the collection. Everytime I go in there it's 3 for £20 on about 10 I really want.

Talking of imports, I've never seen it as being damaging for UK distributers before, it makes an interesting argument.
I remember buying Rules of Attraction on DVD off ebay before it was even released in the cinema over here.

and if importing is a grey area, if you go on holiday to the states or wherever should you refrain from buying films that haven't been released? This is literally me thinking out loud. I've given money to friends heading across the pond a couple of times to pick up things like the Venture Bros and other television box sets that are long way off being released over here.
Series 2 of Twin Peaks! if I'd have waited for that I would have gone insane.

A few years back this happened http://www.lik-sang.com/ it was mainly due to the games industry and importing but it related to movies also... I suppose fox and universal the Money will always get to them somehow...

But la horde has distro here, Germany and France but all different, France and Germany are reeling blurays uncut but uk is reeling a 90 minute DVD only version.

I've checked the blurays don't have English subs... Altnatively constantin films in germany have released some awesome bluray steel books... Resident evil trilogy, fanatic four box set, rambo 4, zombieland....

I don't think importing (for private use) is in any way comparable with downloading films. Regardless of which distributor produced the version of the disc you have bought, someone has been paid for releasing that film. However, if you import 200 copies and then sell them in the UK, you're being an arse because you're taking sales away from the people who have paid to sell it in that country.

Downloading is a different matter entirely, and I can totally understand Adam and Rawshark's fury at people trying to justify it. The saddest thing about the Serbian situation is that people are using censorship to justify theft, but unfortunately in this day and age, it is so easy to do, that people take it lightly. As a kid, I collected all the grimy video nasties on 10th generation vhs copies, but you had to go to pretty extreme lengths to get hold of them, so it was only the complete geeks like me who'd spend the time doing it. These days, people hear about Serbian being "sickest film ever" (since the last one) and immediately download it.

Personally, the only films I've ever downloaded have been things from the sixties and seventies that are totally out of distribution and in the public domain - i.e. essentially unavailable. I can totally understand why people do download (the "it's only me, what difference does it make" is my favourite excuse), but I just don't feel comfortable with it at all. Particularly when we all have to look these film makers in the eye at events like FF.

Also slightly off topic, but relevant (I think!) in this discussion with particular regard to Serbian - it just goes to show how pointless censorship is in this day and age. If Westminster hadn't made the demands on Serbian they did, it might have ruffled a few feathers here and there but it would have largely passed unnoticed by mainstream audiences. As it is, they have drawn attention to it by insisting on the cuts and just like the video nasties before it, you might as well have stuck a flashing light on it saying "look at me". Now every Tom, Dick and Harry has seen it (albeit illegally). The girls in my office who think I am a freak for going to Frightfest have all watched it. How f***ed up is that? The censors may think they have protected the masses whereas instead they have trumpeted its existence to them and made them want it more.

I've not watched it... I'm a good boy I am, plus I promised mike I'd buy it in passing at frightfest, I'm a puppy that keeps his word!!

Pumpkin wrote:Now every Tom, Dick and Harry has seen it (albeit illegally). The girls in my office who think I am a freak for going to Frightfest have all watched it. How f***ed up is that? The censors may think they have protected the masses whereas instead they have trumpeted its existence to them and made them want it more.

I got a text on the sunday from my 16 year old brother saying 'you're going to love a serbian film, it's mental'
still, good on westminster council for protecting our tiny fragile minds

back in the day i imported alot of r1 dvds as they were often pretty cheap and there was more selection and extras were often much better, there was also bigger gaps in release dates. these have all seemed to closed up now and i havent imported a r1 for a few years unless its something unavailable and unlikely to get a uk relase.

as regards actual piracy its not right we all hopefully accept that. especially indie or smaller budget films that need the lifeblood of people paying to see them.

however if a release is particularly obscure and/or out of print and the only way to get it is to pay well over the odds on ebay (or similar) or download it i thinks its an obvious choice. i appreciate that if fans put pressure on studios/distributors/whoever to re-release these flicks on dvd /bluray rather than download this would still profit everyone but to be honest its either never going to happen or take a long time

I'm only using Serbian as the most recent high profile example, but the same hold true for so many other indy releases. 7 Days, Dogtooth, REC 2 and Paranormal Activity were all being openly discussed on other forums I frequent before I'd even seen them on the Festival circuit (REC 2 being the worst offender - I came back from Glasgow ready to tell everyone what I thought of it, only to find 5 or 6 reviews posted the night before it screened). If you download, you're not just fucking the makers and distributors, you're also fucking over the likes of FrightFest. Who is going to pay for a festival ticket when they've downloaded all the films already? Granted, people will have seen screeners or test screenings for the odd film (as I was lucky enough to have done with a couple of films this year), and the likes of Mike may have seen many more, but these people are in the minority and would attend regardless. For the floating fan, who on Earth is going to buy a ticket to a line up that they've seen most of?

The worst comment I heard at FF this year was actually from a weekend pass holder, who was explaining to a friend that he'd downloaded two films before coming, so that he could pop out during them and see the sights. Seriously, wtf?!

:?

Pumpkin wrote:Now every Tom, Dick and Harry has seen it (albeit illegally). The girls in my office who think I am a freak for going to Frightfest have all watched it. How f***ed up is that? The censors may think they have protected the masses whereas instead they have trumpeted its existence to them and made them want it more.

very similar thing happened to me a few weeks ago, i go to lunch with a group of folks and we often talk movies, i am know to be a horro fan and i mentioned i was going to frightfest, i was asked about it to bemused looks and when i had explained ("what your going to sit in the cinema ALL DAY?!?!?!") they asked what films would be shown i reeled off a list and one of the girls started asking about serbian film wanting to know what it was. i told her it was going to be pretty challenging and most likely controversial, she said "what like saw?!?" i said no much worse, most people couldnt imagine anything worse, but they wanted to know more. i was uncomfortable going into details so left it at that. next day said girl had googled seen the various "outrage" and read a plot outline." you wont be watchin it i assume then" i said to which she replied, "i am going to download it to see what its about"

so a very niche genre film has courted so much coverage that even non horror fans who think saw is the ultimate in depravity have heard about it are illegally downloading it just so they can say how terrible it is. where as if it had been given a release at least paying genre fans would have seen it and put money in the film makers pockets