"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Where's that??

The Bridgewater in Arklow.

[horseflesh]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

The Bridgewater in Arklow.

Ah......sorry, I was getting you mixed up with micks_address who lives not too far from me.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Unions are hardly the problem, inflation, shrinking theatrical windows, overblown budgets and too much spent on marketing are a lot of the problem.

Indeed.

When my train pulled in and a car (the double decker type) was completely covered with an ad for Terminator Salvation, I wonder if Warner really got any value from that extravagance?

Well, at least they didn't completely plaster the nearby subway station with huge decals on the floor, and on every wall, the turnstiles, the stairs, the pylons in on the platform and all the ad boxes across from platform, like they did for The Dark Knight.

"Gee honey, look a new Batman movie is coming out"

Gary

[PeterTHX]

Yes, it's part of the problem the way companies choose what we see and all, but the public at large is generally apathetic to something new and different. It's a Catch-22 situation.
Arrested Development is a great example. One of the funniest, clever shows of all time and people just couldn't understand it or care less. That Fox gave it 2 1/2 seasons is a miracle.

[Kris Deering]

I hope the Sony 4K projectors look better than the presentation I saw with Up a week ago. It was on a Sony 4K and convergence was horrible and the image was quite soft. Not nearly as good looking as the 2K DLP D-Cinema presentations I see at the local theater.

[Jeff Kleist]

Yes, it's part of the problem the way companies choose what we see and all, but the public at large is generally apathetic to something new and different. It's a Catch-22 situation.
Arrested Development is a great example. One of the funniest, clever shows of all time and people just couldn't understand it or care less. That Fox gave it 2 1/2 seasons is a miracle.

I think the much greater problem is a lack of knowlege of how to sell something new and different that isn't written on the level of your average third grader.

It got 2.5 seasons cause Ron Howard and Henry Winkler have a lot of power I think there's a lot of power in the future for narrow-demo targeting and marketing. I personally still can't understand how Curb your Enthusiasm/Larry Sanders keeps/kept getting renewed, it bores the crap out of me. Obviously enough powerful people thought they were funny and there was an audience for it.

Another part of TV is that everyone should have a Nielsen box. Nielsen intentionally skips covering huge swaths of people that watch the more eclectic shows, especially discriminating against single males. The cable company already knows what you watch (not you you, but how many people in total), it's time that those figures should be used for marketing and commericial selling purposes. A friend of mine at Comcast has mentioned many times that their internal numbers simply don't jive with Nielsen on shows like Dollhouse or Terminator (which BTW due to the mediocre box office appears totally terminated, unless by some miracle we get a DTV movie to wrap up the story). Just doing cable and satellite will mean that 85% of america is being counted, and that's enough to get a real idea of how many people are watching.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Another part of TV is that everyone should have a Nielsen box.

I've been saying this for years!

Screw "big brother", I want "big Nielsen"!

~Alan<~~~~~~Who was being serious...

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

You're absolutely right Bobby, that is the cultural problem behind a lot of the woes in the country today, not just the movie industry. Too much concentration on worshipping the inherently sociopathic entity that is the corporation, who insists it has to consume more every quarter, than on sending them to the corner when they're bad so they grow up to be a better person Newspapers aren't really dead, it's the corporate structure that took what used to be a good family business with a solid interms of dollars profit margin and applied the economics of manufacturing to it. All of asudden 5% wasn't healthy, it was a fireable offense which has lead to the dilution of content to boost profit. The same happened in the music industry, and now it's happening in movies.

Personally I think Hollywood would do well to require a lot more high level people like Penton to compete with the MBAs, at least a 1-1 ratio. What killed the music industry on the buis side is that too many people who only saw numbers got too much control over content, and I'd hate to see that happen again. In Japan's music buis they have a very different musical structure, and for the most part those directly involved with the talent are much more in control than the label, which while they still have issues with cranking out boy bands/pop idols seems to have lead to greater musical creative freedom for established artists to try crazy stuff. Hollywood used to be like that, but as Penton linked, hardcore powerful and creative agents are in short supply these days who can push projects like that through

Most people that I have met in my career that wear their MBA degree like a badge of honor are idiots. They don't know how the "real" world works and they end up killing most of the businesses they become involved with. Small business is what used to make this country run and most are successful because they have the most uncommon ability--common sense.

Penton, do you find the same thing in Hollywood?

[Jeff Kleist]

I wouldn't say that all the MBAs are bad in Hollywood. The problem is that they went where they got a job rather than where they had experience, and very few are willing to put in the time and effort to learn and defer to their "elders".

Too many times decisions are made based on faulty focus grouping designed from the get-go to produce a desired result, and that's true in any large corporation. They know what they know and they'll make sure they can prove it.

Any successful business needs a balance of creative and book minded people, because usually each makes the worst kind of the other Too many creative people run their business into the ground because they don't have control of that end of it, and too many business people strangle creative people. Striking that balance, and having equal voices in my experience is why makes the best sense, along with a handful of people with a decent sense of both sides who can bridge the gap.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Agreed, excellent post Bobby.

Oh yes, a good post. Surely with all the knowledge of what is wrong
and apparent talent, it seems to me you all should pool your finances
and start your own studio. Maybe about a $100 million would do for
a start. Shouldn't be much of a problem since I'm sure some of you
with your vast knowledge of what is wrong and how to correct it
you've made a fortune and have no qualms about risking your own
money. Of course after you lose a few million, I'd have a bean counter
standing at the ready to bail you out.

You might want to use Weinstein as a model. That will teach those
diversified big bad corporations a lesson, and they would have the
keyboard time to assist.

[BluDomain]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

...Any successful business needs a balance of creative and book minded people, because usually each makes the worst kind of the other Too many creative people run their business into the ground because they don't have control of that end of it, and too many business people strangle creative people. Striking that balance, and having equal voices in my experience is why makes the best sense, along with a handful of people with a decent sense of both sides who can bridge the gap.

Now that is a good post.

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

That Fox gave it 2 1/2 seasons is a miracle....

Yeah, my minor crusade to champion that show didn't go so well... but we got more than we thought...

Speaking of:

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/06/...a-returns.html


weeee!

[Josh]

Alright Penton, I'm going to do it! I'm going to make a title request!

This fall marks the 30th anniversary of one of the best albums of all time: Pink Floyd's The Wall. For the love of all that is holy, can we get a Blu-ray release of the film 'Pink Floyd's: The Wall'??? The DVD has an awesome 2.0 PCM track, but I want, nay, need a DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack mastered in the highest bitrate possible along with a spectacular 1080p AVC video presentation.

So please, Penton, I beg of you. Make it so!

[Jeff Kleist]

Pretty sure you need a direct line to the Floyd to make that happen They control their own material

We all know that Real Genius, with tons of extras this time (including the deleted scenes!) and non-eye searing cover art is the #1 priority over at Sony anyway

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Has Sony improved their projector a great deal?

See………..
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news...ors_10083.html

It will take time to get all the pieces in place but, what is encouraging is at least there is a movement to go forward to make theatrical presentations more comparable to the effective resolution of the original camera negative (or whatever the picture was shot on, i.e. reversal stock) or high resolution digital acquisition devices. Other challenges are 4k rendering in real time and storage, once the costs of those pieces of the puzzle decrease, you’re going to see a lot more 4k content.

It’s really a moot point anyway for home theater enthusiasts who rarely go out to watch a theatrical presentation at their local Cineplex as to whether or not 4k SXRD projectors are improved or will continue to be improved as time goes on.

What’s more important is how their presence and use by theater owners will serve as a catalyst to fill in another gap in the 4k digital pipeline making it more seamless and how that 4k pipeline will translate into even better looking Blu-rays in the future.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Pretty sure you need a direct line to the Floyd to make that happen They control their own material

Are you suggesting that the all powerful Penton can't divert the Waters - so to speak - to make such a miracle happen? Have faith!

Praise be to Penton!

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

You know, the funny thing with all this is Hollywood is still mostly using 2K for CGI and digital intermediate work. 4K use is still very rare.

Agreed, rare indeed, and we’re working on the situation (now that Technicolor has freed up some space on the lot), ask the vendors…………..
http://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/news_eve.../20090420_sony
http://www.dft-film.com/news/press_r...s/20_04_09.php

But you don’t need to be a major studio in Hollywood to make it happen, if the desire is there, i.e.…………
Poland –
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0879843/

The Czech Republic-
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1224376/

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

I hope the Sony 4K projectors look better than the presentation I saw with Up a week ago. It was on a Sony 4K and convergence was horrible and the image was quite soft. Not nearly as good looking as the 2K DLP D-Cinema presentations I see at the local theater.

Sounds like something is wrong somewhere.
Read this…………
http://www.austin360.com/blogs/conte...perhighte.html

Pay particular attention to the phrase “Andrew and I were whisked into a screening room which had two projectors running simultaneously, one a top of the line 2K projector, professionally tuned by a third party installer, and the other a Sony 4K digital machine.”

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

Penton, do many of the Hollywood uber-bigshots care about cinema, or is it just a relentless race to be the year's #1 studio, have the most $200m hits, have the biggest opening weekend, etc; ??

I think most executives at the level you’re speaking of were drawn to the business to begin with because of their love of cinema, just like most physicians are drawn to their profession out of an inherent motivation to help people overcome illness or injury.

However, it’s not called the motion picture business for nuthin, and like any business, what is of paramount importance to most working individuals is their job security which is based upon their performance. The performance criteria at that level is closely tied to the almighty dollar.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

Hey P-Man,

Cold Souls is playing at the Nantucket Film Festival, have you heard anything about this movie? I like Giamatti's other work and was curious as to what the buzz was with this picture.

TIA.

I don’t know much about it as it was graded in New York. and the motion picture was an indie with no distribution deal in place.
Apparently, it got good reviews at Sundance.