Third Window Films Discussion Thread

[Vakulinchuk]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

When a title like Tokyo Fist or Bullet Ballet, of which a lot of time and money was spent on remastering from original negatives to create a release which is available for the first time ever on bluray, sells only 200 copies each in the UK on blu-ray after 1 year of release

I think everyone who actively posts in this thread and follows your company will instantly feel that he/she has found the perfect holiday/birthday gifts for their movie buddies. I know I will.

[Mansinthe]

Tokyo Fist is currently at 11.66 GBP at amazon.co.uk
For Loves Sake is at 7.99 GBP
Afew are around 10-11 GBP and a bunch of DVDs is at 3.99-6.99 GBP

I was considering getting spare copies of these Tsukamoto Blurays anyway once they hit a nice price again.
Maybe we will have another sale trough the Thirdwindow shop?
(i used to make group buys for people in germany.)


Adam does always post news about Terracotta disb. in his newsletter. They got some nice movies as well!

http://terracotta.tictail.com/

[Ste7en]

Big Tits Zombie 3D WTF!

Never heard of them, Terracotta, but roll on pay day!

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by Ste7en

Big Tits Zombie 3D WTF!

yeah its a nice movie if you are into that kind of japanese crazieness... i did enjoy it ! but its not real 3D ;D

but it has Aoi Sora in the main cast. reason enough to watch the movie

[samdvd1]

Originally Posted by Ste7en

Big Tits Zombie 3D WTF!

Never heard of them, Terracotta, but roll on pay day!

They've released some pretty tolerable prints of some kung fu movies recently (DVD only). Usually these kung fu movies look like crap.

[Skog]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

Do you know how much a steelbook costs to produce at low run numbers for small companies who don't place regular big orders? It's like £6 per unit if doing 1000 run. That's over 6 times the cost of a normal bluray release plus all the regular costs of a bluray release such as paying AACS and sony mastering costs (the charges are actually per layer so it costs double for a bd50 and that's not cheap at all)

So a normal bluray release costs around £1? ...Jesus Christ.

[nitin]

I imagine he is talking strictly about disc duplication costs.

[tenia]

Something like this yes. Because then, you need to take into account everything one pay to have video rights.

I wouldnt be surprised if TWF's benefits per sale is usually around £1.20 which is why a £1 disc instead of a £0.5 one makes a huge difference.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by Skog

So a normal bluray release costs around £1? ...Jesus Christ.

just the physical disc in a box, yes. while steelbook run of 1000 would be around £6 for just the disc in the box. These prices also depend on bluray layers

of course, doing large runs of titles significantly brings prices down, which is why studios can sell blurays at £5 retail and do well as they may do initial prints of tens of thousands and therefore pay only a small fraction of what we do per disc

then on top of just the physical printing costs you have to pay an American company called AACS a fee per layer of mastering, which comes to £380 per layer (plus a yearly fee to them) and then of course you have all the authoring fees to make the original master to be replicated from. And of course on top of all that are the fees for the rights to the film and then as we are a small company our sales agent, who get our stock in stores and manage it, take a percentage of sales

And it's a lot harder now ever since Amazon took over the absolute majority of sales in the UK as they dictate to us and we have rarely much say over anything. In fact they make more money per purchase than us most of the time, and that's of course not including any of the above necessary costs of release...

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by Ste7en

Big Tits Zombie 3D WTF!

Never heard of them, Terracotta, but roll on pay day!

They're a good label, about our size or maybe in terms of staff/operations probably larger, though don't release bluray. Run and staffed by really wonderful people though and they run the terracotta film festival every year in the summer in London

Unfortunately though, their sales have been poor of late and they are planning to focus more on non-Asian titles, so looks like the small number of asian film distributors in the UK will be less and less

[samdvd1]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

Unfortunately though, their sales have been poor of late and they are planning to focus more on non-Asian titles, so looks like the small number of asian film distributors in the UK will be less and less

Well that sucks. I hope they can continue their new Kung Fu Classics range though.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by Ste7en

Wow, since going BD I've hardly bought any DVDs. I bought The Devils and a few Shameless Screen Entertainment DVDs but that is all.

About the same as VHS cassettes when I went to LD.

Once I adopt a new format I'm almost always exclusive to that format, until the next one comes along...

while I appreciate that BD is the best quality to watch a film at home and that this is a bluray forum, we can't lose perspective in the fact that the blu-ray market of feature films makes up a minuscule portion of what is out there, so it's essentially just disregarding all films that don't make it onto blu-ray, which are pretty much all non-major films as companies who release non-major films cannot usually afford to put films out on bluray.

Maybe it's because I live in Japan where most cinemas still have 35mm projectors and therefore we can see many films which never made it to digital (unlike the UK which has rubbished nearly all of them) plus where VHS can still be rented in all rental shops as that movie may have never been released any other way, or maybe it's because i'm a lover of old music which unfortunately never made it out of its originally pressed vinyl format, but only following a technical format would make people forget the past and the lifespan of the present would get shorter and shorter (maybe it's way the lifespan of remaking films is now so short, like Spiderman and Superman getting remade in such a short time-frame).
I used to work at a video shop in the States where the owner bought near every single independent and foreign film for 30 years non-stop and never ever threw any thing away, and it was literally one of the only places in the world that so many films could be seen, so i really came to appreciate the value in such things, but we really must remember that how great BD or whatever upcoming format will come out, that this forum is about FILMS on BD, and without FILMS then there won't really be a point for this forum, so I hope we can keep some perspective here, just for the sake of us all loving cinema and wanting to see films we may never not get a chance to see otherwise

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

Unfortunately though, their sales have been poor of late and they are planning to focus more on non-Asian titles, so looks like the small number of asian film distributors in the UK will be less and less

to bad. they have some really good movies. and always great prices !

In Singapore i didnt see a single shop that sold Blurays or DVDs. But they had alot of Cinemas (4k , Dolby Atmos , IMAX) and places to rent Blurays.
Pretty sure most people do stream their movies there or go to the cinema.

My GF retured recently from Indonesia (visiting her parents) and brought home a few HD-DVDs of new movies (some kind of dual format with DVD)
And a Chinese TV show on VCD
Japan is probably kind of unique in terms of movie watching and collecting.

DVD is still a good format, but its a bit sad that with all the Big companys behind bluray they couldnt drop the Fees so far that there would be no need for DVD.

[Le Grande Blu]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

while I appreciate that BD is the best quality to watch a film at home and that this is a bluray forum, we can't lose perspective in the fact that the blu-ray market of feature films makes up a minuscule portion of what is out there, so it's essentially just disregarding all films that don't make it onto blu-ray, which are pretty much all non-major films as companies who release non-major films cannot usually afford to put films out on bluray.

Maybe it's because I live in Japan where most cinemas still have 35mm projectors and therefore we can see many films which never made it to digital (unlike the UK which has rubbished nearly all of them) plus where VHS can still be rented in all rental shops as that movie may have never been released any other way, or maybe it's because i'm a lover of old music which unfortunately never made it out of its originally pressed vinyl format, but only following a technical format would make people forget the past and the lifespan of the present would get shorter and shorter (maybe it's way the lifespan of remaking films is now so short, like Spiderman and Superman getting remade in such a short time-frame).
I used to work at a video shop in the States where the owner bought near every single independent and foreign film for 30 years non-stop and never ever threw any thing away, and it was literally one of the only places in the world that so many films could be seen, so i really came to appreciate the value in such things, but we really must remember that how great BD or whatever upcoming format will come out, that this forum is about FILMS on BD, and without FILMS then there won't really be a point for this forum, so I hope we can keep some perspective here, just for the sake of us all loving cinema and wanting to see films we may never not get a chance to see otherwise

Having just finished watching Greatful Dead, I hope Third Window will be with us for many more years to come. Also, the recent resurgence of vinyl as a format gives me hope that the digital/streaming future so many have predicted has overlooked the fact that a lot of people still want to own a physical copy of their favourite things.

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Blu

Having just finished watching Greatful Dead, I hope Third Window will be with us for many more years to come. Also, the recent resurgence of vinyl as a format gives me hope that the digital/streaming future so many have predicted has overlooked the fact that a lot of people still want to own a physical copy of their favourite things.

Probably because more people are able to afford the hardware. I remember my first Stereo Receiver .. or my first VHS recorder (for the price of that one i could get 4-6 bluray players today)..

The prices my dad paid for 1 VHS tapes was the same as at least 2 blurays today.... (probably more considering how much more value the german mark had back then).

"youth" today isnt used to the value and price hardware and movies had only 15 years ago. Bluray and DVD is so cheap these days that everyone is able to afford it. But as all that gets cheaper people want to spend less money each year.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Small change in the release of HAN GONG-JU:

The director's interview will not be on the disc as problem with getting the edited file in time from the people who made it and would cause problems with release date

but instead the director's 35mm short film ENEMY'S APPLE will be included. It's 21 minutes long and really good, though nothing at all like Han Gong-Ju.
Some information on the film: http://www.indiestory.com/eng/film/f...ch_yn=N&page60

[Ste7en]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

Probably because more people are able to afford the hardware. I remember my first Stereo Receiver .. or my first VHS recorder (for the price of that one i could get 4-6 bluray players today)..

The prices my dad paid for 1 VHS tapes was the same as at least 2 blurays today.... (probably more considering how much more value the german mark had back then).

"youth" today isnt used to the value and price hardware and movies had only 15 years ago. Bluray and DVD is so cheap these days that everyone is able to afford it. But as all that gets cheaper people want to spend less money each year.

I remember when you would get a 180 minute blank VHS cassette for Christmas. They were 15 quid each. You would tape a movie and watch it to death before taping over it. My first recording was Convoy

Hell, I used to collect LDs so BDs still seem cheap to me.

[Ghostdini]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

Small change in the release of HAN GONG-JU:

The director's interview will not be on the disc as problem with getting the edited file in time from the people who made it and would cause problems with release date

but instead the director's 35mm short film ENEMY'S APPLE will be included. It's 21 minutes long and really good, though nothing at all like Han Gong-Ju.
Some information on the film: http://www.indiestory.com/eng/film/f...ch_yn=N&page60

I'd say this was a better option overall. So many of the short films from the new wave of filmmakers go unseen outside of festivals, so this is a great addition. Top work, Adam.

Now, how about a release of Friend 2? Hah. Or do CJ want ridiculous money for it?

[Ghostdini]

I'd say this was a better option overall. So many of the short films from the new wave of filmmakers go unseen outside of festivals, so this is a great addition. Top work, Adam.

Now, how about a release of Friend 2? Hah. Or do CJ want ridiculous money for it?

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by Ghostdini

I'd say this was a better option overall. So many of the short films from the new wave of filmmakers go unseen outside of festivals, so this is a great addition. Top work, Adam.

Now, how about a release of Friend 2? Hah. Or do CJ want ridiculous money for it?

it's a great short too!

Yeah not much use for us on Friend 2. We just can't afford to do such things as it's a large fee for something which won't go into cinemas, won't make it into supermarkets, won't sell to TV, Netflix, etc and I can't imagine it shifting more than 1,000 or so blurays over its lifetime so there's just no way...