Tag: movies

Studios Launch WheretoWatch Service

I don’t know about you, but I have more channels and streaming options for filmed entertainment than I can possibly use.  I don’t do a lot of browsing anymore, which is probably best since in 2013 alone, American consumers legally accessed an estimated 5.7 billion motion picture views and 56 billion TV episode views.  Instead of browsing or channel surfing, I search for specific titles, either because I’m in a mood to see a particular work or because I’m doing some sort of research.  But no matter what I’m seeking, I have often found it cumbersome to check my various viewing options, wanting of course to prioritize subscription streaming services where I have accounts, then VOD options and prices, and finally disk purchase if need be.  For instance, I’m working on two screenplays right now, both of which require viewing some older TV and film material; and searching available, legal options even among the handful of services I currently use, takes a bit of time.  And of course a Google search of various titles often yields results of little or no use.

But as of today, the service I’ve personally been waiting for was launched, and it comes to us from those “stiflers of innovation” known as  the motion picture industry.  Still in its first iteration, WheretoWatch is a multi-platform, web service created by the Motion Picture Association of America where viewers can search by title, director, actors, or writers, and then see on a single screen several of the available options for viewing a particular title. So, if you want to check Netflix, for example, before renting from iTunes, this is a handy way to see your options in one place, including pricing information in case Flixster is cheaper, for instance, than Vudu.  And if a film is still in theaters, WheretoWatch aggregates those listings to the site as well, so you don’t have to do a separate search.

I looked up some fairly old and arcane titles, and the database seems to be pretty robust, especially for version 1.0 of the service.  Although WheretoWatch is backed by the six major studios represented by the MPAA, the titles in the database are not limited to those owned by the majors. Naturally, the industry hopes to promote legal viewing of all filmed entertainment and recognizes that having over 100 options for access is all well and good, but not very efficient without a search tool designed to do what this service does.  WheretoWatch is only available in the US at this time, but there are plans to grow into other markets as well as to continue adding titles and more services to the database.  The service is free, is not monetized by advertising, and users are not required to create profiles.

I’ve said before that Americans in particular have no excuse for piracy, but from a broader perspective, I do think the pundits out there who keep saying things like “piracy is just a reaction to the industry’s failure to innovate” should really stop saying that because it rings a more hollow every day.  In fact, the whole notion that creative artists and technologists are fundamentally at odds and that this overhyped schism should produce a conclusion that says “creators’ rights stifle innovation” sounds especially ridiculous to filmmakers.  At least it should to any filmmakers who know their history.

Cinema began as technological experimentation, which led to new forms of creative expression, which then demanded new technological innovation; and this cycle has been in constant motion ever since Muybridge.  There’s a reason, for instance, that both famous and not so famous cinematographers are also inventors of numerous pieces of equipment that have become standard hardware on shoots all over the world. From one end of the supply chain to the other, filmmakers have always worked hand-in-glove with technology innovators.  And as I have said in other posts, the ability to stream high-quality motion pictures seamlessly to a home theater is less than five years old. So, if all one did was watch every legally available title, one-by-one without a break, years would pass, and one would never actually finish because more would be produced. And that’s even with a service like WheretoWatch expediting the search process.  So, the film industry may not be moving “fast enough” according to the over-caffeinated, roulette-wheel economics that drive Silicon Valley, but it’s moving faster than any of us mortals can actually consume.  So, there’s that.

Lefsetz Says Losing Value is Progress

From time to time, one encounters an editorial that so deftly weaves the offensive with the inaccurate that it leaves the reader stammering.  I suppose this was the goal of the latest OpEd from digital futurist Bob Lefsetz, which appeared in Variety last week under the title “Film Biz Can Learn a Few Things From the Music Industry When It Comes to Piracy.”  I quote:

Thank God we’re in the music business. We’ve already been through the transition; we’ve already been pushed back to zero. We’re in an era of rebirth so strong that if you think the music business is in trouble, you’re not in it. Blockbuster acts make more money than ever before. Piracy has been eviscerated, killed by YouTube and legal streaming services, and from here on, it’s only up.

If we strip away the tone of Lefsetz’s article, which conjures a notion of fiddling while Rome burns, and just mine it for its didactic elements, he appears to be asserting this:  that the music industry, after being forced finally to understand the digital age, is now on the leading edge of a financial renaissance, embracing and learning to coexist with technological reality that has transformed consumer demand.  Despite the underlying, economic reality that the music industry is worth about fifty percent of what it was fifteen years ago, Lefsetz could not be more sanguine about its future, and he challenges the film industry to learn quickly from music’s example in order to spare itself some pain.

Central to Lefsetz’s ebullience is the continued well being of what he calls the superstars.  He offers the following:

Superstar talent may make less money off recordings than in the past, but the live business far exceeds the money it once made. And then there’s sponsorships/endorsements and privates and sync and so many avenues of remuneration that no one who is a superstar is bitching.

Never mind that what Leftsetz is saying here just ain’t true or even mathematically possible, the elitism inherent in his proclamation is a direct contradiction of those democratizing promises made by his kindred techno-utopians in the first place.  Because what he’s saying is, “If you’re good, you’ll make money,” but by “good,” he means a blockbuster performer like, say, Lady Gaga.  But what if you’re good like Tom Waits or Rufus Wainwright?  Are these musical geniuses, who do not have screaming hordes of teenage fans or, heaven forbid, endorsements from Doritos, not good enough to make it in the brave new world Lefsetz foresees?  And I like Lady Gaga; I think she’s fun, funny, and talented, but I certainly think we need to keep fostering a more diverse library than artists like her are going to produce.  Unfortunately, in Lefsetz’s future the Gagas make a living (and we’ll get to what kind of living in a moment), while the fledgling Wainwrights remain hobbyists.  Not only is that unfortunate for culture, it’s unfortunate for the subsidiary jobs that won’t be supported by that next Wainwright not going pro.  And for all the exuberance, the data are clear that the disruptive technologies we’re talking about are not replacing those jobs.

As for cinema, we’ll set aside the apples-to-oranges flaw predicated on what I assume to be a void in Lefsetz’s knowledge about filmmaking and just stick to the macro view of the market he’s projecting.  If we apply his same “superstar” rationale to the film business, what we conclude is that the Marvel Comics franchise will be fine — and I have nothing against it — because those kind of films can always sell Happy Meals, but the next Wes Anderson, John Sayles, or Marjane Satrapi can expect to see the Spotification of their earning potential as summarized in a recent tweet by Bette Midler stating that 4.1 million plays on Spotify earned a whopping $114.  If you’re an indie filmmaker, try selling that kind of model to a prospective investor.  See, the part where Bob is just flat out lying about the future is that, if you’re good (i.e. make something people want), you will be presented with a choice between being pirated and earning nothing or streamed legally and earning next to nothing.

Finally, Lefsetz says something so inscrutable toward the end of the article, that I can only conclude he actually hates successful creators.  He says the superstars will still make good money, but of course not as much as techies or bankers.  It’s one of those short, stupid statements that act like a fragmentary grenade in the mind because it’s just some arbitrary opinion presuming to set a value on something people actually still demand in large volume.  An uber-wealthy banker is practically synonymous with criminal  to many people these days, so why not say, “Superstar musicians will never make as much as drug kingpins?”  It makes as much sense.  And which “techies” is Lefsetz talking about?  Because unless they’re saving lives, who decided their contributions are worth so damn much?  Okay, the market did, but only sorta.  I mean Zuckerberg is a billionaire, but that’s valuation based on speculation by investors, which more or less sums up the economic roulette game that is Silicon Valley.  Is Lefsetz really saying that Zuck’s real-dollar value is greater than, I don’t know, Bono’s in a consumer-based market?  Let Facebook charge for accounts, and we’ll find out.  No, what Bob is saying is that Bono is a big enough star to comfortably survive the devaluation of music caused by technology, and then he’s arrogantly suggesting that what we’re seeing is a rational market.  The part he’s leaving out is the next Bono you’ve never heard of, and quite possibly never will.

I think the film biz can learn one thing from the music industry with regard to piracy:  kill it as soon as possible.

What I’d tell my own kids about piracy. Why scarcity is a good thing.

Photo by Gaia Moments
Photo by Gaia Moments

The ongoing debate over copyright in the digital age is clouded by so many layers of new-age malarkey and overblown, political banner-waving that it’s easy to lose sight of the behavioral realities behind all the self-serving theories of bloggers, legal scholars, corporate interests, and futurists. Take a very common activity like watching movies online via torrents or other sites that enable free viewing (aka piracy).  My kids’ generation, growing up around this behavior as a norm, will hear words to describe this kind of movie viewing as contrarily theft or sharing.  What are they to make of it?  Certainly, I’ve taught them to share and not to steal.  For the sake of their cultural and psychological growth, however, I’d suggest for the purposes of discussion, that this kind of media overconsumption is, if nothing else, dumb.

For context, we need to admit that the majority of unlicensed, online movie viewing is done by young, middle-class, generally privileged Americans, who are watching mainstream, Hollywood-produced fare. Search for top movies viewed through torrent sites, for example, and you’ll find that the lists will comprise tentpole films produced by the big studios who represent the part of the industry most vilified for efforts to mitigate piracy. If that hypocrisy is not enough to raise your brows, though, the very nature of these films is then used as a justification for the pirate-enabled viewing in itself. We typically hear some combination of the following:  “So much of the mainstream stuff is junk that it doesn’t deserve to be paid for.  These films already make millions. I would never pay to see it anyway, so it’s not like they’re losing a sale.”  If my own kids presented me with these rationales, we’d have a serious talk because this is corrupt thinking no matter what the law, the technologists, or the economic theories say.

Consolidate these oft-repeated positions into the declarative, first person, and the stupid shines through a little clearer:  “I’m going to spend hours of my life watching movies I probably won’t like, but because I expect not to like them, I’m not going to pay for them.”  And as a kicker, “I am going to help put money in the pockets of the people who stole the movies in the first place.”  Bloggers like Mike Masnick will try to argue the new and bizarre economics of free media; and scholars like Mr. Lessig will argue that there is something intellectually or culturally constraining about “permission culture.” Then, these purely academic theories trickle down to the ears of my kids and their contemporaries, who translate it all into the aforementioned rationale. But as a parent living in the real world, what I’ve just heard my kids say is that they’re shoplifting cartons of potato chips at the corner store, which doesn’t matter because chips aren’t real food anyway.  Hence, my kids now have both a moral and a health problem.

With regard to movies (or any creative media) the first thing I’d tell my own children is that their lives are not at all enriched by watching scores of films they probably won’t like. To the contrary, when they make time for media consumption, they should develop a critical sense for what kind films might be worth the investment of their time and attention. What matters is not the fifty films they’ll forget within hours of viewing, but the five this year that will change their lives in some way. It doesn’t matter that the sale for the producers of the tentpole is zero whether my kid watches it through a torrent or doesn’t see it at all; what matters is making the decision that if it isn’t worth paying for, it probably isn’t worth the equally valuable resources of time and attention. In short, it’s not only okay to let some things go, you don’t really have a choice.

It is a valuable component of cultural experience for the individual to pay attention to what kind of art or media affects him and to seek out that which fulfills these emotional connections.  Nobody can watch, read, listen to, or experience everything; so there is not only nothing wrong with scarcity, it is an absolute necessity for an individual’s cultural development. Those who promote the idea of abundance as some sort of digital-age renaissance are not really contributing to a more enlightened, more cultured generation so much as they’re breeding a new crop of agitated media junkies. Remove for a moment the questions of legality or creators’ rights, and we’re still living in an era of media obesity and don’t yet know what this means for the future of culture in general.

Many of the filmmakers whose works have touched my life and the lives of my contemporaries were dead before the Internet was even built.  We somehow managed to experience their films without this technology and without in any way contributing to IP theft. Through pre-Internet experiences, I have seen motion pictures that I doubt my own children will ever know existed; and still, in over thirty years of loving this medium, I know that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of films that I will not see in my lifetime. This is true for my children as well, despite the overblown promise of technology to put “the world at their fingertips.” So, what I’ll tell my kids is simply this:  “You can’t consume it all, you shouldn’t try, and whatever is worth your time is also worth your money.”