Sometimes, when you experience shabby service, you just have to call it out. And as someone who loves to see films in a cinema, that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But first some backstory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The global pandemic has hastened something that had already been happening prior to the start of 2020 \u2013 a complete upsetting of how films are distributed and presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the US, companies like Warner Bros used Covid as an opportunity to promote their own streaming platform, HBO Max, but releasing their entire 2021 slate simultaneously on their streaming platform, \u2018day and date\u2019 with their movies\u2019 theatrical releases. Some directors like Dune<\/em>\u2019s Denis Villeneuve were unhappy, but Warners just paid out since despite the cost, Wall St and shareholders are looking towards building streaming service subscribers ahead of regular studio profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile at Disney, they\u2019ve been busily moving many of their Pixar films out of cinemas and straight to streaming on Disney+, while other releases both from Disney and 20th<\/sup> Century are finding their way onto the platform after very short theatrical windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While HBO Max hasn\u2019t launched in the UK \u2013 yet \u2013 we have seen changes here with films from big studios ending up being \u2018Home Premieres\u2019 very quickly after their cinema releases, with \u00a315.99 being the rental price that many have fallen on. [An aside: This makes sense for family viewing, but as I\u2019ve written before, prices me out as an individual. I\u2019ll wait for either it to show up on another platform or buy the Blu Ray.]\n\n\n\n And around the edges, anything that doesn\u2019t have built-in IP \u2013 in other words, anything that is not already a known franchise \u2013 is finding it more likely that they\u2019ll be sold to Netflix, Apple or Amazon. Some titles are getting limited theatrical releases of a few days or a couple of weeks, in the main to assuage prestige directors that their projects will get some kind of big-screen release. But unless you live near a big city, you\u2019re only going to be able to see them on a streaming platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Elsewhere, we\u2019ve seen Comcast\u2019s Sky battle to shore up its film offering. When Sky started, it was built on sports and movies. The gloss of the movie side of things has come off as where once you could pretty much be sure to see everything on Sky, many films are redirected elsewhere these days. Marvel movies going first to Disney+ being the prime example. So, Sky has been busy investing films and in 2022 they\u2019re promising a \u2018Sky Original\u2019 every week of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes these will be acquisitions of films that might be marketed in places like Sundance. Promising Young Woman<\/em> and the recently released Mass<\/em> seem to fall into this bucket. Other times, they in effect \u2018direct-to-DVD\u2019 fare. In the last 12 months it\u2019s been interesting to see how Sky has been able to release a new film each day<\/em> on its Sky Premiere service. Since the supply fairly dried up during the pandemic, Sky has had to reach deep into the well to find new things for viewers. Fortunately, there\u2019s always another budget horror film to be found, and previously unheard of animation franchises are surprisingly plentiful. Drawing deeper into the well means finding Russian action pictures and Polish crime dramas \u2013 at least increasing their range and diversity (I guess that the specialist Indian language channels all have big deals to tie up major Bollywood productions exclusively).<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this means that the business of actually running cinema chains is getting more and more precarious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are still good revenues to be generated with theatrical releases. Spider Man: No Way Home<\/em> has just reached $1.7 billion global box office revenues (and counting) making it the 6th<\/sup> biggest film of all time. But beyond super-hero films, and big science fiction franchises, what are cinemas supposed to show the rest of the time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One way forward \u2013 perhaps the only way \u2013 is to improve the quality and service that only a cinema can offer you. That could be more luxurious seating, and better food and drinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That definitely means investing in the best projecting and audio reproduction possible. Cinemas need to offer consumers something that they can\u2019t get at home. When supermarkets are selling relatively cheap 60\u201d+ 4K TVs and pairing them with soundbars, the home viewing experience can be very good indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve seen chains like Picturehouse and Curzon take up the mantle here. I can\u2019t say I\u2019m completely in favour of waiting staff ducking in and out of the cinema to serve patrons drinks in their seats, but more luxurious seating, more comfortable surroundings \u2013 perhaps a nice bar or caf\u00e9 to meet in and talk about the film before or after \u2013 are all great directions to be heading in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the more popular end we\u2019ve got 4DX nonsense for dumb action films, or so-called IMAX in multiplexes for the larger screens which at least promise a certain level of viewing quality. (IMAX diluting its brand is another story for another day.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, carpets sticky with spilt soft drinks, popcorn not cleaned up from the previous screening and broken seats or air conditioning are not things that are likely to make me rush to go back to the cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I write all of this because this weekend I went to see the new Guillermo del Toro film, Nightmare Alley<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a gorgeous work, telling the story of a carnival worker who\u2019s bit of a huckster and being particularly sumptuous to look at. Del Toro\u2019s psychological thriller based on William Lindsay Gresham\u2019s 1946 novel invokes the best of Hollywood\u2019s film noirs from the thirties and forties. While he\u2019s made this in colour rather than black and white, it\u2019s notable that in the US, you can go and see a black and white version of this film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, at the multiplex that I went to see this film at, the projection was less than ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It became noticeable when I sat down during the adverts and trailers before the film that things weren\u2019t going to be great. (Incidentally, adverts before a film really don\u2019t make for a \u2018premium\u2019 offering, and I say that as someone who once worked for a company that also included Pearl and Dean in its portfolio. There are no ads on Netflix.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n To my untrained ears, it sounded like one of the main speakers wasn\u2019t working because many of the ads which are only played in stereo sounded a bit bass-light and quite tinny. Furthermore, there was a very audible hiss apparent when there was little other sound. I reckon a key \u2018centre\u2019 speaker behind the screen had blown completely. The hiss was caused by this, and I was only hearing audio from other channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was hopeful<\/em> that the ads and trailers were using a separate source, and once the main film started, the problem would go away. Maybe it wasn\u2019t the speakers so much as a dodgy wire to a speaker that was the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadly, that was not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was just fortunate that the film utilised more sound channels than the ads, so that any shortcomings in bass were mostly mitigated by the working surround speakers. The dialogue at least was not tinny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Nightmare Alley<\/em> is not a loud film. There aren\u2019t big action set-pieces with loud music accompanying them. Nathan Johnson\u2019s score is terrific, but doesn\u2019t overpower things. And in those quieter scenes, the speaker-hiss was incredibly apparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I nearly ducked out of the cinema to see if anyone could fix it. I\u2019ve done this before when there are problems. I was once in a packed screening of an action film, and seemingly I was the only person to notice (or care) that the aspect ratio was wrong and everyone was squashed. The problem is that you have to explain the issue to a member of staff who is definitely not a projectionist and then they have to radio the single person who can operate the multiplex\u2019s projectors and these days probably isn\u2019t trained much beyond pressing the right button to start the film. In the meantime, you\u2019ve missed five minutes of the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I didn\u2019t go out to try to get things sorted; a wise choice as it would turn out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Furthermore, there was a projection issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About a third of the way in from the right of the screen, there was a very obvious line running down the screen and in one of the early shots of Nightmare Alley<\/em> as Bradley Cooper walks while the sun sets behind him, it\u2019s clear that the colour cast of the right third of the screen was different to the left two-thirds. I\u2019m not sure what type of digital projector was in use or how many bulbs it employed but there was clearly a significant issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the film I went to complain to members of staff, and it quickly became apparent that they knew about the speaker problem. I was told that a speaker had blown. One of the more senior members of staff apologised and gave me a token for a free ticket to see something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seemed evident in speaking with them that the problem wasn\u2019t something that had just happened that day, but had been like that for a while. Nobody was saying how long. I wasn\u2019t the first person to complain either, although nobody else in the screening I\u2019d been it had bothered to stop, which probably goes someway in realising why these issues persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But you have to question the management of a cinema chain that just expects patrons to put up with inferior sound and video reproduction. Why should I spend more than \u00a310 (a discounted price at that!) to see a film in inferior conditions to the way I could watch it at home? My screen mightn\u2019t be as big, but there\u2019s no line down the middle and my speakers do not hiss. I don\u2019t have as many surround channels, but I have a few, and my centre speaker works just find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I return to that cinema, I will need to make sure that anything I see is not<\/em> in that particular screen, because I simply don\u2019t believe that they\u2019re in a rush to fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that gets me back to cinema\u2019s existential threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes \u2013 James Bond and Spider Man will fill seats, but the next superhero film isn\u2019t out until March as far as I know, and Scream reboots probably aren\u2019t going to make that big a difference. Cinemas need people like me who are happy to pay to see Licorice Pizza<\/em> in a cinema rather than waiting for it to show up on Netflix or Amazon in a couple of months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m lucky to live in London where there will probably always be premium options for going to cinemas where projection standards are still good, and smaller chains do work hard to provide a better experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the multiplexes where most people see films are surely under threat? The pandemic did mean some of the chains were teetering a little. It\u2019s bad enough that nobody polices people reading their phones mid-film, and that snacks are priced at exorbitant levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I fear for cinema, and that owners treat it like many \u2018legacy\u2019 media before it, milking everything they can out of its last days, under-investing in even maintaining their assets, until, finally, the site is osld off and the land is acquired for housing developments\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes, when you experience shabby service, you just have to call it out. And as someone who loves to see films in a cinema, that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing here. But first some backstory. Where Cinema is in 2022 The global pandemic has hastened something that had already been happening prior to the start of 2020 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[43],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22363,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22361\/revisions\/22363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Does This Mean for Theatrical?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Went Wrong?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Where Next?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n