142 Directors Appeal MPAA to Repeal Screener Ban

Londovir writes "Nearly 150 directors, including heavy hitters such as Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Redford, and others have sent a letter to Jack Valenti & the MPAA. In the letter, published in the Friday issue of Variety, they call for an end to the ban on screeners, suggesting that the lack of screeners will harm the potential of movies that take risks and rely on critical acclaim. Despite the star power behind those signing on the letter, and after a conference call with 3 studio executives, what was the MPAA's response? "...the screener policy remains as it was originally announced." Will this mean an end to Academy Awards going to movies that open in only 100 theaters nationwide, or will it take an entire studio chain such as Universal or MGM to knock some sense into Valenti's mind?"

Comments

Re: Story {Score; -6, Dupe)

[Ianoo]

When does slashdot ever post stories that haven't appeared on other sources first? It's a news aggregation portal, not CNN, damnit.

Duh

[dolo666]

Screeners comprise only about 49.847723% of the actual pirated software on the net. It's like this because it's convenient for pirates to snag a copy of the film and use it, before the film is released.

Banning screeners would mean that the industry is starting to cave in from the piracy movement. Is that what you want? Do you want Hollywood to crumble? But wait a minute.

Ten dollars for a bag of popcorn and a pop?

Five dollars for a box of candy?

Maybe there is more here than meets the eye! Maybe it's not that pirates want to ruin Hollywood. Maybe the public is saying somthing to the movie industry about other possible reforms that should be considered.

Like going to the theater when there are a couple of goofs talking through the whole movie. Or when some smelly guys wears flip-flops that are five years old, and sits near you while he adjusts his seat every five seconds.

The whole experience of the movies has declined since the eighties, while a lot of other industries have improved (like the video game industry).

Banning screeners is the way to go, if you want to hurt the little indy film maker, but maybe some smart person will release their films ONLY to the internet, and become the next Bill Gates.

Re:Duh

[Multics]

WAIT, STOP, Hold your horses.

In reality, most screeners are needed because the movie company has not put a movie in general release and thus if you're a voting member in say Lake Tahoe, there is no way to see most of the movies that you're supposed to be voting on (Smelly kid or not).

No, the solution here is to allow screeners, but to digitally mark each one of them such that they can be identified (not just on the markable/scratchable skin of the DVD). That way, when one is 'discovered' in the used market, the person who released it can be fined or removed from getting any others.

They'll use technology against us customer scum, but they won't use it to clean up their own house.

Jack 'Boom Boom' Valenti's time has long past. He is second only to the RIAA in creepyness both by policy and in person. Thankfully at age 82, he'll be done soon anyway.

-- Multics

Re:Duh

[neonstz]

No, the solution here is to allow screeners, but to digitally mark each one of them such that they can be identified

This is already being done. However, most release-groups remove the serials (by blurring or just placing a black box) on the movies they release.

Re:Duh

[evilviper]

No, the solution here is to allow screeners, but to digitally mark each one of them such that they can be identified

Every time this comes up, someone mentions that same thing, and there is also someone like myself who replies to say that they have already been doing this for a good long time.

Release groups already know how to detect and remove this information. There isn't all that much you can do to mark a copy in a way that will remain when it is re-encoded, but won't turn the quality of the movie to complete crap.

Re:Duh

[Awptimus Prime]

Good preaching, man. I HATE the movie theatre experience. Ever since I moved to Atlanta, it's been a nightmare every time.

If it's not the droves of gangsta wannabe teenagers, it's the middle-aged overweight women who can't stop talking. The $6 soda. The drive. How about the 6.1 audio system with a blown rear-channel speaker?

The smell of most theaters alone is enough to get me to not go. A combination of a society who's more talk than action on it's hygene and lazy immigrants who don't care about their jobs enough to actually clean the theaters properly on occasion. Then there's the whole SARS season rolling in on us soon.

And my friends think I am messed up for buying a 56" DLP HDTV for my movie watching.. I get similar visual quality as I would in the theater, but I get to pause the action for a potty break, pop some popcorn for $0.30, drink a soda for $0.25, wear my Pj's and do whatever lewd cuddling I want with my woman without having to be discreet.

Here's the funny thing. The same people who think I am a bit nutty for spending some bread on this stuff are the ones who eat out at staple food resturants 3-5 times a week, go to the movies 2-3 times a week, then go have desert at specialty shops, etc. That adds up to hundreds upon hundreds a month, especially if you are dragging along a member of the opposite sex.

If they would only get into the pattern of learning to cook and do these things for themselves, work on making life at home better instead of funding mega-corporations every chance they get, they'd learn that when doing these things in your own home results in better foods, better coffee, better deserts, better movie watching experiences, and a more relaxed life (having not dealt with crowds or rude people).

I say all this, having stopped at Starbucks a few minutes ago because I was late leaving the house and did not have time to brew my own coffee.

I think the RIAA had planned on directors complaining. They are, of course, the people who have expensive theaters in their homes specifically to impress guests with DVD screeners. Don't just think of the awards, the directors aren't, either.. :)

What gets me, Hollywood actually thinks people are satisfied enough with watching a Divx of a screener instead of renting/buying the DVD. I guess they've never watched a Divx on anything bigger than 36" display. There's no comparison. Now, if people were posting the raw, unencrypted DVD on Kazaa, that'd be a different story. Most movie pirate types I have encountered seem to deal with quantity instead of quality, so I doubt that'll happen anytime soon, not on a large scale. Though, you occasionally see an uncompressed screener go through usenet on occasion..

Rent a DVD, skip the theater, drive them out of business through natural selection.

Yawn

[Now15]

This is just another nail in the coffin of the more-glamour-less-substance Academy Awards anyway. When deciding which movie I'm going to watch, I look at its score on IMDB, and occasionally read what my local movie critics say.

Award ceremonies have absolutely no bearing on anything, other than to give a dubiously limited selection of celebrities to flout their wealth and pat themselves on the back.

At Least It's Art...

[Fringe]

Maybe not the movies they're producing, nor the records produced by RIAA memebers, but between the MPAA and the RIAA we have some high satire worthy of Jonathan Swift. Valenti and RIAA President Cary Sherman will be remembered long after "House of the Dead" and Brittney Spears have been left in the dustbin of pop history. And isn't that what art's about?

Why don't they jump ship?

[JayBlalock]

Look at the list of names on the E Online article that was posted higher up.

Scorsese, both Coppolas, Barry Levinson, Redford, Sam Raimi, Darabont, Altman, David Lynch, Spike Jonze, Cronenberg, the Coen Bros... It's virtually a who's-who of all the best filmmakers in Hollywood, and a mix of old greats and up-and-comers.

If those people decided to jump ship and form their own movie collective, they could. Easily. Hell, many of them ALREADY have their own production companies and\or studios. Sure the MPAA technically controls distribution - but do you see any of the huge theatre chains saying 'no' to the latest Redford or Scorsese flick? The Academy - which is a separate entity - refusing them entrance? I don't think so.

The fact that so many truly great directors (and writers) are on that list, I think, proves just HOW misguided Valenti is being. He and the studios see films as nothing more than Product - made as cheap as possible, peddled out to the brain dead masses. But the people who signed that list are the ones who *know* better. And if they ever decided to leave, they could, never look back, and the MPAA system would likely crumble in their wake. (I mean, really, who's the MPAA got left? Speilberg... Uh...)

The question is whether these directors would be willing to take that chance - and whether the studio heads even REALIZE the importance of visionary directors in their schemes anymore.

Re:Stars are the enemy

[nfsilkey]

There are many academics who have analyzed "star power" and its relatioship to the major studios in Hollywood. There seems to be a consensus that commercial endeavors in Hollywood are high-risk due to the difficulty at predicting success of films. Studios are HEAVILY reliant on the use of "star power" as a commercial tool for marketing films. Studios are fine with paying a large sum of money or cutting a percentage of revenue for stars given the studios' fear of flops with no-name stars and the desire to replicate prior successes of films.