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Prepare To Be Watched While You Watch a Movie
BussyB writes "Gaining entry to some movie theaters lately gives patrons an experience that is on par with going through a TSA security checkpoint at the airport. Then once you've gained access, there are cameras strategically positioned that record your every move. Unfortunately, the extent to which these companies monitor movie-goers is only going to get worse."
Only, this time it's "Who watches the watchers?"
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On the upside, Hollywood keeps turning out crap so I feel like I'm not missing much by waiting for the movie to come out on video.
bah.
The bigger problem we're facing with corporate practices like this is that, when the revolution comes, we won't have a wall big enough to put all these marketing departments against. We should really start to prioritize who will be first, and who goes second, third, etc.
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Hey, this can't be all bad... With video feedback, perhaps movie professionals could automate audience reactions to various scenes, and systematically improve their movie products. Also murders within theaters could go down... and when the couples in the corner start making out, maybe the theater employees would grab some popcorn and get a good show. See? It's not all bad... being watched all the time. Ahem.
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From the article: "Within the cinema industry this tool will feed powerful marketing data that will inform film directors, cinema advertisers and cinemas with useful data about what audiences enjoy and what adverts capture the most attention"
:-)
Hint: We don't enjoy the adverts, especially after paying almost $12 for a ticket. Perhaps if the whole audience gives the camera the finger through all of the ads, they will get the message?
We'll send to JAIL those criminal masterminds who bring their own chocolate to the theater!!!
This is a gross invasion of privacy - I would expect to be informed of any recording at the time I purchase the ticket, who was making the recording and to what purpose they were being used. I would also expect that I could opt out at that time and at any time in the future without penalty. If the only choice I have is to no longer visit cinemas, then so be it. Either that or I might have to find a certain mask to wear.
In 1995 I had a summer job as an employee of Buena Vista (the company that releases Disney's major animated pictures). My job? Auditing movie theaters by counting the people attending and comparing to the ticket sales, ensuring that during the screening, nobody was taking pictures or using other recording devices (if they were, we had an off duty police officer on site working security).
The buena vista hit squad (as we called ourselves) was nothing new when I joined up.
Fast forward to my weekend job as second shift manager of a movie theater while I was in college (1999) we had 2 "crowd cameras" at every screen, you could see the entire audience the whole time the movie was going, we used it to bust people who decided that the movie theater was an apropriate place to have sex (including some employees after hours *eyeroll*).
My initial thought is that they're recording peoples' responses to product placement / subliminal advertising, in an attempt to gauge the effectiveness thereof.
Did anyone else catch the giant cigarette advertisement in the last James Bond? It was right after he had sex with the blonde, what a hero.
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
I had a man pat me down and perform a full cavity search, but theater management called the police and had him escorted out. Does that count?
Is it unethical to wear a mask to a horror film?
I know price has already been mentioned but my wife and I went to the cinema last week. Everywhere signs about the right of the cinema to search bags etc. That was bad enough, but once we had been vetted for snacks, we purchased some. By the time we had some snacks (Nachos, popcorn and 2 colas), and the cinema tickets, we had spent about $70.
I think in future, I will just stay home. Treated like crap and ripped off, and now VIDEOD like a common thief. No thanks. It's almost like they are trying to make me pirate stuff so they can sue me ;)
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Marketing surveys suffer from remarkably selective attention; sort of like asking "When did you stop beating your wife?" reveals a certain prejudice.
Instead of noticing that we loathe any and all of the ads, they are going to ask: "Which one did you enjoy the most?"
This assumes that we enjoyed any of the ads.
We don't, but that's not what they're measuring is it...
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They're going to show 2girls1cup and record viewers reactions, then make a new movie from that footage.
...Thank you for watching.. We invite you to stay for out next feature presentation..'Deep Throat'
Almost, now it's: "In Corporate America, movie watches you" :-) I'm not from the US so I can't tell how bad it is, but one can get the impression that the level of surveillance is even worse than during the cold war... but most surveillance seems not to be done by the government any more but by corporations.
Well, I don't fly because of the TSA, I guess the movie theater owners down't want my money any more than the airline industry.
Stupid cowardly people...
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Just a couple of days ago I was watching a movie, and an attendant came in with what must have been a night vision camera and scanned the room with it :/
which is totally what she said
Yo dawg, we heard you like to watch movies, so we put you in a movie so you can watch yourself watching a movie while you watch a movie!
Who goes to a cinema anymore?
My wife and I do.
The last time we went was three weeks ago -- tickets were $8 each. The theater we went to serves beer, and they had a special on one of them -- I guess they were trying to finish off the keg -- $2 for a beer.
Went again two weeks ago, no special on the beer, so that was $5 this time, but tickets were still $8.
Yeah, we could wait for the DVD, but by the time it's out on DVD I've probably already forgotten about it. Getting out of the house can be a good thing -- it's definitely an impulse thing.
You know those post-recorded movies with the camera really suck. It does not replace sitting in a theater or or renting the DVD three months later. I think the cinemas problems is not the Hussleman video taping in the theater but the shitty movies Hollywood gives you to present. They may not want to discourage moviegoers any more than Hollywood has.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Literally NONE of my friends go to the movies anymore. They all have Netflix accounts and Blu-Ray players and big screens.
Movie theaters will essentially disappear within 10 years. I would say it's their own damn fault, but really, they simply had no chance once home theater technology got good enough and cheap enough.
see also:
Girl to Bond: "Nice watch".
Bond: "Omega"
Girl: (breathes) "...beautiful"
In the UK, film critic Mark Kermode let a successful campaign to have audiences shout "KERCHING!" at this point when watching the film. More of this kind of thing is required.
You forgot the theater's refusal to ever set the volume to an appropriate level. Proper sound levels doesn't have a screen whisper so loud that I'm wincing because it is above my comfortable threshold for volume. I gave up on theaters years ago. I don't have a huge screen, but I have a more comfortable chair, I have a sound system that I can set to the right volume, and I can pause if someone needs to get up for any reason.
There are more important things to me than a screen that is so large I can't see completely.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
And also to stop people watching movies too.
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I used to go to theaters almost every week. But past 5 years, it's just once or twice. Getting a nice projector and having patience for DVD/BD release works for me.
And I can drink beer from bottle straight up.
My problem was not (just) theater owners, it had more to do with mobile loving teens.
I don't think we have as many camera's as parts of Europe.
London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-tens-of-thousands-of-cctv-cameras-yet-80-of-crime-unsolved.do
I think I prefer surveillance by corporations since I know what their goal is. Government's goals changes every 2 to 4 years in the US.
Have the cameras identify the a-holes who can't stop talking during the movie and deliver a painful jolt of electricity to their seat until they stfu.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
There was a theater in Orlando in the early '80s that was a bar/theater where you could drink beer while watching. But I have yet to find a theater that you can pass a fattie around in while watching a comedy.
If you're stoned anough, even Jar Jar is amusing.
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If you're stoned anough, even Jar Jar is amusing.
Stop spreading your filthy lies!
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The movie theatre isn't some government organization - vote with your wallet. Simply boycott the theatres that want to engage in this kind of activity. There are other activities that you can do such as reading, outdoor activities, building up your home theatre, etc. If you don't like this additional surveillance, the best way to make it fail is to simply stop going to the movies altogether. However, most Americans will continue to go despite this. I live in a dessert so I may go to a movie on only the hottest days during the summer. Save for that, there are all kinds of other forms of entertainment to engage in that, cost about the same, yet provide hours of entertainment versus a short film. Additionally, what happens if this system mistakenly identifies a person as having and using recording gear. The first major lawsuit and this surveillance crap will get returned to the manufacturer with refunds demanded.
Are we talking US dollars here? Because I am just not seeing how this supposed "about $70" is even possible.
Tickets at IMAX near my house are $17.50 each. You don't say what you saw, but let's just use that price. Two ticket at $17.50 is $35 in total. So we are supposed to believe that you spent about $35 on 2 cokes, nachos and popcorn? No way Jose.
I have a fond memory from 1977 of witnessing this at a midnight showing of The Song Remains the Same at the now closed North Town 6 theater in Dallas. Everyone brought their own bottles of booze as well. No police busting people, the theater owners were happy to be filling seats, and the customers had a good time.
Of course, that kind of fun and freedom is now just a distant memory.
Yes, mcgrew, but you are an old coot. Old coots have the privilege of being able to say crazy things like "I won't fly on no gol-durned airplane no more because the security people want to look at my wiener" or "I don't go to movies because they are watching me." I'm actually looking forward to my coot-hood. I'm going to believe in something really crazy, like the basic decency of human nature, or the perfectibility of mankind or something like that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I was in college at SIU that year, and they had the Mississippi River Festival; a different big name act every night, close enough to hear from the balcony (I was married and we were in on-campus housing).
Alcohol wasn't allowed, so people would bring coolers of beer and have to leave the beer. There were mountainous piles of full six packs outside the gate, so we'd sit outside and drink beer and smoke dope and listen to the music.
The next morning we'd go down to the audience area before the cleanup crews came and we'd find at least a couple ounces of pot.
We didn't have to buy any beer or pot all summer. Man, those were the days!
Free Martian Whores!
Today when you walk into a retail store you can pretty much be assured that if there are 20 other people in the store that one of them is there to steal something. Large stores try for 3% shrinkage and some achieve it - others are experiencing as much as 5%. That is 5% of total inventory. You might guess that a $20 DVD is easier to steal than a $2000 big-screen TV.
So stores employ security guards and put in surveillance systems to try to stop people from stealing. It doesn't work all that well and people are offended by being treated as if they are there to steal. But as many as 10% of the customers walking in the store are there to steal.
Do some searching and you will discover that when a movie is released there are "cam" versions of it available for download the very first day. In multiple languages. This means that the first day the movie came out there were multiple people taping the movie. It is now a fact of life that this happens. The theaters are pretty much on the verge of realizing they are utterly obsolete and like drive-in movie theaters of the past, the land is worth more than the theater is.
While a "cam" is certainly the worst possible way to watch a movie, it is the alternative of choice because it is first - you can't download the DVD for months after the release in the theater. Theaters are participating in their own destruction with every "cam" release on the Internet and they understand this. Like the store security guards, cameras and security systems this is an ineffectual attempt at staying in business. Stores cannot exist with a 5% shrinkage rate - or more bluntly if 5% of the store's inventory value is stolen the store will simply close.
Amazon probably doesn't have 5% shrinkage. Best Buy is trying for 3% and achieving it in a lot of stores.
I rarely go to movies with more than 20 people in the whole theater. Theaters can't continue to exist like that and will absolutely be closing. I think I would be surprised if there is a single one left in the US in 10 years.
I never understood, whey you can drink huge amounts of sugar drinks in US cinemas but not a decent beer (if you get a decent beer in that part of the US - but I digress) as you can do it in most European cinemas. Poor Americans!
It doesn't matter how good or bad the items being advertised are, I don't want my attention distracted from the story the film is telling.
Basically, as long as the characters don't "advertise", I think the public is fine with it.
For example, if Q says to Bond, "now, let me tell you about the 'additions' to the BMW Z3...", and that's the only mention of the make or model of the car in the movie, it's probably OK. But if Bond were constantly asking people if they "want a ride in my BMW", it'd be too much (like the mentioned Omega watch example).
You know where you can watch movies without *being* watched? At home on your entertainment system with the latest torrent.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Implicit in that statement is the silly idea that the government and the corporations are separate entities.
Implicit in that statement is gross oversimplification of the complex relationship between corporations and government. It makes for an easy slogan, but isn't helpful beyond that.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And Bond wore a Rolex Submariner traditionally
I suppose it's how you define "traditionally." OO7 hasn't worn a Rolex since 1973's "Live and Let Die." In fact, aside from the early Connery films Bond has usually *not* worn a Rolex.
Hence "traditionally" all other Bonds other than Connery are pretenders to the throne.
But if you're buying/renting the DVD, you're not following your own advice.
BTW, most of the time, one or more of the following will work on DVDs: menu button; top menu button; chapter skip button [likely multiple times]; stop then play. Except for rarely the MPAA warning (even then I can often go into 1.5x mode on one of my players), I can only remember seeing a VERY small number of DVDs with truly unskippable/stoppable stuff.
Implicit in that statement is the silly idea that the government and the corporations are separate entities. Where have you been for the last few decades?
Government and corporations are surely separate entities, at least at any given moment. But they cooperate intimately in order to fulfill their respective goals, power for government and wealth for corporations. They're a team, tightly knit, well practiced, interdependent, sharing information and people. Separately and together, they have long and hallowed traditions which have brought tremendous success. We the People are the raw material. Government and large business working together are the process. Wealth and power for select individuals is the final product. Such are the ways of the world. Always have been.
Of course, I can do that at home too, but you know what I mean.
Don't worry, we'll be looking into that little loophole soon enough.
Love,
Your Nanny-State Govt.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
And also too the Grammar Nazi posts aren't usually often considered relevant. Because communication it doesn't need perfect grammer. or spelling. It's like fucking without an instruction book. If you cum, it couldn't have been that awful.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!