Blum predicts collpase of the theatrical window?

[ORCACommander]

recently in my area a chain of theaters is is trying to change its identity of what a theater is. they have reduced seat counts for the theaters, and upgraded the chairs to large fake leather recliners. these recliners actually shift the best position from mid way up in stadium seating to the 3rd and 4th row. food and drink is still expensive as hell though


there is also a different chain that is all about serving you over priced fast food to you while you watch. how I wracked up a $90 bill on a date there i will never know

[raiken_]

how the Printing Press was destroying the ability to write by hand and the art of Caligraphy.

Are the kids today still learning how to write cursive? When I was getting out of school they had pretty much given up teaching spelling thanks to spellcheck.

In my town there's an independent theater with a bar and a bakery. The first seat couple rows are just couches, and the rest is a random collection of chairs. Feels kinda like watching a movie in a friend's basement. Usually they're playing stuff that's not in a wide release / not likely to play at the blockbuster theaters.

[ORCACommander]

not to get to far off point but when i went through school they were just down to making sure you knew enough to write your signature

[SFDebris]

One thing I'm reminded of is Theodore Levitt's famous economics article Marketing Myopia. His theory was that businesses had a problem of deciding what they were based upon their existing product rather than upon the needs of the customers. For example, railroad companies stopped being a success because they believed they were in the railroad business, when the reality was they were in the transportation business. By not thinking outside of the confines of "railroad" they missed the development of the internal combustion engine when they could've easily expanded their business to explore this new form of transportation side-by-side with their existing railroad business.

If one is thinking about film as a business then it's vital to remember that you're in the entertainment business and not the film business. Obviously, film as art is a completely different topic, but looking at it strictly from a dollars and cents examination, positioning oneself so that your goal is about getting in front of your audience should be where the focus lies. So if that's in theaters that's where you should aim, and if that's not going to be cost-effective for you then seek a different medium. Maybe it's not what you dreamed that it could be, the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not the price tag for the dream is worthwhile, is it worth getting practically nothing to be able to say that your film was in theaters or to earn more by releasing it in another form that will be seen by more people and give you the financial foundation in order to be able to pursue more works.

[griffeytrek]

People said TV would kill Cinema, but it's still here.

The problem is for most of it's existence TV was a very different medium and experience from Cinema. But they finally largely caught up. Ever smaller more sub divided multiplex screens. Ever bigger and better home setups. Increasing production values and quality on the TV side. Ever expanding costs with diminishing returns on the cinema side. Actual physical movie theaters as a business are starting to sweat. Actually the disruption in the TV business that is cord cutting also seems to be directly impacting Cinema. They are just so far papering it over via rising ticket prices, but actual physical viewership is way way down.