Could DVD Be the New Medium?

Movies and TV are having big problems these days. The "Suits" (those executives in charge) have pretty much ruined their respective mediums. Since movie studios and television networks becoming part of large conglomerates, it is no longer the people who love the movie and TV who run things. It's board room types from other industries who could just as well be pitching soft drinks or widgets as movies and TV shows. Their objects of lust are money and power. Movies and TV shows be damned.

And what has been the result of their attentions?

In the television arena the schedules that the dwindling number of viewers are subjected to are dominated by game shows and "reality" TV shows. The executives apparently are doing what they can to starve other fare such as dramas and comedy because they cost more to produce. If it doesn't produce money for them IMMEDIATELY, it's "Cancellation City". Gone are the days when a show might be given a chance to build word of mouth. Their habit of shifting shows to other days of the week doesn't help.

For motion pictures the picture has been dismal for a lot longer. The studios have squeezed theatres with extremely high rental rates. The studios take can be as high as 90% during the opening week and will drop each week a movie remains open until it settles in at 50% if it goes for a month. Most movies don't last that long. The result has been that the exhibitors have had to make up the difference with concession stand prices in order to even do the basics like pay for the heat and pay their staff. This hasn't left a lot to maintain their venues and the effect has been shabby theatres and, until digital projection recently came onto the scene, poor projection. Movie goers have naturally stayed away, feeding the cycle.

With the declining revenues, the studios have shifted from creating quality productions to draw people to the theatres, to safe bets and money games so that they can continue collecting their obscenely high paychecks. They've favored such safe bets as superhero movies, remakes, sequels, prequels, frathouse type comedies - anything that they think will attract their target audience - males between 15 and 25. This is the very audience who they think would possibly be dumb enough to put up with bad theatres in order to have a place to take a date.

The executives fear driven obsession with the safe bet has brought in the "modern miracle" of market research into the movie making process. What we have ended up with, instead of exciting and original films, has been bland, homogenized and formula driven comedies, brainless action pictures, and a never ending stream of superheroes which will continue until they've scraped the very bottom of the comic book companies back catalogs.

The difference between watching movies and television has blurred too. Once you could count on getting "away from it all" when going to a movie and avoid those annoying TV commercials. Now they've been added to the experience and people are staying away in droves. They're now watching their movies at home on their home theatre systems, and who can blame them?

The very difference in the forms has drifted closer and closer together. Movie studio executives, with their eyes always on ever escalating profits, are doing whatever they can to push movies to become "franchises" whether it suits the project or not. If they can force a sequel, that's great even though the fans of the original may feel like suckers when their view the inferior follow-up. If they can get a whole series squeezed out of a slender premise, they are in heaven. Some movie projects (such as the original Pink Panther or the James Bond films) lend themselves to such a thing. Most do not. There's even the concept of the "trilogy" for the more "important" films. With escalating prices and declining quality most movie viewers have opted to stay home and to keep their TVs tuned to anything but network television, when they do have them on. And often what they do watch are DVDs.

DVDs have a number of advantages over TV and movies. They can be viewed at any time. The watcher of a DVD is not at the mercy of network television schedules (this applies to remembering to record a program too) if watching television shows that have been put on the format. They can watch one show at a time or several.

For movies, they can avoid all the hassles that make the movie going experience so difficult these days. No need to call a baby sitter. No need to pay high admission prices and high concession stand prices only to find yourself in a shabby theatre watching the very kind of television commercials you can see at home for nothing. You can also stop the movie at any time to use the bathroom or grab a snack. The only thing lacking is the large group experience that movies used to offer, that is, until those audiences were chased away.

For the makers of feature length movies and who make television shows, DVDs show the promise of becoming its own medium. It's not been thought of one presently. It's merely considered a delivery vehicle. Showing first in theatres or on television has up until now been considered the route to legitimacy and greater sales. But the credibility of movies and television have been in the process of being more and more suspect because of their general quality decline. With people staying home and avoiding network television, it has become less and less logical that stories be filtered through the executives who have been so instrumental in the decline of movies and television. "Direct to Video" still holds a certain stigma because of the sorts of things that have gone that route, many originated with executives out for the quick buck. The Disney studio during the Eisner era was a particularly bad offender with their "sequels" of popular animated movies that were made by cheap Saturday morning cartoon animation standards and substandard stories, and voices by second string performers.

What DVDs need, in order to become a form in their own right, is for the best creative people to recognize what they can be. They need to produce stories just for the medium and have the willingness to publicize the fact that these are no typical "direct to video" offerings.

DVDs do not suffer the limitations of the other media. Stories can be as long or short as they need to be without necessarily the artificial separation into being called shorts or features. They can be in the form of multiple episodes, like TV shows or movie series but without the interruptions. With the right delivery system, such as the model that Netflix uses, they can be dependably brought to the viewers on a regular basis. The present big players need not dominate this medium if things are done right. This involves how potential viewers find out about productions. If the way of delivering the DVDs is neutral - independents given as much consideration as the established majors - then there might be a fair chance for original ideas and stories to be seen.

Of course DVDs are physical objects, with all the limitations of physical objects but they are tangible things that people can actually possess and own if desired. There are other ways of delivering stories that are still being devised.

There is the internet, of course, but the combination of present quality limitations and the fact that most people don't gather with their family "round the old computer" to watch a movie limit how much it gets used. It does show the most promise in the long run.

Set top boxes such as the AppleTV and Netflix Roku are an attempt to bridge this gap but once again the control freaks, that studio and TV network executives are part of, have hobbled it. All of these devices have limitations on what you can put on them and whether you can collect movies and shows or not. Some things are available on one box but not another and everything about these boxes is proprietary with all the problems that comes with that.

What it is going to take is for some kind of universal box to be created that will be used to collect content from the internet and display it in a quality way without vendor applied restrictions. It would have to have an easy way to find content, either by using it on its own or by using your computer and it would have to have the option of expandability for those who like to collect movies and other content.

Until that happens DVDs are currently the most viable alternative to movie theatres and TV networks and represent promising creative opportunities - with a potential of unchaining everybody (both creators of stories and viewers) from our ruinous present system of "anything for a buck", market research hugging, boardroom hacks.