This is not just an awesome concept, but blazingly fast. Well done! I would love to see an article about the tech stack.
Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
201–210 of 280 posts
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has to be some latitude given here. They can’t possibly, for instance, know exactly what was said or who interacted with who and when with any reasonable certainty. It’s usually “John met with Ted and I think Sally too, he told them to fuck off because it was a bad idea.” Now make that a scene and stay accurate. Rarely are these things documented in the moment and human memory is fickle even when we think we re…
Which is why it should be assumed to all be fiction. Video presents the problem that you are receiving lots of extra data which are fictional, and pretending that you are getting a sufficiently accurate representation when you have no idea how much of the representation is accurate is a detriment. Take it as entertainment, and nothing more. For example, Remember the Titans, we were shown it in school over and over. T…
It's inherent to video that you "have to make up data" - if I tell you the barebones of something that happened in real life (we went to a doctor's appointment but discovered it had been scheduled earlier than we thought) - you may supply details that aren't "true" because you have to supply something to flesh it out - but you know you're supplying them!
If instead we make a video that conveys the same information; it has to "make up" details (we have to cast the actors, which will be of a certain age, sex, race, etc; we have to give them lines, etc; and so on) that may colour the implications - and you, as a viewer, have no easy way to determine what is essential and what is accidental.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no data to support your last paragraph. But it is fun to talk about how dumb the “other” people are.
I coulda added another "That I've seen" disclaimer to my second para. My dataset is just friends & family who I've seen "based on a true story" movies with, where I happened to know the history. The term to describe my "99%" isn't "dumb". It's "don't care".
It's all variations of Gell-Mann Amnesia. Any portrayal is a betrayal.
Of course, if I'm going to talk about something I know deeply, I'm almost certainly going to begin with "this is all incorrect in the details, but correct in general" or similar.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arthouse is the only thing worth watching nowadays as the others seem to only rechew the same crud. Change my mind.
Not everyone is an avant garde movie enthusiast. Some still enjoy the fun and spectacle of action films, superhero films, Star Wars. I am among them. I make no attempt to say they’re high concept or anything, but I leave feeling good for awhile and that’s enough for me
It's like eating a burger - they're basically all the same, but there are variations. And a burger isn't anything amazing (even if you find a pretentious one, it's still a burger), but it's still nice to go out and get one now and then.
So maybe I want to watch some capeshit today, but I don't want it to be exactly the same as the ones I've watched before. Many people feel this way, and the market provides.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#205To me this suggests that theater’s are at least partially incorrectly pricing things which explains why they are struggling.
They are also showing movies people don't want to see because they have contracts with the studios who are doing nonsense with the numbers to move money around on their books.
Madame web was a great example, it was in theaters for months, and being heavily advertised, and no one was going. At the time I thought it was Sony trying to ruin Marvel's reputation, but it makes more sense that they needed a loss on the books, and most of the money they spent went to companies they had a piece of.
Meanwhile, you have movies that are in and out in a single weekend that go on to become cult classics because they never had a chance.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> at the same time it's unbelievably sad that in recent years about 70% of the movies i saw at a cinema were multiple decades old. There are literally thousands of good movies released between ~1890 and last year. It’s improbable more than a hundred or so will come out this year that’re worth your time, and they’ll be harder to sort from the junk this close to release. If anything, it’s amazing new movies have as lar…
good point i guess, time allows for the good stuff to be remembered and stay relevant. kind of how some movies like The Big Lebowski were considered flops but nowadays are cherished cult classics.
MST3K is definitive proof that "not all the old movies were good" - there were some stinkers, and they only picked out the ones that were "so bad they're good" - there's much worse.
Most movies are decently budgeted and so at least meet some minimum bar for quality - so cult classics can arise time and time again. There are movies in theaters right now that will be the cult classics of the 2050s.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the first few weeks of a film's release, all of the ticket sales goes to the studio. Pretty much the only revenue for the theatre is popcorn, candy and soda. Since most theatres have gone full digital, the "projector" won't show the film if there have been no tickets sold. That eliminated the game of buying one ticket and then sneaking in to see a few more movies.
Why do you have projector in scare quotes? And what makes you think they don't screen the movie? Exhibitors have a contractual obligation to show movies a certain number of times a week, and the media players that run them show receipts to the studios ... it would be surprising if they didn't actually do that simply because nobody bought a ticket.
Probably just showing that it's not a film projector, but in actuality, it is still a projector. It may be assumed that digital movies are shown on a giant display, but that's cost prohibitive at that size; it's still a blank screen with light projected onto it.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#208How does AMC stay in business after all these years?
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple of years ago Odeon turned our nearest theatre into a 'luxe' theatre (adult tickets £20), and the next nearest theatre was left as it was, but all tickets £5 each (tickets at both theatres where about £14 previously). I think it was an experiment to see which model was most economic: major investment in tech and comfort/£100+ for a family of four to watch a film with snacks and beverages/fewer tickets sold as…
For all tickets is similarly insane. It needs to be demand driven - sold out show? Prices too low. Can’t get butts in seats? prices too high. You want prices set such that it’s almost but not quite at capacity. This gives you slack to accept stragglers while optimizing your profit on the price demand curve.
The problem is that if you take this too far, nobody knows what it costs to go to the movies, so everyone will just stick the "high cost" in their mind, and not go.
This is why they always gravitate to "$5 before noon/4pm" or "$5 Tuesdays" or similar things that are easy to remember.
I'm waiting for them to have the best seats in the house be the large armchairs for $20, and the rest of the shitseats be normal stadium seating for $5.
Re: Empty Screenings – Finds AMC movie screenings with few or no tickets sold
#210I remember I went to a small showing once as a kid. It was just our group and 1 lady in the theater. We got to small talk and the lady mentioned she had once been the only customer for a showing and told the projectionist that she didn’t want to be a bother and could come back and another day. The projectionist had apparently replied that it was no bother - they would roll the movie even if no one showed up!
Film projectors (at least when I did the job in the mid-90s) can't rewind or fast forward, so if for any reason someone buys a late ticket and walks in, the movie has to be running already in order to be on time for the next showing.