From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #347 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, November 29 2000 Volume 09 : Number 347 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Rebel Rebel [Viv Lyon ] low smugness, nerd help sought [dmw ] Re: the real temptation [Tom Clark ] Re: A fork next to your spoon Plus question [Aaron Mandel ] eb all over the world [Asshole Motherfucker ] Re: the digital camera is like a two hundred dollar prostitute [GSS ] Re: happy buy nothing day! [Rob Gronotte ] Re: Annie shot me in a milk bath [Tom Clark ] Re: eb all over the world ["brian nupp" ] Re: Annie shot me in a milk bath [GSS ] Re: Buy nothing/Lennon tributes [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] Excitations (two different ones) [Eb ] Re: BusterCretin Productions [Capuchin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 10:39:59 -0800 (PST) From: Viv Lyon Subject: Re: Rebel Rebel On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 BLATZMAN@aol.com wrote about Cappy: > Yeah, I did feel like a rebel. If only for a day.... I got a taste of what > it must be like to be you. Since you go around wearing "rebel" on your > sleeve constantly... I wish! He wears "capitalist" on his sleeve to all our lefty meetings.... it's so embarrassing. All the anarcho-syndicalists wary and uncomfortable, all the socialists twisting their kercheifs in their hands, not knowing where to look.... Vivien who wears a "Jean Genie" patch on her sleeve ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 14:07:29 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: low smugness, nerd help sought On Tue, 28 Nov 2000, Rob Gronotte wrote: > Good thing too, since you bum a ride from thos of us with cars when you > want to go to an out-of-town Robyn show, now, doncha! :) and when i *played* an out of town show recently, the band i was with rented TWO cars. there's maybe another smugness/hypocrisy tangent in me, but first ** an urgent utterly off0-topic plea for help ** just 'cause there's lots of smart folks here... we threw out last network admin out on his ear (don't ask) and i'm the emergency boy-with-finger-in-dyke. trying to rebuild president's computer; was freezing when network card inserted. back on network, all msclient stuff working, but no tcp/ip services (pop mail, browsing, telnet, etc.) will work. reinstalled tcp/ip stack, no dice. help? (win 95 b.) - - oh no, you've just read mail from doug = dmw@radix.net - get yr pathos - - www.pathetic-caverns.com -- books, flicks, tunes, etc. = reviews - - www.fecklessbeast.com -- angst, guilt, fear, betrayal! = guitar pop ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 11:24:25 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: the real temptation on 11/28/00 4:34 PM, GSS at gshell@metronet.com wrote: > Think of Crater Lake, Glacier National Park, Big Bend National Park, > the Rockies from Texas to Canada, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Oregon Coast > etc... and then think of what you'll get by saving those memories > with a digital camera. Yuck!!!!!!! How about Mt. Arenal volcano in Costa Rica? Or the Farallon Islands? Or Lake Tahoe? My digital pictures of those places are beautiful, especially at 1760x1168 pixels. I'm in no way saying a mid-range digital camera can come close to the quality and flexibility of a nice SLR setup, but I'd say anyone who's shopping for a decent snapshot or vacation camera is going to have to base their analog/digital decision on a different issue than "photo quality". - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 15:05:02 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: A fork next to your spoon Plus question On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 BLATZMAN@aol.com wrote: > ON a different note, all this talk about thinking about where my spent > dollars go has gotten me thinking.... I'm going to buy my wife a > vibrator today, but I want my purchase to be politacally correct. > Can someone please help with this? What companies make the most > politically correct vibrators. Are there any I should stay away from? i have no idea about specific manufacturers, but www.goodvibes.com and www.grandopening.com are the websites of two extremely friendly sex shops. call one of them and ask, if they don't have the information you want on the web. a ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 12:05:41 -0800 From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: open up the places i got hurt >From: GSS >np-take a chance on me, abba (don't laugh it has some interesting backing >vocal harmonies and those chicks had voices that could give Jesus an >erection). Oh shit, here comes 'fernando'. I can't think of anything wrong with Abba. >From: Matt Yudt > >Andrew Simchick wrote at Eb: "Simchik," actually, Mr. Yut. It's right in every message. > >> Sorry, I tuned out after "gigantic multinational corporations." > >>Tell us again how you think people who use the word "corporation" >>in a negative light have nothing to say. I don't think everyone >>has picked up on your opinion yet. > >>Drew > > >Just curious on how many of you smug, self-righteous, nonconsuming, >capitalist-haters sent an email Friday with '.com' or '.net' at the end of >your so-cool and original name. Even worse - how many of those advertised for >Yahoo at the same time? I know you're not asking me, because you don't really have any basis on which to call me a "smug, self-righteous, nonconsuming, capitalist- hater," but for the record I own stormgreen.com. I'll probably get a .org when it expires, but there's no driving reason to do so since stormgreen.com doesn't sell anything. I do advertise for Yahoo when I use my Yahoo account. I don't really have a problem with Yahoo as a business so I don't feel bad about that at all. >From: drop the holupki >have i mentioned that dee snyder is the morning show host on connecticut's >modern rawk station? the teevee commercials (woop woop!) where he >threateningly walks around in a long trenchcoat in the shadows, comes into >the light and cheerfully says, "it's me! dee snyder! see ya!" scare me. That sounds so cute! > > pretty much sums it up. Gotta disagree on a human factors basis. 1) A Reply to All not only replies to the list but also the sender, so that I have to delete the sender's address _every single time_ when replying to a list I don't receive in digest form. Since my default action is to send to the entire list, and only rarely do I reply to an individual poster offlist, you're penalizing me in the heads case in order to help me in the tails case. That's bad usability, unless everyone else replies privately to list messages most of the time. I kinda doubt it. Maybe this is different in elm -- it's been a while since I had to cope with a keyboard-only text editor, thank god. 2) If you are sending a sensitive message to someone personally, that's the time to take special attention to make sure you do it right. This follows on from the heads/tails problem. Granted, the mistake in the tails case is more damaging, but it _is_ a tails case. This is why it's better to Undo than to ask "Are you SURE you want to delete this file?" every time. It's very damaging in the case where you delete an important file by accident, but users get so used to clicking through that message that it won't help in the case where it needs to (crying wolf). Similarly, a user accustomed to hitting that Reply All button might do it by habit and post that gossip to the list by mistake anyway. >From: BLATZMAN@aol.com >ON a different note, all this talk about thinking about where my spent >dollars go has gotten me thinking.... I'm going to buy my wife a vibrator >today, but I want my purchase to be politacally correct. Can someone please >help with this? What companies make the most politically correct vibrators. http://www.goodvibes.com/ Drew - -- Andrew D. Simchik, drew at stormgreen.com http://www.stormgreen.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 11:54:02 -0800 From: Asshole Motherfucker Subject: eb all over the world and i FINALLY got my mits on a copy of THE DAY THEY ATE BRICK -- even after marc holden (who already *has* his own copy) tried to outbid me. it is a happy day in fegville! can't speak to this specific instance. but in general, the answer to your question is "yes". well, not so much *controls* (though companies buying private armies to mow down peasants for them is becoming increasingly common) as works with. the fuzz are only too happy to do the companies' dirty work. nothing new, of course: pick up any woody guthrie record, and you'll hear him singing about it. or if that doesn't work, they appeal to the CIA, which installs a "friendlier" regime. let's say it again: capitalism COULD NOT SURVIVE for more than about ten seconds without the manifold (and massive) services of the "nanny state". i heard it was october. anyways, it nearly killed my (*very* devout catholic) grandmother off a few years back when i casually brought it up over christmas eve dinner. here's a question. has a studio film every been copylefted? i could imagine john sayles (for example) trying to pull it off. any words of wisdom regarding cable descramblers? KEN "I said, 'God bless the Mineworkers' Union,' then I hung my head and cried" THE KENSTER ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 14:24:51 -0500 (CDT) From: GSS Subject: Re: the digital camera is like a two hundred dollar prostitute On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Tom Clark wrote: > How about Mt. Arenal volcano in Costa Rica? Or the Farallon Islands? Or > Lake Tahoe? My digital pictures of those places are beautiful, especially > at 1760x1168 pixels. I'm in no way saying a mid-range digital camera can > come close to the quality and flexibility of a nice SLR setup, but I'd say > anyone who's shopping for a decent snapshot or vacation camera is going to > have to base their analog/digital decision on a different issue than "photo > quality". It comes down to preference. Like I said before, digital cameras are quick, easy, convenient etc.., like a prostitute. But quality is always an issue for me when it comes to taking pictures and having sex. I have been hiking on numerous occasions with folks and their $700 Sony Matica or whatever the hell they are called and sometimes they get frustrated with me having to setup my tripod, if I have one and I usually do, and take some good shots, until we get home and compare pictures. They rush home, dump the data to a PC and start sending gifs to friends. I rush home, develop the negatives and then start making enlargements. The difference is dramatic. Then they start saying things like, how come we stood at the same location, focused on the same point and I have these high resolution gifs that just don't look as good as your black and whites that you took with a 25 year old SLR and a $150 lens. Photography is an art and I think half-ass photos are like half-ass gigs, better forgotten. Almost anyone can play the guitar or bass or keyboard or whatever, but the difference between a good guitar player who uses passing tones and inversions and bends and slides and harmonics and all their fingers, instead of someone who strums Beatles songs with a pick and knows 9 chords, goes without saying. gss ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 12:32:10 -0800 (PST) From: Eclipse Subject: Re: A fork next to your spoon Plus question > ON a different note, all this talk about thinking about where my spent > dollars go has gotten me thinking.... I'm going to buy my wife a vibrator > today, but I want my purchase to be politacally correct. Can someone please > help with this? What companies make the most politically correct vibrators. > Are there any I should stay away from? the two most recommended by myself and other gals i know (chicks who don't own just one, but collections!) are www.goodvibes.com and www.blowfish.com. i've shopped at good vibrations in the city and they are great, wonderful, helpful people with a very knowledgable staff, and are very health-conscious and sensitive. blowfish is also reknown for their selection. happy shopping! gently, - - Eclipse np: Joy Division, Substance ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 15:45:22 -0500 (EST) From: Rob Gronotte Subject: Re: happy buy nothing day! I already only spend money about twice a week - once for groceries and once for going to a live music show. You can call it a social protest if you like, but I like to call it being poor! Rob > Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 17:00:30 -0800 (PST) > From: Capuchin > Subject: Re: happy buy nothing day! > > On Tue, 28 Nov 2000, Rob Gronotte wrote: > > On the more serious side, I don't see how a buy nothing day would make > > any difference if those who participated just made up for it by > > purhcasing more late on in the month. If you're gonna go for > > anti-consumerism, I say go whole hog and buy nothing not absolutely > > neccessary, or at least boycott Xmas gifts completely, I would repect > > that more. > > Try to spend a "buy nothing day". > > Pick a day at some point in the future (so far, in fact, that you don't > know what your plans will be for that day) and say "I will buy nothing on > this day." > > Now stick to it. > > For most of us, certainly the more urbanly situated (is there a better > word for that? Would just "urban" do?) among us would find ourselves in a > bit of an inconvenient spot at some point on that day. Our dependence on > purchasing and high availability of consumer goods, cheap, readily > available food, etc. is higher than we usually notice. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 13:14:40 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Annie shot me in a milk bath on 11/29/00 11:24 AM, GSS at gshell@metronet.com wrote: > I have been > hiking on numerous occasions with folks and their $700 Sony Matica or > whatever the hell they are called and sometimes they get frustrated with > me having to setup my tripod, if I have one and I usually do, and take > some good shots, until we get home and compare pictures. They rush home, > dump the data to a PC and start sending gifs to friends. I rush home, > develop the negatives and then start making enlargements. The difference > is dramatic. That's a fantastic story. I too used to be really into photography; had the AE-1, my own darkroom and everything. These days I just don't care that much about the artsy side of recording my travels and experiences, and if I may get back to the original intent of this thread, I don't think many people who are shopping for a camera think they're the second coming of Ansel Adams. And if your friends are transforming their images into GIF's, they deserve what they get. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:42:14 -0500 From: "brian nupp" Subject: Re: eb all over the world >From: Asshole Motherfucker > >and i FINALLY got my mits on a copy of THE DAY THEY ATE BRICK -- >even after marc holden (who already *has* his own copy) tried to >outbid me. it is a happy day in fegville! > So you're reginald1. Ha! Good job on getting that one. I was gonna bid on that too, but I'm sure it's found a worthy home. I really wish I would've bid on the "Which of us is me/Salamander" 7inch. If anybody has a copy of this one for sale let me know! I finally got and read the Goldmine issue featuring Robyn Hitchcock. I couldn't believe all the typos! Gravy Decoy? Come on! It was a good article though... Nuppy _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:03:27 -0500 (CDT) From: GSS Subject: Re: Annie shot me in a milk bath On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Tom Clark wrote: > That's a fantastic story. I too used to be really into photography; had the > AE-1, my own darkroom and everything. These days I just don't care that > much about the artsy side of recording my travels and experiences, and if I > may get back to the original intent of this thread, I don't think many > people who are shopping for a camera think they're the second coming of > Ansel Adams. True, but that wasn't my point. If you want good pictures, use an SLR. If you just want pictures, use a Matica. That was my point. Heck, we could argue continually about analog vs digital, but I will still recommend to anyone to get a fully automatic SLR with manual options over any digital camera. I would also recommend an analog tape studio with tube pre-amps and compressors instead of a digital house of horrors running ADAT, 8mm tapes or hardrive recorders. > And if your friends are transforming their images into GIF's, they deserve > what they get. ok, sorry. used to be gifs, now jpgs. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 11:07:31 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Re: Buy nothing/Lennon tributes >Pick a day at some point in the future (so far, in fact, that you don't >know what your plans will be for that day) and say "I will buy nothing on >this day." > >Now stick to it. > >For most of us, certainly the more urbanly situated (is there a better >word for that? Would just "urban" do?) among us would find ourselves in a >bit of an inconvenient spot at some point on that day. Our dependence on >purchasing and high availability of consumer goods, cheap, readily >available food, etc. is higher than we usually notice. um... I'd say I do this once or twice per week on average. That is, if you discount food bought earlier, and usage of utilities like power, phone, ISP services, etc. >Now spend a "throw nothing away day" and see what happens. > >This includes not using anything that is thrown away or opening any >disposable packages. much harder. Re: LEnnon tributes, there's a whole category of them that is completely untouched (and which don't fall into your categories, but I thought I'd just increase the thread, y'know...) - songs written by JL and recorded by others in tribute shortly after his death. The most obvious of these is Roxy Music's cover of Jealous Guy. >Also--what about the whole >interelation of Dylan and Lennon? In this month's Q theres a big blurb on >that. How Norwegian Wood was Lennon doing Dylan and making it his own, and >then Dylan did 4th Time Around("I never asked for your crutch, now dont ask >for mine" love that line)to make it his own. Has Dylan done anything >Lennon-relevant since Lennon's death? have a listen to the Lennon boxed set's "Serve yourself" to find out that the two didn't always see eye to eye... ISTR that it was Dylan who introduced the Beatles to some type of drug, but can't remember which one it was... James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- You talk to me as if from a distance -.-=-.- And I reply with impressions chosen from another time =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 14:17:46 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Excitations (two different ones) Gosh, maybe it's because I'm the blushing ingenue of the list, but I'm surprised at how easily a few of you could toss out the names of premier vibrator websites. I certainly wouldn't have known where to look. :) I'm seeing Rufus Wainwright at the dreaded Largo tonight -- the first time I've seen him in awhile. I'm *aching* to hear the new songs! You can't trust publicists, of course, but a DreamWorks gent (who said he's a "huge fan") tells me the new album is even better than the debut. I've been a bit worried about Wainwright's recent interest in simpler, guitar-based songs, but the one album track I've heard certainly didn't change his instrumental emphasis.... Meanwhile, Amy Correia is opening for Keb'Mo elsewhere in town, tonight. Ah, well. Maybe if I had opted for the second Rufus show (at 11 pm), I could've seen both artists. But, whatever. I just hope I don't hear the late Rufus show ended up lasting three hours with cameos from Correia, Nelly Furtado, Victoria Williams, Elliott Smith, E., Robyn and Beck. ;) Speaking of masturbation, this site made me laugh: http://www.geocities.com/undergroundoutlaws/jo.html Speaking of URLs, this is a really excellent (if "controversial") personal-reviews site, though it's totally fixated on classic rock: http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm Eb, slipping his ponytail-snippers into his pocket for tonight ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 15:10:32 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: BusterCretin Productions On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 BLATZMAN@aol.com wrote: > > Oh really? is it really that easy to turn a profit? Are you saying that > because of video and other secondary markets, that it is impossible for 6th > Day to lose money? For that matter, is it possible for any blockbuster to > lose money? After all, there is all that Blockbuster Video money pouring > in...In that case, why whouldn't everybody make films? Hell, if it's that > easy to make your money back I know about 50 people who could go to work > tomorrow on a film. Hey buddy, there is no risk!!!! It will all come back > eventually!!! I'm saying exactly that. If you are a member of the MPAA and capable of spending several million dollars on promotion. Most filmmakers are not. We're talking about an agency that has coerced its back-patting arm, AMPAS, to disqualify for their awards any film originally released over the internet. The idea is to make sure that independent, inexpensive productions are not recognized as superior products artistically. > Where do you get you information? If everyone finds out how easy and safe it > is to make films, everyone will do it!!!! That's why there's an exclusive and exclusionary cartel in the business: because it's a clear raquet and profit is easy and huge. It's like any other cartel out there, drug dealing, lotteries (running numbers), and gambling. The money is huge and easy so there must be a small group of people controlling the industry and keeping everyone else out so as not to spoil the pool. > I stated that the the Theaters are compensated accordingly. Your response > was "I wonder if you believe this shit." > Yes, I do believe this shit. You also stated that the studios were at risk. That's the shit I really didn't think an informed person could believe. > I'm not sure how distribution fees are recovered, but are you saying > that theaters pay for Prints and advertising? Prints are usually paid for by the distributor (often an arm of the studio, but not always). Courier charges are passed on to the theater owners to ship the prints safely and securely. Because the film has not yet been published (it is being licensed to the theater and you are purchasing a viewing license in the theater, that's why they can restrict what you do when you view... like using a video camera, etc.) there is really no copyright on the work (regardless of the bogus notice at the end of the movie) and so the people who carry the print from theater to theater are often specially bonded to prevent the theft or misappropriation of the prints. All of this status changes as soon as a print is SOLD to someone, just so you know. Then we get into PUBLICATION and the rights and responsibilities involved therein. The MPAA is working very hard to reverse the idea that they ever have to SELL copies of their work. The idea now is that you're just buying a DVD disc and you aren't actually buying a copy of the movie for your own use as you see fit (as you would, say, a copy of a book or even a video casette). You are simply licensing a copy and they can control what you do with that copy. This is contrary to the whole idea of publications and without publication, you get no copyright. As for advertising, in many cases it is paid by the studio, yes. But in the case of advertising on video casette or some other media, the trailers are considered "works" of the studio and must be licensed by the group wishing to display the trailer. This is also bullshit, but of an entirely different kind. > That is, after all, Distribution. I seriously doubt theaters pay for > the prints, but since you know everything maybe you can clarify. I hope I have. > And what do you mean theater owners pay for every ass in every seat? > They get cash in hand before people enter the theater. Hardly a risk > there. They aren't paying for the people in the seats. The people > have paid to be there, and the Exhibitor is rightfully required to > hand over the majority of that money to the people who drew the crowd > in the first place. The fees paid by the theater owner often include (depending on the number of people viewing and the license for the particular film) the ENTIRE ticket proceeds for a given showing of a film. In addition, some films are released with licenses that force theaters to fill a certain percentage of their available screens with a given flick thus reducing the choices offered to customers by locking out other competing films. These licenses are usually made with the distributor without foreknowledge of what films they will be forced to put into their largest theaters for a particular number of weeks as a prerequisite of doing business with the distributor at all. > Once again, I said Exhibitors are compensated acordingly. Lets play a > game for fun, since you seem to be barrels of fun. I'll be a studio. > Call me BusterCretin Productions. You'll be an exhibitor. I'll call > you Shithead theaters. I'm making a film called Pearl Harbor for > Summer 2001. Budget for production is 145 million. Lets say that > Prints and Advertising are going to cost me another 50 million (I plan > to release this film wider than any other film in history...) > > I have 195 million of my money invested in a product. Many people's careers > are on the line. You really think there's a career on the line? Maybe a studio exec will have a harder time greenlighting his next two high-medium budget flicks, but that's about it. Was Costner's career over with Waterworld? Then how the hell did he make The Postman? And why did he get cast in For The Love Of The Game? Do you really think ONE failed picture is going to hurt Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, or Ben Affleck? Absolutely not. > This film is a huge risk for all involved. If this film tanks, > BusterCretin Prods could lose millions and millions. So BusterCretin Productions does everything it can to prevent the film from tanking. That means making it their gauranteed blockbuster for next year. Media blitzing a year in advance, distribution deals that require it to sit in a certain number of the highest quality theaters for a certain number of weeks (crunching the numbers to gaurantee a certain minimum gauranteed return) and you pay this or that person's US$10M or US$20M salary because they statistically put X number of butts in seats per theater regardless of the schlock their in. Then there's tie-in deals where Nipp-O's gives you a few million to put your picture on their cereal boxes and you ramp up T-shirt production for US$.18 per and sell them for five dollars apiece to people who shop at Wal-Mart and just need something to cover themselves at the lowest possible price. Then you print a hack novelization. And then you trademark the name Pearl Harbor even though it's widely associated with a real place and most notably with a particularly mythological event in history so you can sue everyone that uses that name on a toy or model or recreation... that's good for a few bucks. And as extra gaurantee, you make backroom deals with the five or six other studios that can possibly produce a film of that magnitude and you arrange it so that you get that three-day weekend in May all to yourself in exchange for releasing nothing on Labor Day for one guy and Independence Day for the other. And after all that, as I said, if the film doesn't do too well at the box office, you print up a million videos and sell them for US$100 apiece. You'll sell a million in due time. > What do you think you should be compensated? After all, if the film > is a bust you can usher it out of theaters and make way for Mission > Impossible 17. Actually, I (as the theater owner) can't... because I agreed with the distributor's requirement four years ago to say that I had to take five "Special" films each year and Pearl Harbor is one of them and I have to pay HEAPS to get it out of my cinema (and maybe never get to show a flick from one of the six or seven studios that produce ALL of the films I show in a given year again). > And just think, if it's successful, you get to ride the gravy train > for weeks. If it's successful, it will make you a ton of money cause > you know your profit sharing increases with the life of the film. Why do you think the theater owners share profits on the film for its entire life? Understand that the life of the film for YOU (the studio) is about 1000 times longer than the life for me (the theater owner) and perhaps longer. I get a tiny piece of the tickets IF the film does well. Maybe more people come to my theater and maybe not. If I'm smart, I arrange my films and showtimes and theaters in such a way that the number of people coming to my theaters is pretty much dictated by season and weather because I have a wide selection and am not dependent on the success of any particular film outside of the "special" distribution contracts. I do this so that I know what my expected earnings are going to be and only the distribution of what movie people are seeing changes, not the number of people flowing in and out as a whole. > So if it has legs, and baby, Pearl Harbor will have legs, you'll get > your stinking cash. Yeah, Pearl Harbor will "have legs". And we all know this even after seeing one trailer that showed us a few special effects and a few soft focus pictures of folks the entertainment media would have us believe are great lays. > Secondary markets bring in money to the studios. Of course. But > generally they can't make up for disasterous theatrical releases. > There will always be Austin Powers, Bill & Teds, etc, films that > really take off on video. But what about Red Planet? 75 Million > Production. 25 Million prints and Advetising. It's grossed less than > 14 Million theatrically. But hey, Hakuna Matata! You've got 75 > million to make up. No problem baby!!! Just wait till video and the > gravy will roll in!!!!! Let's see, Red Planet is a big studio picture. Hollywood and Blockbuster will put at LEAST twenty copies in each of their stores. That's 1800 Hollywood stores and 4800 Blockbusters. Quick math: 20 copies per major chain store 6600 major chain stores 132,000 copies guaranteed sold @$200 (Really this number is like $189 unless they price it for retail, which they'd do if they'd already made their money back on the theatrical release... but let's assume they didn't) US$26.4M for the video release without even CONSIDERING video stores that aren't Hollywood or Blockbuster. So let's say we have a VERY disappointing theatrical run of about US$60M (with the number of theaters their forcing this thing into and the weekend of its release and the number of weeks it's being forced to run, I think that's a bare minimum) and promotion deals (with poor sales) of about US$15M and then JUST a Hollywood and Blockbuster video release of US$25M. So that puts us at US$100M. So you're at least half of the way to breaking even without any real popular support. And you've only been released long enough to go from theaters to video stores. You've got 100 more years of copyright to keep other people from making money on your flick. Oh, and you haven't gone outside the US yet. Tell me you're not eventually going to turn a profit. Even on a US$180M piece of garbage. You are a major studio with heavy weight to throw around. You don't lose money in the long run. > Your words are super duper encouraging to me. I am editing a feature > film right now. We have about $100,000 into the piece. I'm going to > tell our investors not to worry cause you said they'll all get their > money back eventually anyway!!! They'll be soo exctited!!! Oh, are you a member of the MPAA and is your film backed by the major studios? Because otherwise, you're getting nowhere. Perhaps a distributor will pick up your film and send it around to some art houses... that might only end up netting a cost to you of five or six thousand US dollars. And then you might want to save a few thousand for printing up videos that won't be sold. In the end, your investors should only be out about US$110,000 down. You're assuming a fair playing field, Blatz. We don't have one. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #347 *******************************