That time of year again: DVD Screeners Debate
Jacob over at Yankee Fog has a fascinating entry on the DVD screeners distributed by the studios for the BAFTA awards in the UK. He provides pretty strong evidence that people who do not distribute screeners (ostensibly to prevent piracy) and those who use overbearing watermarking techniques suffer in awards voting:
Let’s take a look at the strange case of Hero versus House of Flying Daggers. The films were made several years apart, but thanks to their British release schedules, they were both eligible for this year’s BAFTAs. Both films were fantastic, but I think most people would agree with me that Hero was the better of the two. Yet after the first round of voting, House of Flying Daggers ended up shortlisted in 13 categories, including Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress--all categories that Hero was left out of. In fact, Hero was shortlisted in only 6 categories. And after the second round of voting, House of Flying Daggers ended up with 9 nominations, and Hero was left without any. Meanwhile, Million Dollar Baby--one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year--was shortlisted in only two categories, and ended up without a single BAFTA nomination.
How do I explain this mystery? By pointing out that BAFTA members received screener DVDs of House of Flying Daggers, and not of Hero or Million Dollar Baby. If people don’t see your film, they can’t vote for it; it’s as simple as that. Now, I cannot and do not speak for BAFTA, and maybe my fellow voting members consider House of Flying Daggers to be a better written, directed, acted, edited, shot, scored, costumed, and set-designed film than the other two. But I don’t think so.
Ultimately Jacob comes up with a maxim that everyone in the industry should remember: as soon as you treat every single person who wants to watch your film as a potential criminal you can be sure that the film industry is on its way to suffering like the music industry…
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It’s already in trouble. Googlaplexes in Canada just dropped their ticket prices as a result of people staying away in droves.
Posted by Paperless on 01/27 at 08:53 PM
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