Quote:
1) Hire some fucking ushers. I mean, seriously. We have actually gotten to the point where the talkers and texters outnumber the real people in a movie theater. At some point the theaters owners simply ceded the auditoriums to these fuckers. Look, I know that their money is just as good as mine, but guess what: if you don't let these shitheads ruin the experience, I'll probably spend more than they do.
One of the many reasons I love the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas is that they have a stringent no talking policy, and they will kick your ass out if you break it. Read this blog entry from Alamo owner Tim League for more about that. Knowing that their movie won't be interrupted by rude people will really bring back many more folks to the theater - the kind of folks who have the money to buy high end home theater systems but would be happy to spend it at your establishment instead.
2) Hire some real fucking projectionists. This is about to become a serious issue, if the 3D fad holds up. I've been hearing stories of improperly projected 3D screenings of Avatar, and screwing that up is way more serious than misframing a print (which happens all the time. When you go to the movies and see the boom mic in every shot - that's the projectionist's fault, not the filmmaker). Once upon a time projectionists were unionized professionals; now they're often part-time morons. We need real, professional projectionists making sure that the sound and picture quality of our films are top notch. And that includes replacing dim bulbs, probably the number one source of poor movie picture quality.
3) Keep the babies out. Hey, I know this list isn't revolutionary. There is a lot of obvious stuff here, but for some reason the obvious has not yet penetrated into the minds of theater owners. So that brings us to this obvious item, which isn't saying keep all babies out all the time - just keep the kids out of R rated movies at night. I don't really care that you're scarring your four year old by bringing him to Friday the 13th, I care that my enjoyment of the film is being hampered by him screaming and screaming and screaming.
If you just need to get to the movies and aren't smart enough to figure out how to get a babysitter, go to a matinee. Theaters should make this mandatory; their systems should be incapable of spitting out child tickets to an R-rated film after 5pm.
4) Have reserved seats. When I first moved to LA I was aghast at the idea of reserved seating at the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood. Now I love it. There are a couple of reasons: one, I don't have to get to the movie theater an hour and a half early. I can go to dinner, do some shopping, fuck around in general and get to the theater last minute and still have my great seat. But even more than that, if I get a great seat at a packed screening it increases the likelihood I am sitting next to a human and not some kind of Morlock mongoloid. See, the good seats go fast for packed screenings, and the people who want good seats tend to be the kind of people who don't text through entire films. Of course some of them still do, which is why even a theater with good reserved seating needs more fucking ushers.
|
The list that Oliver posted is wonderful, thanks for that. A caveat to my "support the theater" plea is that some of them can be really painful to support. If the movie going experience is truly going to be marketed as an alternative to piracy, doing any/all of these things could be a huge boost.
I can personally attest to the joys of reserved seating. I used to live in Los Angeles and frequented the ArcLight quite a bit -- oh, what a wonderful, wonderful theater. When you bought your tickets, you were asked whether you preferred to sit in the back, middle, or front of the theater and then were presented your large tickets with your seat row and number printed on it. Then an usher would actually show you to your seat! And then an usher would address the whole theater, introduce the movie, tell a couple jokes, and inform us that he would be monitoring the picture and sound quality throughout the movie to make sure its perfect. It was such a nice touch of civility. And I can totally see this being implemented by theater chains across the country -- most of the time I just see the ushers hanging out anyway. Why not put them to work? It's a perfect "value adding" quality that Martian was talking about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlatan
Bravo Mayor Wilson
|
Haha! That works for both my user name's origins and the fact that it sounded like I was stumping for re-election on an anti-piracy platform, hah. I swear, this is really the only topic where my soapbox comes out.