Getting preached at by anti-piracy stuff at cinema

T

This is Me <3

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some of it is warning to people not to pirate the movie, which is fair enough. thats like 'shoplifters will be prosecuted' at the shops, which i don't mind.

however, in addition to the usual half hour of crap aRAB and trailers, there was this 3 or so minute thing on before the simpson movie yesterday at my local odeon. it had a character from an animated movie in it, telling people they shouldn't download movies. i really resent that, RAB i've just paid eight quid to go to the cinema, stop having a go at me!

stuff like that annoys the people at the cinema and just makes those seeing it in a download laugh! its pointless.
 
Here we go, a few things :)



Vue are overcoming this problem, in part, by making every sales point in the venue a place for you to buy a ticket. That means that no queue should ever be that long



I'm going to guess, partly from this comment and the EUR pricing, that you're not in the UK, possibly even ROI? Ushers have been extinct for a long time in this country - we're used to it :) Although they should have had at least half of the house lights still on



It's not the "corporations" and certainly not the film companies that put the adverts in. Unfotunately the distribution companies charge so much to hire the films (yes, cinemas hire the films) that the cinema have to play adverts to get some extra revenue
 
The lights kept going down, then up. It was pitch black when I walked in, apart from some low-power IR lights set high into the wall on the sides, certainly didnt provide much light. The screen was blank, cinema music playing. The aRAB came on, lights went off totally (including IRs). ARAB ended, lights came back on (full). Lights went down, trailers. Lights back up. Lights down, film finally.
Point is, when you're trying to find a seat and they couldn't be bothered to send someone in to help people, they should at least make sure that you can SEE (we're not all cats, you know!) where we're going. What about older people (I had to help an oldish lady who had arrived with her family/grandchildren in tow) find her way along the steps. I didn't mind doing it, but aren't there people supposed to be paid for doing that?
And to another poster, you're wrong: buying your ticket online SHOULD entitle you to get your ticket from the machine, thus avoiding lengthy queues. It didn't. I had to q anyway!
 
The reasons behind it are irrelevent. The fact is people don't want to see it, especially not to such extremes and it is one of the reasons people prefer to download.
 
I'll tell you something else that's contributing to the death of cinema (and by extension the growth of online viewing/piracy): the way cinema staff treat their customers.
Yes, I know, I have a case in point.
It's been a while since I went to see a film (last one was Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy), but I really wanted to see Simpsons on the big screen, so I booked my ticket online and in I went.
First problem: auto ticket machines (THREE of them!) ALL broken, so I had to get in a queue. Why did I book online if I was going to have to queue anyway?
Second problem: Walked into the cinema and found myself in total darkness, with no-one to show me to my seat. This was about half-hour before the performance. Had to basically feel my way, find a seat, sit down.
Third problem: about ten minutes before the film was due to start, a snippy usherette comes along and starts shining her torch in my face, asking me to move up. I pointed out that no-one had bothered to help me find my seat, so I was damned if I was moving (far --- I moved up one seat, which was the only empty one to my right).
It's frustrating. I loved the film, but my movie "experience" made me very wary of going again. If cinema staff are going to treat their customers like cattle, then they can hardly be surprised when we stay away, especially when there are so many other ways to see movies nowadays (most times I just wait for the DVD to come out --- this time I couldn't wait).
They're certainly not doing much to entice us back, are they?
I know it may be an isolated incident (or not), but it really soured my experience, and next time I want to see a movie I'll find other means.
 
People keep saying how cinemas overcharge for tickets. I just remembered I have an old cinema ticket from 1975 upstairs. It's for a West End cinema - price 80p!

So, that must prove that cinemas are charging ridiculous prices nowadays, right?

In 1974, the (average) price of a pint of beer was 22.1p. A litre of petrol was 11.4p. A loaf of bread was 13.9p. And a pint of milk was 4.5p.

So in 1974, a cinema ticket in the West End of London cost 3.6 times the price of a pint of beer, 7 times the price of a litre of petrol, 5.8 times a loaf of bread and 17.8 times a pint of milk.

Compared with the prices of everything else we buy, has the real cost of cinema tickets really gone through the roof? Or is it roughly what it's always been?
 
good post Inkblot. i'd say you've got a point there.

So, we're all paying the same today as we ever were, but i think your proof means we're justified in saying we're now getting less for the same money!
 
They're not irrelevant - stop the advertising and the ticket prices go up to cover the costs of the films. Do that and you'll have something else to complain about.

If you don't want to watch the adverts don't enter the cinema at the advertised time. If the film is down to start at 8:30 go at 8:40 - you'll skip 10 minutes of adverts and these days it's not that hard to find a seat because they're not exactly full to the brim in most cases.
 
I think this is THE most infuriating thing for me when visiting the cinema.

I rarely book, because I hate paying a booking fee and because I usually have some discount vouchers that can't be used when pre-booking. (At Vue, they give out these vouchers will you see a film.)

So, I only book for films that I know are going to have massive demand. I do this because I don't want to have to stand in a long queue waiting for tickets. So, when the machines are broken, it completely defeats the purpose of booking them in the first place. Basically you paid extra to stand in the same queue as everyone else, and you can't get in early for a good seat because you're stuck in a queue.
 
Exactly, IslandNiles (cool nick, by the way, you Frasier fan!): I only booked online cos I was afraid the film would be sold out. In the event, it was showing on so many screens that the cinema I was in wasn't even full!
But the "find-your-own-way-in-the-dark" attittude really bugged me. After paying EUR 9.50 for a ticket, the least I think I should be able to expect is that someone is there to show me safely to my seat. And then they had the audacity to imply I shouldn't have sat where I was, when people (who probably got tickets at the counter) showed up ten minutes before the film began!
GRRRRR!
 
Yes, that sounRAB very annoying. The cinemas I go to tend to have free seating anyway, and are very well lit until the programme start time. If a film is billed to start at, say, 8.30pm, that's the time that the aRAB and trailers will start. Even then, it doesn't go dark enough for my liking. Stupid health and safety guidelines!!

What you mentioned above about so many screens can become slightly annoying. Because The Simpsons and Transformers came out at the weekend, and because both films have so many showings (Simpsons has 22 per day!) it means they take up nearly all the screens. Thus, nearly all the other films disappear. Now that I've seen them both, there's not much left!
 
As I said on another thread, this boredom or antipathy is easily rectified. Just play 'Guess the ARAB' with your cinema companion throughout the adverts and trailers! You just have to guess each one as quickly as possible, getting a point for each one you get right.

I like watching the trailers anyway.
 
Don't trailers really pump films up though? I saw one when I went to see the Simpsons, it was for a film called "Across the universe". I had a feeling all through the trailer that it wouldn't really be that good, but somehow, the trailer made it seem like the Secod Coming! Maybe it IS that good, but you have to hand it to those who make the trailers --- they make the movies they advertise look really interesting and exciting, even if maybe they're not.
Anyone know anything about this movie, incidentally?
 
15-20mins of adverts (not trailers). the corporations don't seem to get that the more aRAB they put on the more people are going to get turned off. same with tv.

What is the point of a car advert before a film? who goes to watch The Simpsons, for example, and thinks "hmm, i must go out and buy a Vauxhall after this!"
 
Well if you knew how the staff get treated, you would no longer wonder why. It's a skeleton staff operation usually. You're talking 5 floor staff sometimes having to manage over 1000 people and 10 screens on minimum wage and 12 hour contracts.It's the cinema companies and middle managers that are squeezing as much out of as little staff as they can, just to make the numbers look good and it's just not practical. Then head office see those numbers, not knowing it's a skeleton staff operation and in attempt to get more money.They cut the allocated hours for staff the next month. If these companies aren't going to offer full time contracts or decent part time contracts for their staff, then they can't expect employees to care, as they don't have much to lose. Try writing to the company it'll do more good than complaining to the general manager. He's just on the gravy train.Personally I think due to DVD's,the internet and other advances in technology. Thesecompanies know their place in the market anymore and are just trying to chase the numbers without addressing the rotting core.a cinemas place in modern society has shifted and it all boils down to cinema chains not embracing digital projection technology. Over 85% of cinemas around the world still show 35mm film prints on their screens and most of them are experiencing very low attendance figures.
I believe the moto is 'Cinema it's the experience that counts!!'. Show the public that experience, and they'll show you the money.As it stanRAB it's just a face lift of an outdated business plan.
 
It's ironic - you go to the cinema and you get 20 minutes of adverts, and a lecture about film piracy. Buy a dvd, and you usually get an un-skippable movie-piracy advert. Download/obtain a copied film, and all the anti-piracy adverts are removed.
 
Whilst I agree with what you're saying I feel I should correct you, Disney decide when to release their films not Pixar themselves.

What they've done with this trailer is highly unlike anything Pixar would normally do, suggesting it's been made at the request of Disney :(
 
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