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Cyberlockers, the new threat to Hollywood

The last couple of year’s statistics showed that movie piracy around the globe equaled that, or even exceeded the drug-smuggling business. Soft copy of films for screening purposes could be replicated by the thousands in a couple of hours and in the millions in just a day, using digital copying machines and DVD copiers. The piracy problem have been a bane to movie executives since its greatly decreases the sales of the movies, especially in 3rd world countries who preferred to watch movies cheaply and in the convenience of their homes than pay huge money to watch them in theaters. No concrete solution was made since the countries where film piracy thrived lacked the necessary piracy laws and law enforcement to capture these criminals. No matter what security measures the film makers create, new movies are still being copied effortlessly.

While film piracy still remained a concern, a new and even bigger problem is being faced by the movie industry, this time, it is being spawned on the net in the form of the cyberlocker feature. Simply put, the cyberlocker feature is a cheap and illegal subscription service offered to web users. For $5 a month, a user can access unlimited digital movie files. “Cyberlockers now represent the preferred method by which consumers are enjoying pirated content,” Paramount Pictures chief operating officer Fred Huntsberry said Monday. Huntsberry detailed the evolution of professional piracy methods for hundreds of European movie theater operators attending an opening-day seminar here at the four-day Cinema Expo.

Commonly, Hollywood movies are made available via illegal for-profit sites within days of theatrical release, while the advent of global releasing now allows the proliferation of individual titles into an array of language dubs within the first month of a theatrical debut, he noted. When movies are released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, the sites upgrade the quality of video offered from camcorded images to pristine digital copies. Advertising agencies often place digital ads on behalf of companies, which order the banners pulled when notified by studio reps, he added. Consumers increasingly are streaming pirated digital video directly onto living room TVs, the Paramount exec noted. But the public needs to know that with such pirated convenience comes the risk of having credit card information ripped off, and problems with spyware contamination are even more common. On a grander scale, the motion picture industry is combating the situation with country-by-country campaigns for tougher laws against video piracy. But the effort has a long way to go. As long as movie tickets remain high, movie goers will always prefer cheaper alternative in watching their favorite movies in any means possible. The only possible solution is for the movie theaters to provide more perks to the viewing public and to make watching in theaters more enjoyable than watching movies at home.

June 24, 2010 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , | Leave a Comment

Reboot of Hollywood movies still fascinates new audiences

Over the past few years, several movies of the past have been remade and or rebooted for the silver screen. With popular classics such as Batman, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Star Trek, Clash of the Titans and James Bond to name a few. Some criticized Hollywood that remakes are made because only a few new ideas are being made. Some also stated that the dying franchise of the films is being milked to its core. But for a normal film buff, remakes makes the character and the movie get better.

Visual effects have gone a long way since two decades before, making this as one of the major gratifying part of a remake and a point of discussion for film essay topics. Take for example, Star Trek, the Shatner-era relied heavily on the intrigued and storyline than visual effects. The third and fourth Batman flop made use of heavy lighting and elaborate sets that tried to impress the audiences. The slasher flicks such as that of Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees, makes their kill more believable and exciting than before with the use of advanced graphic effects today. This concept of visual technology will be tested to the limits as the remake of the Clash of the Titans draws near, with the battle between Perseus and Medusa promising to be visually stunning. Visual eye-candy relives the excitement of these classic movies and brings the characters into new generation of audiences whose visual preference is far more demanding than the older generations.

Another critical part of the remake that makes it worth watching again is the storyline. Simple boy-meets-girl is such a cliché these days and the audiences don’t buy that anymore. With James Bond, its not “what he will do next?” or “how he will do it?”, but ”why did he do it?” Casino Royale, being Daniel Craig’s debut as 007, drew the line on how a James Bond should be played directly from the novel if Ian Fleming. Cold, ruthless and carrying a traumatic past, Craig’s interpretation of Bond easily earned him as one of the two greatest Bond’s of all time, with Sean Connery always being the benchmark to measure all Bond actors to come.

Basic plots don’t have an appeal to the movie goers these days, and remakes bring the characters into a new light with more complicated plots and psychological conversations. And the two Batman remakes by Christopher Nolan easily pulled this off, by delving deep into the troubled past of the dark knight which wasn’t elaborated on the past movies. Batman begins was already great in the sense that the audiences feel with Bruce Wayne’s tragedy and sympathizes with Batman’s need to be the hands of justice. But the Dark Night proved to be more spectacular in almost every aspect of movie making. Shot in I-MAX, it was expected to be the selling point for the sequel, yet, what captured the audience was the concept of anarchy that was beautifully inculcated into the entire duration of the film.

Audiences today are hard to please, but with the remakes being done all the more better, then those who had seen these movies before always have to expect the unexpected, to see their favorite characters in a whole new light and attitude.

June 15, 2010 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

   

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