Prepare To Be Watched While You Watch a Movie 433
BussyB writes "Gaining entry to some movie theaters lately gives patrons an experience that is on par with going through a TSA security checkpoint at the airport. Then once you've gained access, there are cameras strategically positioned that record your every move. Unfortunately, the extent to which these companies monitor movie-goers is only going to get worse."
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only, this time it's "Who watches the watchers?"
Nothing kney; In 1995... (Score:5, Interesting)
The buena vista hit squad (as we called ourselves) was nothing new when I joined up.
Fast forward to my weekend job as second shift manager of a movie theater while I was in college (1999) we had 2 "crowd cameras" at every screen, you could see the entire audience the whole time the movie was going, we used it to bust people who decided that the movie theater was an apropriate place to have sex (including some employees after hours *eyeroll*).
Re:Heh (Score:4, Interesting)
Did anyone else catch the giant cigarette advertisement in the last James Bond? It was right after he had sex with the blonde, what a hero.
That won't be on the evaluation form. (Score:5, Interesting)
Marketing surveys suffer from remarkably selective attention; sort of like asking "When did you stop beating your wife?" reveals a certain prejudice.
Instead of noticing that we loathe any and all of the ads, they are going to ask: "Which one did you enjoy the most?"
This assumes that we enjoyed any of the ads.
We don't, but that's not what they're measuring is it...
Re:Heh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:even more reason to wait for the dvd (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Uh...what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a couple of days ago I was watching a movie, and an attendant came in with what must have been a night vision camera and scanned the room with it :/
all this to stop "The Hussleman" (Score:3, Interesting)
Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
Literally NONE of my friends go to the movies anymore. They all have Netflix accounts and Blu-Ray players and big screens.
Movie theaters will essentially disappear within 10 years. I would say it's their own damn fault, but really, they simply had no chance once home theater technology got good enough and cheap enough.
Re:That AND the cost. I'll stay at home thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wear a Mask! (Score:5, Interesting)
Forget the mask - have a baseball cap covered in IR LEDs.
That should mask your face from their cameras
Re:Great Way To Kill Movie Theaters (Score:3, Interesting)
You forgot the theater's refusal to ever set the volume to an appropriate level. Proper sound levels doesn't have a screen whisper so loud that I'm wincing because it is above my comfortable threshold for volume. I gave up on theaters years ago. I don't have a huge screen, but I have a more comfortable chair, I have a sound system that I can set to the right volume, and I can pause if someone needs to get up for any reason.
There are more important things to me than a screen that is so large I can't see completely.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think we have as many camera's as parts of Europe.
London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-tens-of-thousands-of-cctv-cameras-yet-80-of-crime-unsolved.do
I think I prefer surveillance by corporations since I know what their goal is. Government's goals changes every 2 to 4 years in the US.
Re:That AND the cost. I'll stay at home thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:even more reason to wait for the dvd (Score:5, Interesting)
Go to a theater that doesn't suck. I've seen security at an Alamo Drafthouse franchise remove cellphone yappers quite quickly. Then find something decent on the menu and your beverage of choice and kick back. If you have to go use the restroom, there is plenty of space to duck under the table and go down the aisle.
Going to the Alamo is a nice change from the neighborhood watering hole.
Re:Heh (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Those bastards (Score:2, Interesting)
back in 2005, I drove 2 hours to get to a water park while visiting the states with some friends. we had a plastic bag with a couple water bottles and a pound or two of grapes. unaware that if we wanted some damn grapes we'd have to smuggle them in, we happily declared them... without saying a word, the bag checker dumped it all in a garbage bin and handed the plastic bag back to me...
my buddy tore the guy a couple new holes, and we ended up getting 10 bucks from the guy to go away.
AFTER we paid admission and got to stand around in a line for 10 minutes, some chubby security guards came and asked us to leave the park.. when we demanded a refund they regurgitated some shitty policy about not giving refunds to "unruly patrons"..
still having the stamps on our hands, we just went through a different entrance and got a couple hours out of the place before driving back.
Simple and obvious reaction (Score:3, Interesting)
Today when you walk into a retail store you can pretty much be assured that if there are 20 other people in the store that one of them is there to steal something. Large stores try for 3% shrinkage and some achieve it - others are experiencing as much as 5%. That is 5% of total inventory. You might guess that a $20 DVD is easier to steal than a $2000 big-screen TV.
So stores employ security guards and put in surveillance systems to try to stop people from stealing. It doesn't work all that well and people are offended by being treated as if they are there to steal. But as many as 10% of the customers walking in the store are there to steal.
Do some searching and you will discover that when a movie is released there are "cam" versions of it available for download the very first day. In multiple languages. This means that the first day the movie came out there were multiple people taping the movie. It is now a fact of life that this happens. The theaters are pretty much on the verge of realizing they are utterly obsolete and like drive-in movie theaters of the past, the land is worth more than the theater is.
While a "cam" is certainly the worst possible way to watch a movie, it is the alternative of choice because it is first - you can't download the DVD for months after the release in the theater. Theaters are participating in their own destruction with every "cam" release on the Internet and they understand this. Like the store security guards, cameras and security systems this is an ineffectual attempt at staying in business. Stores cannot exist with a 5% shrinkage rate - or more bluntly if 5% of the store's inventory value is stolen the store will simply close.
Amazon probably doesn't have 5% shrinkage. Best Buy is trying for 3% and achieving it in a lot of stores.
I rarely go to movies with more than 20 people in the whole theater. Theaters can't continue to exist like that and will absolutely be closing. I think I would be surprised if there is a single one left in the US in 10 years.
Re:That won't be on the evaluation form. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing kney; In 1995... (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to check theaters back in the 80s, for an outfit that had contracts to verify audience numbers, etc. I had the rare privilege of checking the only room in North America that showed the opening night of Empire Strikes Back and did not sell out according to the sales they reported to the studio. This is fraud. Today, the ticketing systems are too regimented to be cheated on, and checkers are very very rare indeed.
I did not ever see recording equipment, but I did count those who jumped from one room to another, and those who entered after leaving another show. Rules were rules. It was fun, and I got to hang out and even learned to run projectors.
This leaves me with no patience for exhibitors that don't set or check focus, can't get the screen framed right, and hack up their tape with the worst splices possible. I think sometimes the workers compete to see who can insert subliminal messages to kill your children in the splices. Or is it just dragging it across your Alapca sweater? Retards. Try using something other than super glue as a cleaner, eh?
Re:Heh (Score:2, Interesting)
Implicit in that statement is the silly idea that the government and the corporations are separate entities. Where have you been for the last few decades?
Government and corporations are surely separate entities, at least at any given moment. But they cooperate intimately in order to fulfill their respective goals, power for government and wealth for corporations. They're a team, tightly knit, well practiced, interdependent, sharing information and people. Separately and together, they have long and hallowed traditions which have brought tremendous success. We the People are the raw material. Government and large business working together are the process. Wealth and power for select individuals is the final product. Such are the ways of the world. Always have been.