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?"
Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:4, Funny)
"If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:4, Funny)
I didn't realize they were remaking The Abyss. Still not enough to get me to go back to the theater, though.
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even more reason to wait for the dvd (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:even more reason to wait for the dvd (Score:4, Insightful)
There are still movie theaters? I stopped going long ago. From all the people talking on their cellphones and talking to one another during the movie, to sticky floors and sitting on someone's old dirty popcorn etc., I'd much rather watch at home, I have a decent screen and sound system, I can pause whenever I want, watch whenever I want, I can rewind if I accidentally missed something or stopped concentrating, and I don't even have to get my ass out my chair and get dressed and sit in traffic etc. Not to mention the prices, and the overpriced snacks and limited snack choices. Perhaps if I cared about being more social and wasn't basically a hermit it would be a different story.
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.
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Re:even more reason to wait for the dvd (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:even more reason to wait for the dvd (Score:4, Funny)
Portable girls are the best. The larger units that just sit there on the couch are nowhere near as convenient as the ones you can bring with you.
Then again, the couchtop units are easier to get away from when you need to.
The bigger problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger problem we're facing with corporate practices like this is that, when the revolution comes, we won't have a wall big enough to put all these marketing departments against. We should really start to prioritize who will be first, and who goes second, third, etc.
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The bigger problem we're facing with corporate practices like this is that, when the revolution comes, we won't have a wall big enough to put all these marketing departments against. We should really start to prioritize who will be first, and who goes second, third, etc.
There's an app for that. Unfortunately, it's patented.
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So the patent lawyers go up against the wall first, problem solved.
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No, the biggest problem is that you will be so heavily monitored by both corporate and government interests (often using the same gear) that you could never hope to get a revolution off the ground.
You can't revolt against Bog Brother, because they watch your every move. Welcome to the dystopian future of a full-time surveillanc
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You can't revolt against Bog Brother
Bog Brother: Swamp Thing's lesser known brother.
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Oh god, I can't believe I made that typo. That's freakin' hilarious.
Or, maybe it's like that Senator in the mens room at the airport? ;-)
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"Only way to be sure..." and all that.
Re:The bigger problem (Score:5, Funny)
So it's time to start building a bigger wall.
They have one in China. They had a revolution too.
Think of the positives! (Score:5, Funny)
Finally! (Score:2)
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Uh...what? (Score:2)
Things tend to be locked down fairly tight around here (Montgomery County, MD)...but I've NEVER encountered anything like this while going to the movies. Sure, I've seen people walk in during opening night to make sure no one is taping the damn thing, but you don't have to go through a security checkpoint or any of that nonsense.
Has anyone?
Re:Uh...what? (Score:5, Funny)
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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 :/
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Things tend to be locked down fairly tight around here (Montgomery County, MD)...but I've NEVER encountered anything like this while going to the movies. Sure, I've seen people walk in during opening night to make sure no one is taping the damn thing, but you don't have to go through a security checkpoint or any of that nonsense.
Has anyone?
At a recent Tron preview, a friend said they had to fork over all recording devices and cell phones into a coat-check room.
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Fourth wall (Score:2)
The people watching the movie...are the movie. It's reality TV, taken to the next level. How many seats will the fat guy in Row 7 take? The tall guy in Row 4...will the 11-year-old in Row 5 be able to see over his head? What about the teenagers in the back...will they make it to second base? Is the projectionist smoking weed? It's a totally new, totally immersive film experience, connecting with the audience on an entirely new level. It's just like being there. Because, well, you are there.
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i'll wait for the book.
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It's a blank journal and you have to write it yourself.
Monitor which ads get the best reaction? (Score:5, Funny)
Hint: We don't enjoy the adverts, especially after paying almost $12 for a ticket. Perhaps if the whole audience gives the camera the finger through all of the ads, they will get the message?
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:That won't be on the evaluation form. (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Elections usually run on the same principle. Why should marketing surveys be any different?
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I have never beaten my wife.
"Which of these adverts did you enjoy the most?"
I did not enjoy any of the adverts.
Whoa, really had me on the ropes with that one!
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What are they looking for? (Score:2)
Are they looking for people dropping litter, those with large hats blocking the view from those behind them. Or maybe they are just voyeuristic and want to watch the activities of couples in the back row.
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The cinema is actually the only place that I'm happy to leave litter.. I know people are going to come and clean up the place anyway, so why not leave my empty bottle there? Just like I don't clean my own dishes from the table at a restaurant.
Considering the price of cinema tickets, they should also have sanitised adapters at every seat where you can relieve yourself so as to not miss anything. Maybe I should get two in one and just use my drinks receptacle next time.
Those bastards (Score:3, Funny)
Just wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Just wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
There are typically signs that say that there are cameras. Indeed, in the Wallgreens down the road, there is a TV monitor facing the doors as you walk in just to say "Yes, if you shoplift, we've got tape"
This? This isn't about shoplifting. There are also no signs or any indication that this is going on.
That's the difference.
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BMO
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And those security tapes are usually rotated rather than archived, sold, distributed, analyzed, etc.
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Indie theaters is where it's at.
Fresh baked goods. Good coffee. Couches. No fucking cameras.
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BMO
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Re:Just wrong, wear a mask? (Score:2)
Well if the movie was "Rocky Horror" then the audience wearing masks would be expected!
Re:Just wrong (Score:4, Informative)
This is a gross invasion of privacy - I would expect to be informed of any recording at the time I purchase the ticket, who was making the recording and to what purpose they were being used.
That's the law in Illinois. Any theater owner who implimented this here would be committing a felony unless signs were posted.
No problem ! (Score:2)
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*).
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There is a huge difference. You didn't digitally record the audience for all posterity. The information on those screenings is lost forever.The recordings from this company's product will be kept forever.
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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
Wear a Mask! (Score:3, Funny)
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
That AND the cost. I'll stay at home thanks (Score:5, Informative)
I know price has already been mentioned but my wife and I went to the cinema last week. Everywhere signs about the right of the cinema to search bags etc. That was bad enough, but once we had been vetted for snacks, we purchased some. By the time we had some snacks (Nachos, popcorn and 2 colas), and the cinema tickets, we had spent about $70.
I think in future, I will just stay home. Treated like crap and ripped off, and now VIDEOD like a common thief. No thanks. It's almost like they are trying to make me pirate stuff so they can sue me ;)
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It's private property with an absurd EULA. In all likelihood, they do.
Welcome to a world where the rights of copyright holders place them on par with law enforcement. Did you miss the memo?
Re:That AND the cost. I'll stay at home thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
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No, but saying that if they continue to stay on the premises after they've read the sign and had an opportunity to ponder it means that they've accepted the terms of the contract. Then you punch them in the face. ;-)
According to them (and I really have no idea of what case law in most places says about this) if you choose to stay on the premises, you are subject to search. I
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Re:That AND the cost. I'll stay at home thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
You have no right to access private property on terms other than those of the property owner. If the property owner wants all bags searched, you comply or piss off. That's how trespass law works. It's not a right to search bags, it's a condition for entry. You don't want to meet that condition, the property owner has the right to deny you entry. The end.
I am not a lawyer and the previous should not be construed as legal advice.
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If you're buying all the extra snacks you have nobody to blame but yourself for the reason you spent so much to go to the theater! Have dinner before the movie, or something. Now it should cost (hopefully) only $20 at most for two people. Problem solved.
How reliable is that figure of $70? (Score:3, Informative)
Tickets at IMAX near my house are $17.50 each. You don't say what you saw, but let's just use that price. Two ticket at $17.50 is $35 in total. So we are supposed to believe that you spent about $35 on 2 cokes, nachos and popcorn? No way Jose.
can't keep making excuses for poor sales (Score:2)
Yawn (Score:2)
Great Way To Kill Movie Theaters (Score:2)
Poor quality movies, high ticket prices, home theaters and television commercials shown in the theater have been killing movie theaters. Now they want to spy on you too. Another nail in the coffin.
They need to ask themselves, if they were a patron, what would be their motivation to go to a movie versus staying home.
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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 c
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Word.
I might go to a mainstream theater once a year for a super special movie like an Avatar or some other huge movie event.
Otherwise it is alternative movie theaters or DVDs at home for me.
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.
What, you mean Microsoft Kinect? (Score:2)
I mean, how long can it take before clippy lets us know that we might be in the market for a new couch, or in need of a pizza?
This killer meme brought to you by the rally to restore FEAR.
So what? (Score:2)
So what? Pretty much every business establishment that you go into is going to be monitoring you with cameras. They own the place, and they can do as they please. I really don't care why they watch, whether it be for security, loss prevention, marketing, or simply to get off on watching hot chicks (though I hope the latter group would get fired for not doing their job). As long as they keep the cameras out of the bathrooms and dressing rooms (which are probably the only places you should have any expectatio
use the cameras to identify the A-HOLES (Score:5, Insightful)
Options (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
There's a viable alternative (Score:3, Insightful)
Chauncy Gardiner (Score:2)
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.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Girl to Bond: "Nice watch".
Bond: "Omega"
Girl: (breathes) "...beautiful"
In the UK, film critic Mark Kermode let a successful campaign to have audiences shout "KERCHING!" at this point when watching the film. More of this kind of thing is required.
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In the UK, film critic Mark Kermode let a successful campaign to have audiences shout "KERCHING!" at this point when watching the film. More of this kind of thing is required.
Does Mark lead a campaign whenever a movie has characters drinking or using other drugs? Cigarettes are the easy bad to pick. As an ex-smoke, I do admit they are bad and stupid. The attacks on it, though, are disproportionate to the other drugs out there.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how good or bad the items being advertised are, I don't want my attention distracted from the story the film is telling.
Basically, as long as the characters don't "advertise", I think the public is fine with it.
For example, if Q says to Bond, "now, let me tell you about the 'additions' to the BMW Z3...", and that's the only mention of the make or model of the car in the movie, it's probably OK. But if Bond were constantly asking people if they "want a ride in my BMW", it'd be too much (like the mentioned Omega watch example).
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But if you're buying/renting the DVD, you're not following your own advice.
BTW, most of the time, one or more of the following will work on DVDs: menu button; top menu button; chapter skip button [likely multiple times]; stop then play. Except for rarely the MPAA warning (even then I can oft
Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
And Bond wore a Rolex Submariner traditionally
I suppose it's how you define "traditionally." OO7 hasn't worn a Rolex since 1973's "Live and Let Die." In fact, aside from the early Connery films Bond has usually *not* worn a Rolex.
Hence "traditionally" all other Bonds other than Connery are pretenders to the throne.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
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Implicit in that statement is the silly idea that the government and the corporations are separate entities.
Implicit in that statement is gross oversimplification of the complex relationship between corporations and government. It makes for an easy slogan, but isn't helpful beyond that.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I don't fly because of the TSA, I guess the movie theater owners down't want my money any more than the airline industry.
Stupid cowardly people...
Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to go to theaters almost every week. But past 5 years, it's just once or twice. Getting a nice projector and having patience for DVD/BD release works for me.
And I can drink beer from bottle straight up.
My problem was not (just) theater owners, it had more to do with mobile loving teens.
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There was a theater in Orlando in the early '80s that was a bar/theater where you could drink beer while watching. But I have yet to find a theater that you can pass a fattie around in while watching a comedy.
If you're stoned anough, even Jar Jar is amusing.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Stop spreading your filthy lies!
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I have a fond memory from 1977 of witnessing this at a midnight showing of The Song Remains the Same at the now closed North Town 6 theater in Dallas. Everyone brought their own bottles of booze as well. No police busting people, the theater owners were happy to be filling seats, and the customers had a good time.
Of course, that kind of fun and freedom is now just a distant memory.
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I was in college at SIU that year, and they had the Mississippi River Festival; a different big name act every night, close enough to hear from the balcony (I was married and we were in on-campus housing).
Alcohol wasn't allowed, so people would bring coolers of beer and have to leave the beer. There were mountainous piles of full six packs outside the gate, so we'd sit outside and drink beer and smoke dope and listen to the music.
The next morning we'd go down to the audience area before the cleanup crews ca
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I never understood, whey you can drink huge amounts of sugar drinks in US cinemas but not a decent beer (if you get a decent beer in that part of the US - but I digress) as you can do it in most European cinemas. Poor Americans!
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Of course, I can do that at home too, but you know what I mean.
Don't worry, we'll be looking into that little loophole soon enough.
Love,
Your Nanny-State Govt.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, mcgrew, but you are an old coot. Old coots have the privilege of being able to say crazy things like "I won't fly on no gol-durned airplane no more because the security people want to look at my wiener" or "I don't go to movies because they are watching me." I'm actually looking forward to my coot-hood. I'm going to believe in something really crazy, like the basic decency of human nature, or the perfectibility of mankind or something like that.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Yo dawg, we heard you like to watch movies, so we put you in a movie so you can watch yourself watching a movie while you watch a movie!
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Who goes to a cinema anymore?
My wife and I do.
The last time we went was three weeks ago -- tickets were $8 each. The theater we went to serves beer, and they had a special on one of them -- I guess they were trying to finish off the keg -- $2 for a beer.
Went again two weeks ago, no special on the beer, so that was $5 this time, but tickets were still $8.
Yeah, we could wait for the DVD, but by the time it's out on DVD I've probably already forgotten about it. Getting out of the house can be a good thing -- it's definitely an impulse thi