Dr. Film – Page 2 – Dr. Film’s Blog & Marketplace

Why I’m Just Mean

Many years ago, a friend of mine disciplined his 5-year-old girl. She reacted with disgust at not being able to do whatever she had put her mind to doing. As one might expect with a 5-year-old, tears were immediately forthcoming and she burst out with a loud pronouncement: “You’re just mean!”

I thought of that again the other day when I got involved in an argument on archive.org. It was only a third-hand argument, and, frankly, I can’t do anything about it, but it points up a problem that I keep encountering, and it’s one that makes me “just mean.”

I’ve long hated the kind of collector who collects things just so other people can’t have them. I particularly believe that film is an art form that depends on being served up socially, and someone who squirrels away prints just so no one else can see them is, I think, somewhat messed up. This is why I do every thing I can to ensure that films I have are accessible to people.

That’s another problem. I have a lot of films that are in “copyright hell” that no one can legally watch, and some of them are languishing with no one to show them or even (in a few cases) preserve them. I keep these prints. Others may be public domain but of a nature that no one will ever want to see them. These include bad pictures, shorts of an odd length with no stars in them, and sometimes even films that are of only historic/academic interest.

I keep these prints, too. I hope someone wants to see them someday. But I’m crazy. You knew that. I keep these prints and I mend them, resprocket them, throw camphor in with them, patch them, put them on new reels, etc. It takes money. And, as you all know, I am a film professional, which means that I make a “living” (not much of one, hence the quotes) from doing film shows, presentations, and lectures.

Film exhibition is a strange thing. Rare films doubly so. There may be an area that really wants to see a particular film and has wanted to for years, but they just can’t seem to find it. I got a job recently in Vevay, IN playing a print of The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1935) just because the author of the book came from that same town. It didn’t matter that the film had virtually nothing to do with the book. They wanted to see it.

That film is available freely on archive.org, which is fine, since it’s in the public domain, and it had an impact on how many people showed up. Despite the fact that I had a nice print, showed a cartoon, and showed it on a big screen, it was “contaminated” by being free on archive.org. Only 15 or so people showed up. It’s sad. (I could do a whole separate posting on how theatrical exhibition is being killed by inferior material shown at home, but that’s for another time.)

I have to face the fact that I can put on a better, nicer, sharper show than archive.org can put on, but the fact that I have to charge in order to keep solvent is a hindrance to me. That’s why I rely on a few profitable films that keep me floating above water.

These are films that are generally not very available, in the public domain, and have some niche market for them. These are films that I run over and over again. I refer to them as “the pantheon.” They pay the bills for the other, less marketable, films in my collection.

Alas, I have to guard these films jealously. No one seems to care that I lavished time, care, and hours of work into preserving some of these films. All they care about is seeing it free on archive.org. Many years ago, I was also involved with a video company that specialized in getting good copies of public domain titles into the marketplace.

I learned my lesson on that one, too. Ever buy material from Alpha Video? Well, probably 1/3 of their catalog is material that got copied from my collection. Sure, it’s public domain, but my copies were and are nicer. I was charging $10-$15 for copies, and they’d make DVDs blasted (poorly) off VHS copies of copies and throw them at Wal-Mart for $1. At the time, I couldn’t even buy blanks for that price. The power of cheap blew away the power of better quality. Ack.

So, in response, I started doing live film shows. These are infinitely more satisfying, because they’re with an audience, you can see the quality difference, etc. Amazingly, if you factor in costs of media, I make more money from 2-3 successful film shows than I did in a year of selling video copies of the same film. Extra points: as I accrue more rare titles, Alpha doesn’t get them. I can still show them. I get eating money. Yay.

At this point, a lot of people will already chime in and claim that I’m “just mean” for not putting these on video. A couple of years ago, a woman who called me worse than that for not releasing a film with questionable copyright on video. Yes, I have the only copy, and no, no one wants to preserve it because of rights issues. That doesn’t mean I’m going to break the law to make the film available.

I also point out that I am more than happy to rent out films from my collection, to do backyard parties or film shows, etc. I have never told anyone to buzz off if their request was legal. That doesn’t mean I’m going to shoot myself in the foot by putting it on video.

A while back, there were 3 people who asked me for a copy of a particularly rare film. I won’t go into specifics, because that will draw attention to that title, and not to my overall point. These people had some good reasons that they could use a copy. I made some, and asked them not to make copies of that title. I nicely explained that doing shows of this film helps keep me preserving others. They all politely agreed.

So, then, it was a great surprise to me to find that someone had uploaded it for free use on archive.org. It was from my own transfer and my print. I recognized my handiwork. It was also 2-3 generations removed from what I’d done, so yet again a degraded copy is competing in the marketplace with something I have in a better copy.

I carped about it, and said that, once again, I’m too nice. I should tell people to buzz off when they want video copies. It’s already had an impact: I used to get 4-5 shows on this title per year, and I’ve only had one (non-paying) in the last year. I just can’t compete with free.

A friend of mine leaped to my defense and posted a shame-on-you response on archive.org. The vitriol that this caused amazed me:

“There is no copyright on this movie. No one owns it. No one has the right to keep others from watching it.

“Anyone who has a digital copy can—and should—share it with others.

“XXXXXXX is the one who should be ashamed for viciously and mindlessly attacking the uploader.

“Another who should be ashamed is XXXXXXX’s friend, who attempted to keep this film out of the hands of the public, and who, by so doing, increased the likelihood that the film would be lost forever.”

WHAT?????????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???????? Well, that caused me to have Popeye syndrome: “I’ve had all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more.”

I wrote this in response:

“Uploading low-resolution copies of material at archive.org is not a way of preserving films. Neither is the practice of uploading books a replacement for the books themselves. It may be useful, but it’s not a preservation. I intend no slam at the wonderful service archive.org is. Google isn’t a replacement for librarians, either.

“(the film in question) is preserved at The Library of Congress and a pristine 35mm print exists that anyone can rent out. The original camera negative survives. It is not in danger of going away. There are two senses of the word ‘own’ here: in one sense I do not own the intellectual rights to these films, because they have expired rights. In another sense, I may in fact own the best surviving prints of them.

“I need prove to no one that I stand for preservation and availability of films. I have donated films to every major archive, and I’m an archive source for TV and DVD. Many films from my collection have already been bootlegged and appear here for free, often in embarrassingly poor copies. I was not provided any remuneration for the hundreds of hours I put in preserving these films, transferring them, and making them projectable. Many of these are films that I preserved myself and would not have been available had I not rescued them.

“The vast majority of films in my collection are not marketable and few people care enough to see them… When a film is free on the internet, it drastically cuts down the audience that will pay to see it projected theatrically..

“I’d be happy to make more films available on archive.org, and even make good direct-from-film transfers of them. When someone comes up with a way for me to do so without compromising both my means of income and my ability to preserve films, I’ll do it. The gas man needs to be paid, even if he may agree that what I do is cool and worthwhile.

“Perhaps you still feel that I should be ashamed, but I am not, because I’ve done more for film preservation and availability than most people you will ever meet.”

You’ll note that I did not resort to profanity even once. I’ll admit I sure thought about it.

I’ll close with some more thoughts here. I love old films, and I love showing them. I preserve material that no archive and few collectors care about. I also know that I will lose all control and all income from them once they’re on the internet. I further understand that I can only be in so many places at once doing shows.

The whole idea of the Dr. Film show is to let me do the same sorts of things that I do in live shows, but to share them with a wider audience. I fully realize that they’ll be bootlegged nine ways from Sunday all over the internet once they air, but at least I can be paid once for my work before it gets shared all over the net.

You want to strike a blow for film preservation and availability? Help me get Dr. Film on TV somewhere…anywhere. (Contact your favorite TV provider and send them our web page address!) I guarantee you’ll see oddball films that you haven’t seen before, and usually from the best prints that survive. Strike a blow against the third-rate free films and help me do it a little closer to “the right way.”

Still, if I come to your town, please show up anyway. OK?

The Big Push

I’m going to let you in on a secret. This blog is only a ploy to get you to look at the rest of my web site. Well, it’s not really a secret.

You see, I created Dr. Film as a TV show a couple of years ago, and the web site has been up for ages. I couldn’t get anyone to look at the site. No one wanted to look at my demos, either.

There will be another screening of the complete show on August 4, 2011, at Garfield Park in Indianapolis. Here’s the link if you’d like to attend. It’s free. If you don’t know about the complete show, then read on, Macduff.

The reason this is “the big push” is that I’ve only now figured out a decent marketing campaign, and the show is now going to a number of venues. I spent more time figuring out a marketing campaign than I did making the show. There is new art, an upgraded web page, and I’ve got a publicist on board. I hope this will put us over the top. It’s a lot of work for a show about old movies.

You see, I love old films, and it bothers me that so few people watch them anymore. It’s my feeling that most people are uninitiated and just don’t understand what they’re seeing. I think that some people are a little put off by the hosts on the major channels. They treat film as high art (which it is), but we sometimes miss the raggedy fun of a strange old film we’ve never seen.

After all, Citizen Kane is great art, but how many times can you watch it? And in my experience, there is so much stuff that is sitting out there unseen and unpreserved that it saddens me to see the same old warhorses trotted out for the “old movie show.” Theater owners and TV stations think that if it isn’t a title you know, then you won’t watch.

I’ve got some experience in this. I’ve taught film history and appreciation, and people seem to like my classes. I also remember the old days of TV, with the rough-edged local host doing a movie. I thought that if I could combine the come-what-may atmosphere of the old days, no suits, no slickness, and weave in a little real history, we might have a good show.

That’s what Dr. Film is. Or what it will be.

The show is designed to highlight unusual films that you don’t see on television much. It’s definitely got a “what the heck is that” factor built into it. I’m hoping to catch some errant channel flipper on his way past the classic film channel. I hope he stays long enough to see what we’re showing.

Yes, I did make a complete pilot that’s broadcast-ready at 96 minutes. I’ve taken some heat for not posting it. It’s not on iTunes or YouTube either. Why not? Because it took so much time and effort to make the episode that I can’t afford another one. If I give this one away, then the networks look at the show as “contaminated” by having been out there in the “free” world.

Trust me, in an ideal world I’d love to do this for free. The stats are painful, though. Three full days of shooting, many, hours of rewriting, days of film transfer work and re-transfer work. Then the ultimate: I had to add titles, artwork and composite the show. It took me a solid month to do it. I admit that Episode 2 would take less time, but it’s still a lot of work. I can’t spend this kind of time on a show unless I can get money back out of it.

The good news is that I’ve got the whole thing down to a staff of 3 people, and I’m the one who does most of the work. That means that I can crank out episodes for a pretty inexpensive price compared to what other places have to charge. Sometimes being a film geek and an engineer has its benefits.

I hope you’ve seen enough of the site to be excited about the show. I hope you’re excited about the blog. I’m the worst person in the world on marketing, but I know one thing. I call it the marketing triangle. I need three people to do effective marketing. If I tell you that my restaurant is great, you won’t believe me. I’ve got a stake in it, and you’ll raise your eyebrow and walk away. It’s human nature. But if a buddy of yours tells you that my restaurant is great, you’ll give it a chance.

I can’t just tell people that Dr. Film would be a cool show, and that this is an interesting site. You have to tell a friend. Hopefully, your friends will tell friends too.

What else can you do? Well, if you have a friend with money who might like to sponsor the show, then let him know about it. If you know any potential network or cable outlet that might like to pick up the show, then let me know. Please don’t pester people, but a polite, “Hey, this is good,” is always welcome.

Would you like to have a free commando screening of the pilot episode? That’s great, and I can help arrange it. I realize that people want to see the show, and that’s fine. I just can’t go making copies of it for public consumption. Terry Gilliam got Brazil released on word of mouth. I’m hoping that Dr. Film might get the same reception.

I know it’s crazy. I’m told that often. But one of my blog posts recently went viral in Europe. I got about 20 pingbacks in an hour. I never thought that would happen. Maybe this can happen too.

A Certain Madness…

No one cares about old movies. I was horrified recently to read the introduction to Leonard Maltin’s book 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen. He focuses on movies from the last 15 years! Leonard Maltin! The mind reels. That kind of limitation is like hiring Bill Clinton to write a book called 100 Sexiest People and then telling him he’s only allowed to write about men.

I understand why Leonard did it, though. I don’t want to trash him: he’s a great guy, and he’s a great friend of old films and preservation. Leonard is really one of the top film people in the world. Importantly, though, Leonard is not crazy, and he knows that people won’t buy a book about films made in the 1920s.

But, you see, I am crazy.

I am not crazy because I love old movies.

I am not crazy because I collect and preserve film prints of movies that no one cares about, just so I can see them.

I am not even crazy because I share my collection with audiences.

I am crazy because I think you should at least give old films a chance.

It seems to me that no one cares about old movies anymore because no one ever sees them. A friend of mine said that when cable TV came, they took all the old movies and put them on one channel. Then they filled the rest with junk.

Let me tell you, folks, about the days BC (before cable). Infomercials were illegal by rule of the FCC. At 11:30pm, after the news, only one station had a talk show. That was Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. He murdered the competition, so the local stations left him alone. If Carson had bad guests on a particular night, the you could just flip channels and see a great movie on any of the 5 or 6 other channels you might get.

In the summer, when my parents used to annoy me (which was most of the time), I would stay up until 3am most nights watching movies on TV. One station had a show called Summer Film Festival with a host who introduced a different film five nights a week! Another station had a festival called When Movies Were Movies with another host. There was even a great monster movie host every Friday night, and a Science Fiction movie every Saturday night.

The era of hosted movies died with cable. It used to be that nearly every station had one, then one or two stations held out, and finally, all movies were hosted on Turner Classic Movies by Robert Osborne. And again, I’m not here to trash Mr. Osborne, because he does a great job. Osborne is unlike the movie hosts of old.. he’s all classy and slick. Most local hosts were shot on a shoestring, and some of them were deliberately silly and over the top.

The single holdout movie host, who does it like it was done in the old days, is Elvira, also known as Cassandra Peterson. God bless her for sticking in there. But Elvira is one of the hosts who always runs bad movies and snickers at them. That’s fine, and an outgrowth of her stuff is the guys of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

This is where I come in.

Or rather, where I don’t come in.

Not only do I miss the old days of movie hosts, but I also think that we don’t do them anymore because no one watches old movies. And I think that no one watches old movies because they don’t see them on every station anymore. And, because no one sees old movies, no one understands them.

I’m just crazy enough to invent my own show, patterned after the shows of the old days. It’s called Dr. Film, which is the subject of this web site. It’s intended to be just the same as the hosted shows used to be: a little educational, but silly enough to appeal to a broad audience.

The trailer for Dr. Film (see the home page of the site) says that the title character is an eccentric genius with a plan to change the world–by showing old movies. I do hope to change the world by showing old movies.

I hope to get a few more people interested in films that were made in black and white. I hope to show people that editing styles have changed, not that older movies are slow. I hope to show people that the majority of a film doesn’t have to come from a computer in order for it to be worth seeing.

I encourage you to check out the Dr. Film site. We’re still hoping to sell the show to some network. But first, we have to get enough people to care about the project so that a network is convinced it’s worthwhile.

I know the project is worthwhile, but then I’m crazy. Come be crazy with me. Let’s change the world by showing old movies.