Japanese Anti-Piracy Movie Trailers Become Even More Ridiculous
Until late last year, this was the trailer playing in just about every Japanese movie theater to discourage piracy. (For irony, see the pirate-video-cam version of the trailer on YouTube.) This trailer has been around for a few years, and tells the audience: “Our enjoyment (of movies) is being stolen. Important things will be destroyed. I won’t watch, I won’t buy (pirated movies).” The following text appears during the trailer: I want to protect movies, I want to protect our enjoyment (of movies). … Don’t watch or buy illegal downloads and pirated DVDs. The campaign is called “Save Our Movies.” As if, of course, they are greatly imperiled by movie pirates.
There are several things wrong with the ad. First of all, it is shown pretty much exclusively to people who just plunked down $15 a head to see a movie in the theater, so it’s hard to say what the effect will be of either boring non-downloading patrons with such an ad, or insulting them with the accusation that they do so. Secondly, the ad is pretty strange. Artistic, perhaps, but my own reaction to it was to roll my eyes at the over-dramatization. Maybe some are impressionable enough to be affected by this message, but I have the feeling that most people scoff at it.
But they’ve gotten even worse in their latest trailer which I’ve seen several times now. Instead of the girl crying pirate-black tears, they now have a set of bizarre cartoon frames. I wish I could show them to you, but I cannot find them anywhere on the web. One frame, for example, shows a movie pirate in the back of a theater with a camera up on a tripod, wearing an evil grin, while other patrons stand and shout in anger. One male patron is caught in a ridiculous mid-shout while his girlfriend is crying miserably (while also shouting). Cut to another frame showing the pirate at home insidiously working his home computer with the movie, his hands caught in a villainous rigor.
Now, of course, you would expect this to be ironic, perhaps even self-effacing, intended as comic relief to make light of a situation while still sending the message. The thing is, that’s not the tone of the trailer at all. It comes across as serious, even somber–not like they’re trying to make fun of it at all. It could be tongue-in-cheek, I suppose, but nobody is laughing at it at the screenings I’ve seen. And it is all too similar to similar cartoons shown on Japanese subways to discourage impolite behavior, like talking on your cell phone or spreading your legs out while seated–cartoons with a caricatured offender with bystanders showing ridiculously exaggerated expressions of annoyance or distress.
Maybe I’m just not getting it. Maybe it’s low-key, nobody-laughs comedy like Bunraku. But I have the feeling that it’s not.
I’m a pirate.
I bought a couple of pirated DVD’s while I was in China. They sell for anywhere from 1 to 3 bucks a disc, depending on how hard you negotiate and how recent the movie is.
I’d heard that if you get caught with them coming back into the USA, they’ll take them from you and you could get fined as well, but I guessed (correctly) that the odds of being searched were relatively low.
I bought a couple of movies and the quality stunk on some, and others had the region protection on them so they wouldn’t play in my portable DVD player.
The one that did work that I brought home was “Talladega Nights”. The quality was crappy, but it was only out in the theatres about three weeks when I bought the DVD. (Pretty impressive turnaround.)
It was obviously filmed with a camcorder on a tripod- very slightly tilted, too, but after you watch the movie for a few minutes you don’t notice. Washed-out color, occasional jitter when the frame rate of the camera and the movie were out of sync, and cruddy sound rounded out the package.
In other words, barely worth the buck. In fact, back here in the USA, now that it’s out on video I paid for a legit rental of the DVD to see it again. (I still have my bootleg copy as a collector’s item.)
My friend also bought me the boxed set of “Sex In The City” because she said I needed to learn about women. (She’s right, but I don’t know if that show is going to do it.) This one represented a much bigger problem, because it’s direct copies of the DVDs from Stateside.
And this is really the crux of the matter. IMO, pirated DVDs, when they’re camcorder versions, just aren’t ever going to seriously hurt sales of legit copies. The transfers are lousy and the sound stinks.
The people who CAN afford to buy the legit version will do so, and the majority of the sales of pirated versions will (IMO) be to those who couldn’t/wouldn’t be buying the legit versions anyway.
What kills the studios is when they release the movie on DVD. Now the pirates can put out a perfect digital copy of the original, so the only way they’re competing is on price- and the pirates can sponge off of any/all marketing that’s being paid for by the original studios, so all other things being equal the pirates have a competitive advantage.
BUT… if the studios can make it socially unacceptable (fat chance), somehow damage the reputation of the pirates, or somehow make things more costly for the pirates, they can make the playing field closer.
It should be relatively easy- just make selling non-legit copies illegal with stiff enough penalties, even down to the guy on the street, that the pirates can’t move their product or are always worried about getting busted by the law. It shouldn’t be too difficult to roll up the production and distribution network of the bigger pirate operations.
The other big thing that the legit studios can do, of course, is lower their prices. They’re so greedy that they charge too much; there’s no way that the guy on the street in China selling a movie for 2 bucks is losing money, so why can’t the big studios make a profit and charge 9 or 10 instead of 20 or 30?
You see DVDs on discount racks selling for as little as 6 bucks, and you know perfectly well that they’re not LOSING money on them. Why is a movie sold for 25 or 30 bucks now and 3 years from now it’s only worth $7.99 in a bargain rack?
Breaking the law is wrong. I shouldn’t have done it, I suppose, but the studios have lived awfully high on the hog for a long, long time, and my sympathy level for them is extremely low.
Paul
Seattle, WA
I, too, am offended every time these advertisements (a “trailer,” where I come from, is an ad showing scenes from an upcoming film, which these anti-piracy ads do not) are shown at the beginning of a movie I just paid to see. Where do they get off admonishing me not to do what I have obviously just done the very opposite of? 😉
Exactly. Imagine a supermarket that admonishes shoppers at the checkout stand: “Don’t Steal, Pay for What You Take!” …assaulting them as they are paying for their groceries. Even if the message is shown to them in the aisles, it still makes the presumption that the customer is at least thinking of stealing something.
Why should a person not be offended by such a suggestion? After all, if I own a business and approach my customers saying “hey, just in case you’re thinking of stealing stuff, don’t!” then my business will fail right fast. It is arrogance on the part of the movie studios to throw this crap at us when we pay good money for their products–and they probably figure that we won’t bolt because people love movies and won’t stop seeing them just because they’re irked by the studios. After all, if you just love bananas, will you stop eating them because Dole and the other producers do something to offend you?
If only moviegoers had an option which would let them continue to watch the movies but at the same time not support the megacorporations that continuously offend them. Hmmm….
ummm where does it tell you what it says in movies
ummm where does it tell you what it says in moviesUmm… could you clarify that please?
Somebody please find that new ad that they play in japanese theatres with the cartoons, that shit kills me!
David: my sentiment exactly, as stated in the post. If anyone finds images or an online movie file of it, let me know.
Can anyone please post the actual video of the original with the girl crying. I’ve been looking for a good copy of this and the only one I have s a 3G version.