MVM Interview

Absoloutely agree with you on imports, but the fact that imports are so easy to get hold of makes the UK market smaller for UK based companies - therefore price per unit has to rise.

Good point on VAT too, missed that one!
 
I believe that time to market is the most important thing here. If a US release hits the shelves an year before the UK release, when the UK release is out it seems only obvious that the US price will be more competitive.

For instance, take holywood titles and compare the prices between then at amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. I've checked for Iron man single disc and it's USD14 while it's 7 quid here. Same happens to many other releases and of course there are many exceptions as well, but I think this indicates a trend.

I'm sure pricing is way more complex than that, but I thought this could be food for thought.
 
I have to admit, some of this doesn't make for particularly pleasant reading.
We can either pay more than our R1 consumers due to importing costs and the current exchange rate, or pay more on domestic releases due to the state of affairs over here, what with the BBFC et al. Those £50 Hellsing boxes in HMV appear very dusty to me, and I can't see that changing.
Those who are willing to spend money may gradually see greater sense in importing- supporting another industry whilst at the same time slowly removing themselves from their own market. Though it may not be particularly optimistic to do so, I can picture our industry falling apart, and otaku.co.uk (etc) becoming the only legal means for us to watch things.

chaos said:
I'm sure pricing is way more complex than that, but I thought this could be food for thought.
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Quite possibly. I'm sure those who work at MVM or Beez would have a different account of the state of the industry to my doom and gloom, or if not that then at least a different flavour of doom and gloom.
 
Zin5ki said:
... I can picture our industry falling apart, and otaku.co.uk (etc) becoming the only legal means for us to watch things.
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Technically speaking, it's not really legal, as it was not rated by BBFC.
I believe that a new / fairer rule should be applied, where art house / niche market films should pay only a symbolic fee. I'm sure the commercial blockbuster can pay for it tenfold.

I think we should start a campaign and get our MP's to vote it, after all, we don't pay duty on books for cultural reasons, so why not make it cheaper to have this on the country? I also fail to understand why we don't have a common european standard for this, which would make much more sense in my opinion.
 
chaos said:
Zin5ki said:
... I can picture our industry falling apart, and otaku.co.uk (etc) becoming the only legal means for us to watch things.
Click to expand...

Technically speaking, it's not really legal, as it was not rated by BBFC.
I believe that a new / fairer rule should be applied, where art house / niche market films should pay only a symbolic fee. I'm sure the commercial blockbuster can pay for it tenfold.

I think we should start a campaign and get our MP's to vote it, after all, we don't pay duty on books for cultural reasons, so why not make it cheaper to have this on the country? I also fail to understand why we don't have a common european standard for this, which would make much more sense in my opinion.
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I would agree with that, especially with the BBFC thing, i think its a cruel way for them to get money, it should be pay once for the title not for each vocal track. Other langauge films are just another type of media entertainment so why does it seem they get the short end of this stick?

You know given that anime is more popular on the contient i'm wondering what kind of system they do have other there, ratings board included.
 
BlackWolf said:
Other langauge films are just another type of media entertainment so why does it seem they get the short end of this stick?
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I disagree. It's not just mere entertainment, it's also a glance into a different culture. I know a load more about the US, than I know of Australia. I believe I can name dozens of US cities, but only a handful of australian. i think you can get the picture.

BlackWolf said:
You know given that anime is more popular on the contient i'm wondering what kind of system they do have other there, ratings board included.
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One that makes sense? ;)

I understand you have to verify all audio / subtitle tracks and why you have to charge based on time. It's only fair at the end. But still, there is quite a lot of difference in movies that sells by tens of thousand copies to those that struggle to ship more than 5 thousand copies.
 
chaos said:
BlackWolf said:
Other langauge films are just another type of media entertainment so why does it seem they get the short end of this stick?
Click to expand...
I disagree. It's not just mere entertainment, it's also a glance into a different culture. I know a load more about the US, than I know of Australia. I believe I can name dozens of US cities, but only a handful of australian. i think you can get the picture.
Click to expand...

Oh i agree with that, i was just saying that they are still films but i'll admit that is over simplifying it. I know a few austrailan places for the record but not as many as places in america but there could be other reasons for that...

Chaos said:
BlackWolf said:
You know given that anime is more popular on the contient i'm wondering what kind of system they do have other there, ratings board included.
Click to expand...

One that makes sense? ;)

I understand you have to verify all audio / subtitle tracks and why you have to charge based on time. It's only fair at the end. But still, there is quite a lot of difference in movies that sells by tens of thousand copies to those that struggle to ship more than 5 thousand copies.
Click to expand...

They probably don't care about the end sales, to them its just another movie that needs to be checked. I suppose it offers the ultimate fairness although i wonder if it would be easier for them to check the scripts and then to watch the visuals once to make the ratings.
 
BlackWolf said:
I would agree with that, especially with the BBFC thing, i think its a cruel way for them to get money, it should be pay once for the title not for each vocal track. Other langauge films are just another type of media entertainment so why does it seem they get the short end of this stick?
Click to expand...

But rating 2 vocal tracks takes twice as long, so you charge twice as much. I'm sure if your boss said you need to work the same hours for half the money you'd be a bit miffed. The other option is to dubtitle, then you've only got to rate one script ;)

And its not like its a big cost. It costs more to master the DVD and do the artwork.

The BBFC are currently running a questionaire about how people rate their classifications, maybe you should go take a look and give them some feedback.

Given the choice between the BBFC and the MPAA, the BBFC wins hands down.
 
Project-2501 said:
Given the choice between the BBFC and the MPAA, the BBFC wins hands down.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it optional for a DVD to be rated by the MPAA, provided it isn't shown theatrically? None of my R1 DVDs mention anything other than "parental discretion advised".
 
US DVD releases are self certified. However the MPAA rips the life out of cinema releases. The BBFC have not been into censorship for decades. The MPAA are still desperately trying to protect middle America from evil...

The other upside of the BBFC ratings is that on the whole the vocal 'nothing better to do than complain about stuff' groups in the UK seem to like them. There are certian anime titles which might not have gone down too well if they had been distributed with a self certified age rating. Stick a BBFC rating on it and now its the BBFCs problem, not the distro or animation house.

Self certification is a good idea in principal but it could go horribly wrong IMO.
 
BlackWolf said:
They probably don't care about the end sales, to them its just another movie that needs to be checked. I suppose it offers the ultimate fairness although i wonder if it would be easier for them to check the scripts and then to watch the visuals once to make the ratings.
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This is my opinion, but nothing is more unfair than treating everybody equally.
The government knows that, otherwise they wouldn't have those tax bands according to people's earnings.
 
The dual viewing thing stems back to incidents in the early 90s/late 80s where anime DVDs were habitually released with a dub not entirely in keeping with the literal translation used for the subtitled offering. This was perceived by the BBFC as an attempt to play the numbers and get an age rating that the distributor perceived would sell the most copies. Until they came to this realisation they let through original language/dub versions of a title based upon the earlier viewing (this was in the days of VHS with a separate release for dub and sub versions) without passing through certification a second time. With the advent of DVD and optional languages and subtitles they treated the one title as two for the purpose of certification and treated each version as a separate entities.
 
I think the functional way of puting my feelings about the dinosuar that is teh BBFC would get me banned from this board.

But it is a dinosuar, and it needs to get bitchslaped by the Meteor of progress and in short order.
 
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