Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

21 August 2003

Impact of DVDs

The New York Times published an article last weekend that makes an interesting companion to the previously mentioned LA Times article about word-of-mouth. (They were even published the same day.)

In the article, Elvis Mitchell, film critic for the Times, discusses how the success of DVDs is changing movies. He makes a lot of claims without really backing them up and ends with an ominous note about DVDs eclipsing movies themselves. (This time, TV is really going to kill the movies.)

Both this article and the LA Times piece argue that audiences are getting smarter. Mitchell focuses on the popular "commentary track" feature of many DVDs, which is making film knowledge available to a much wider audience. This I like. A more knowledgeable film audience should result in better movies. (I hope that DVDs have a more substantial impact than text-messaging does.)

But the real effects of the commentary track will be slow and subtle — let's look back in 20 years. Mitchell is less convincing when he claims that DVDs are already changing movies.

For example, he claims that 28 Days Later is the "first case" of a movie in a theater containing a DVD-like extra. (Several weeks into the movie's run, the filmmakers added an alternate ending that runs after the closing credits.) But is this really any different from other attempts to get people to see a movie a second time? The Pixar folks often add a set of faux bloopers to the closing credits after the movie's first few weeks. Clue offered different endings in different theaters in 1985. Even movies like The Sixth Sense, Vanilla Sky, and Swimming Pool have world-changing plot twists near the end that allow their marketers to encourage people to see the movie a second time — you'll see an entirely different movie, knowing what you know now.

These gimmicks aren't caused by the popularity of the DVD. They're just attempts to goose waning box office receipts after a movie has lost its New Movie Smell(tm).

But I do think DVDs could make a profound impact on movies, eventually.

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