DVD Diggers #30 - April 21st, 2005

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Isn’t that the most annoying thing ever? To start reading a column you’ve been waiting all week for, only to have an advertisement in the front of it? How about putting a DVD in your player, only to have to sit through five minutes of commercials, trailers, and ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the film you’re getting ready to watch. Unfortunately, it’s becoming a trend that’s all too common these days, and studios are making it harder and harder to bypass these ads and get to the point of the whole DVD - watching your movie.

The Fat Strikes Back

Patron saint of film critics everywhere, Roger Ebert, recently voiced his opinion on commercials at the beginning of DVDs with this wonderful tidbit on his website: ”This is a new low. Advertising supports programming that I receive for free, on radio and television, and that's fine with me. But when I pay, I expect to see only what I have paid for. Ads in theaters are an abomination, hated by most of the moviegoers I talk to. To be locked into a compulsory viewing of an ad on a DVD, on top of the useless FBI warning that also cannot be skipped, is a new species of outrage. And years after that car is off the market, you'll still have to look at the ad, as it breeds continuing ill will for the manufacturer.”

In one paragraph Roger sums up more problems with advertisements on DVDs then I had ever conceived. Sure they are annoying, but they also date themselves (and the DVD release) as well as toss advertisements at us for something we pay for. In short, you don’t even have to play the “annoying” card to find something wrong with these ads.

Don’t we get enough product placement within the movies themselves? If every character in the movie drives a car by Buick, it’s a pretty good bet that Buick is getting some advertising dollars in there somewhere. We don’t need an ad on the DVD showing off the car. That’s not the point of the DVD. Unless the commercial cleverly ties in to the movie in some way, I don’t want to see it on the disc.

And Ebert’s right - we pay for these DVDs, just like we pay for movie tickets. Commercials shouldn’t be entering into those industries. On television commercials help finance what is a free method of communication. Shows are not made for the entertainment of you as a viewer (even though they should be), they are made to sell products. Network executives really don’t care how many people tuned into last night’s “O.C.” and were entertained, they care about how many people tuned in during the Shampoo commercial that ran during the first commercial break. That’s the real reason DVRs like TiVo are so dangerous to the broadcasting industry - they allow people to come to the show late, rewind to the start of the show, and bypass all of the commercials. And I’m guilty of that - I’ve been known to specifically start watching a show fifteen minutes late just so I don’t have to deal with the commercial breaks I can conveniently fast forward though. But I do pay for that ability with the cost of my TiVo and the monthly service fee (or lifetime fee). Otherwise advertisements pay for television, so we expect to see commercials there, much like banner ads pay for most websites out there, so you expect to see them online (and why, like TiVo, products are coming out to help avoid those ads).

DVDs are different though. We go out and buy those. That means the DVD industry is financed by the dollars of Joe Consumer, and if Joe doesn’t want to see the ads, they should go. Unfortunately studios not only are increasing the amount of ads they place on DVDs, they are making them harder and more difficult to bypass. Certain studios are notorious for placing ads on every single release they put out, and the few studios who don’t place ads at the beginning of their discs are shrinking by the minute. It’s become so commonplace that we’ve started giving credit in our DVD reviews to the studios who don’t put ads at the beginning of their discs (way to go New Line - stand your ground!).

What’s funny about this is that for years we put up with commercials and trailers at the beginning of our VHS video tapes. Heck, I even looked forward to them much like I look forward to trailers in theaters. It’s still neat to see what’s coming out on DVDs, but I want to look at trailers on my terms, not on the studios.

Will we see an end to this? Unlikely, so hackers had better start working on ways to modify DVD players to get past unblockable advertisements. You wanna bet it ends up being something easy too, like the “copy protection” on CDs that was overridden by drawing on the edge of the CD with a marker? Unfortunately like many things in this electronic age we live in, studios aren’t going to see the writing on the wall about ads on DVDs until there’s a scandal about getting around them.

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Eye on Independents

Some independent films attempt to work outside of their limits, creating an agonizingly long product with terrible production values. That’s not the case with Broken which is far too short for my tastes, but makes up for it with an intriguing storyline and some interesting visuals.

The concept behind Broken is pretty complex given its short running time (under 20 minutes including full opening and closing credits). The sound of a gunshot and scream wake Bonnie Clayton (Samantha Jane Polay) with a start. However the sounds are evidently a dream as she is safely in her own bed. Startled from whatever dream broke her slumber, she heads to the fridge for a drink only to be abducted by someone who is certainly not her boyfriend. As she is held against her will and questioned by the leader of an odd bunch of characters, we start to question what exactly is going on, and the reality of it all.

The feeling Broken left me with is similar to the first time I watched Memento, kind of a “what the hell did I just see” feeling. Don’t get me wrong though, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Personally I don’t like films that feel the need to spell everything out for the audience. Even for its short running time, Broken leaves itself a bit open ended. What did just happen in front of our eyes? We aren’t quite sure, and the filmmakers don’t attempt to give us a solid answer. Unfortunately that leads to the one big criticism I have about the short movie, which is...

It’s too short! A film with this many twists and turns in its story needs to be longer to allow the audience opportunities to appreciate the brilliance that is unfolding in front of them. Unfortunately Broken isn’t long enough for those twists to really be appreciated or the weight of what’s going on to even really sink in. This small issue is a far cry from my usual complaint about low budget independent films, which usually don’t seem to know when to end. Broken leaves you with a taste of what this company can do, and a desire for more.

Broken ends up on the opposite side of the spectrum from the usual low-budget independent films I see. It’s set up with an interesting story, well shot, and offers interesting visual effects for such a low budget film for the most part. Not only does it accomplish all of that, but it makes the viewer want more. Fortunately, according to their DVD, Broken will serve as a stepping off point for a feature length film. All I can say is I hope the fellows behind Broken, Nick Monaco and Alex Ferrari give me a call when the full thing is finished. If they can accomplish so much with a little budget, I can only imagine what they can do once their talent is unleashed on a full film.

Check out Broken at www.whatisbroken.com