Business Models: Twilight Time vs. Other Boutique Labels

[eerik]

Some partisan sniping at this Forum (and David Hare) from the director of The First Nudie Musical.

By the way, this is a guy who claimed MoC copied Twilight Time's business model when they started putting "limited edition" labels to their Universal titles.

[Gregory]

He claims that message boards are the "lowest part of the internet," but I would say there are a few things that are worse, such as blogs that contain writing like this:

Well, that [rant about the internet] was long. I did have a day yesterday. I got up, had my teeth cleaned by Dr. Chew, then came home and did a three-mile jog. Then I went to have lunch with a friend who is heading back to Canada for a month. Said friend lives way the hell out in Sunland/Tujunga – kind of the armpit of the foothills. We managed to find a Coco’s at least, where I had salmon in a spicy citrus sauce, and some vegetables, so a very low-cal meal. It was a nice lunch, I have some advice, and then I headed home. I stopped at the mail place and picked up some packages, after which I finally came home. I then answered e-mails, after which I read through the commentary I’d written the day before. I made some deletions, added a few things, and now I think it’s fine – I’ll read through it again over the weekend and see if there’s anything else I want to adjust. I then made a low-cal cheeseburger for the rest of my foodstuffs – really good. And under 1200 calories total for the day. I then sat on my couch like so much fish. Last night, I watched the latest episode of Mad Men. As per usual, some good things and some not good things. After that, I had to listen to some music, then I showered, and that was my day and that was my night, not necessarily in that order.

[matrixschmatrix]

Last night, I watched the latest episode of Mad Men. As per usual, some good things and some not good things.

The entire art of reviewing is now obsolete, just copy and paste that for everything ever.

[kingofthejungle]

Some partisan sniping at this Forum (and David Hare) from the director of The First Nudie Musical.

Is it just me or is expressing a negative opinion about a Twilight Time release (or a positive opinion about Olive Films) the easiest way to guarantee that someone pulls out the "No, No...I'm the expert!" card?

[eerik]

We're all eight-year-old dipshit punks and he is clearly one of the master race.

Well, the thing about the guy with the playwright's name is that he calls Experiment in Terror and Tristesse total botch jobs (they are GREAT transfers), but then regularly praises even the iffiest transfers from Olive. If that's not an agenda I don't know what is - although I'm sure it's entirely possible that the guy is just a total idiot. I mean, I'm just watching China Gate of Sam Fuller - now, Olive, like Twilight Time, is given the transfers, they don't do any work on them. But how dare this punk praise a transfer that is littered with emulsion scratches, white negative dirt, black scratches and even a few splices. That gets praise from this dipshit because for him something that looks like a third generation release print that's been through a projector thirty times somehow equates itself with that most heinous of their terms "film-like." So, to please this guy you must devolve and not use the camera negative because that means it's a botch job. He also cries "low bit rate" all the time, as if he knew what that meant and as if he could see a difference between any bit rates if put in a room and shown various transfers without being able to look at whatever he's looking at to find the bit rates. It's so stupid. When you go off the camera negative, and the timing is accurate and the contrast is accurate, what you get is something that's very close to what the filmmakers shot - a lot closer than a release print. That should be cause for celebration, but not for this guy.

[What A Disgrace]

At least that douche isn't defending Twilight Time's awful cover art.

[CSM126]

I'm just really glad I've never given these people any of my money.

[Brian C]

The funniest thing is that this forum actually does have a good number of actual experts who contribute. And they all do a much better job of explaining the various facets of the business than Kimmel does, and without the arrogant "I'm in the business so I'm obviously right and you're all morons" attitude.

[CSM126]

The guy can't even see that a damaged print is better than a DVR'd one. He probably thinks the original Blu release of Gladiator is top-frickin'-notch because they got rid of all those pesky cannonballs.

[Brian C]

I just wish he had been thoughtful and temperate enough to try to educate his readers about the things that have him so riled up. I mean, he's probably right that there's too much reliance on screen caps, especially when we're trying to use single frames to make judgments about aspect ratio. And he's right that the BD review world is too reliant on a bunch of jargon that few people really understand but everyone seems to have a very strong opinion about. That's the internet for you, I guess.

But his targets are ill-chosen - if this guy thinks this forum is bad, he should troll Blu-ray.com for a few hours, and I've found david hare to be more reliable in his opinions than most reviewers - and after referencing these problems, instead of trying to shed light on them, he just decides to go all ad hominem apeshit on david hare. It's embarrassing.

[eerik]

if this guy thinks this forum is bad, he should troll Blu-ray.com for a few hours

He already is banned/suspended from Blu-ray.com.

[Finch]

Not going to give these guys a single penny ever, and glad that I refrained from buying their Big Heat BD. To pick on davidhare of all people is just utterly misguided.

[MichaelB]

Not going to give these guys a single penny ever, and glad that I refrained from buying their Big Heat BD. To pick on davidhare of all people is just utterly misguided.

I don't think Bruce Kimmel has any connection with Twilight Time.

[EddieLarkin]

Other than being good friends and neighbours with the guys who run it

I'm just glad I'm unprincipled enough to not boycott Blu-ray releases over some internet drama.

[matrixschmatrix]

Didn't Olive have a quasi representative making an ass of himself online a year or so ago? What is it with these little companies?

[med]

I'm just really glad I've never given these people any of my money.

I don't get this sentiment. What if I told you Peter Becker never tips?

[kingofthejungle]

Didn't Olive have a quasi representative making an ass of himself online a year or so ago? What is it with these little companies?

I can kind of understand it. When you're involved in a business that doesn't have the massive resources of a Warner Bros. (or in Kimmel's case, just happen to be good buddies with them), it's easy to inflate the importance of every individual piece of criticism into some massive threat, so the pushback can be a bit strident, to say the least. Kimmel even managed to inflate my saying the Experiement In Terror Blu-Ray looked pretty good into david hare calling it a total dud - go figure.

What I don't really understand is what Twilight Time thought they would accomplish by inviting this diatribe onto their Facebook page. As someone who has purchased more than a few TT products, it's off-putting to not be able to express disappointment without being childishly attacked by a "friend of the label" for it.

Twilight Time needs to realize that when they charge a premium price for something, expectations will be (and should be) much higher than they normally would be. For prices similar to what TT charge, Criterion and Masters of Cinema are able to routinely release packages with great transfers, perfect encodes, thoughtful original supplements, and tasteful cover art. Twilight Time hasn't shown that level of commitment to any film. The Big Heat could be improved upon in every one of those metrics. Hopefully, in three years, Criterion will get a shot at it.

[Perkins Cobb]

The Code Red guy is also completely paranoid, and engaged in a neverending battle with the entire internet.

[EddieLarkin]

For prices similar to what TT charge, Criterion and Masters of Cinema are able to routinely release packages with great transfers, perfect encodes, thoughtful original supplements, and tasteful cover art. Twilight Time hasn't shown that level of commitment to any film. The Big Heat could be improved upon in every one of those metrics. Hopefully, in three years, Criterion will get a shot at it.

Could it? The transfer is wholly down to Sony, right? Presumably for a film like this the existing transfer is all it's going to get. So barring some digital clean up and contrast boosting from Criterion (which are often derided on this forum anyway, in contrast to the "hands off" approach), the transfer will be no different.

The encode? I'm not really aware of the finer details of how a disc is encoded and how that affects image quality; is this something that results in the aforementioned strobing and uneven tonal quality? Is it just down to bitrate? I'm not sure Olive or even Criterion would do much different here if it is. Picking two lauded over recent releases, The Sun Shines Bright and Gate of Hell both have lower file sizes and lower average bit rates than The Big Heat does, despite being of a similar or longer run time (and one's in colour!).

All the Big Heat bashing seems to go against most reviews as well; Robert Harris said:

It looks extraordinary. Rich, black blacks, perfect shadow detail, great grain structure. It's all there

I've seen the disc myself and recall agreeing with the above, but next time I'll give it closer scrutiny. Any time stamps of problematic scenes/frames would be appreciated.

No argument from me on the supplements and packaging side though, natch.

[EddieLarkin]

At least there are no VAT charges on imports under a grand Australian, unlike NZ and other countries.

£15 here ](*,)

Which sort of makes buying from SAE not so painful, because they mark everything down to avoid customs. The $35 I pay for the disc from TT stays that way on arrival. If these discs were available from Amazon.com for $25, I'd expect to pay an extra $20 when it got here. I've ordered a few Kino and Flicker Alley discs from SAE for this very reason.

But their threat of lost packages is dastardly, complete bulls*** and best ignored.

[bugsy_pal]

I have to agree with David Hare's perspective on this - the TT model sucks big time and holds us to ransom. Still, I am one of those also unprincipled enough to fork out my dollars to see some of their blurays.

The Bruce Kimmell thing is hilarious. To me he was a nobody - I had heard his name mentioned on these forums before, but knew nothing about his directorial background. But as a result of comments here on this htread, I had the 'pleasure' of reading his website/blog - it is a truly bizarre experience. I suspect there may me some sort of attempt at humour there, but it clearly indicates the mental machinations of an A-grade narcissist.

[peerpee]

The problem with TT is encapsulated in their own words: "We're very happy to announce that X joins the ranks of SOLD OUT."

Why are they "very happy"? Anyone else would write: "Unfortunately..."

If they'd organised say 5,000 ltd ed licensing terms for each title (instead of 3,000), another 2,000 people could enjoy it (or presumably 200 "very happy" scalpers buying 10 each).

None of the people unable to buy this title now are "very happy". Why are TT so chuffed about it all? This fabricated scarcity is their own doing, and it's completely transparent and avoidable.

Not to mention the stupid high prices and racket-style sole distributor. Fans of these films are being held to ransom.

I wonder what the licensors think of this little experiment?

[knives]

They probably think money hence why they continue to play ball with these fools. There's so many of their releases I would have gotten by now (including The Egyptian) in their present on disc forms had they been at an Olive price point that I can't help but be annoyed.

[Graham]

The problem with TT is encapsulated in their own words: "We're very happy to announce that X joins the ranks of SOLD OUT."

Why are they "very happy"? Anyone else would write: "Unfortunately..."

Exactly what I thought too, on reading that statement.

I love Peckinpah, but a price of £30 for Major Dundee (and that's only if they mark down the package price to avoid customs) is a piss-take.

[TMDaines]

They probably think money hence why they continue to play ball with these fools. There's so many of their releases I would have gotten by now (including The Egyptian) in their present on disc forms had they been at an Olive price point that I can't help but be annoyed.

I'm sure you can find a nice 720p rip if you have a search. That's the best part of the TT model.