Business Models: Twilight Time vs. Other Boutique Labels

[domino harvey]

Who, exactly, is the customer base for Twilight Time, then? Grandma?

[Moe Dickstein]

I can also say pretty solidly that TT is not following or basing strategy on what Arrow does very closely at all.

Domino: If Grandma is a big sountrack buff and knows SAE then yes, perhaps. So long as the business model is playing out and working and they are selling enough copies to keep licensing more films then it seems there is a customer base there, regardless of whom they are.

[EddieLarkin]

I'm not saying that TT target the average buyer, but pop over to Blu-ray.com and even HTF, and you'll find plenty of American Blu-ray fanatics to whom the idea of going region free is either pointless or completely alien. These are TT's customer bsae, and they are region locked.

[knives]

So format fetishists?

[Moe Dickstein]

Let's say you're an American consumer who for better or worse doesn't have an interest in watching any foreign language films? That doesn't describe nearly anyone here but it does describe a lot of people elsewhere.

What is the benefit to those consumers of going multi region, beyond some slightly cheaper releases from overseas?

I fear this discussion might belong back in the "other" thread...

[domino harvey]

What is the benefit to those consumers of going multi region, beyond some slightly cheaper releases from overseas?

I would wager at least half of my overseas purchases are of American films, because they were either unavailable in R1 or available in a better edition elsewhere, not because they were "cheaper." You're speaking flippantly of something I don't think you've given much thought to...

[HJackson]

Let's say you're an American consumer who for better or worse doesn't have an interest in watching any foreign language films? That doesn't describe nearly anyone here but it does describe a lot of people elsewhere.

What is the benefit to those consumers of going multi region, beyond some slightly cheaper releases from overseas?

Imagine living without Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? on blu (if it can even be described as 'living').

[MichaelB]

There are loads of English-language films that are either only available in Region B or available in conspicuously superior editions.

Arrow's The Fury clearly wins hands down on points alone, and that's even before anyone's seen the transfer - and since that's a full-scale James White restoration and he has a reputation to protect, it would be surprising if it wasn't conspicuously superior.

[Cronenfly]

Nevertheless, if you are not averse to scalping, there is little doubt in my mind that one could find a buyer for a copy of the TT Fury for a pretty penny once it goes OOP (which is going to happen: it's down below 400 copies now already). The Arrow version will no doubt be superior, but I think it's a mistake to overestimate the number of region-free Blu buyers out there.

[knives]

As others have already said that is an absurd strawman. Many releases of english language films have only appeared in places like Spain and the UK (in fact all of my Spanish purchases beyond one boxset have been for studio pictures). This isn't even talking about the quality of the transfers or extras or anything like that. I had to go to a UK release for something as generically popular as the Hammer version of The Abominable Snowman. Even now for modern films released today the only way to get an uncut DVD of This Must be the Place is to order from Europe. Same thing last I checked for Joe Dante's The Hole. Neither of those are in any way specialty releases. I could go on and on with stuff like Marc Isaacs' films, until recently Backlash, The Black Windmill, and literally thousands more. This is the poorest argument imaginable.

[EddieLarkin]

Format fetishists or just baby boomer film fans, the one thing that seems to link the vast majority of TT customers is a willingness to join and post on (or just browse) forums such as Blu-ray.com, to keep informed about their releases and where to get them. This sort of savvy is essential when you consider that the releases are available from a single, very niche online outlet (up until very recently anyway). But regardless, these customers are primarily region locked. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? just got mentioned, but here is a typical response I got from one of the most die hard TT customers I know when I tried to push the MoC release on him:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p ... count=1995" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Despite wanting WSSRH? very much, he is not interested in going region free. That sort of reasoning is rife amongst Blu-ray.com and HTF users, especially the North Americans (the Brits seem to be much more open to the idea).

[EddieLarkin]

Sorry, I'm lost now. Are we arguing that a lot of very popular American films are only available in Region-B (well duh), or are we debating the prevalence of region free amongst TT's customer base?

[domino harvey]

We are specifically targeting Moe's inarticulate declaration

[EddieLarkin]

Oh right, I see.

I'll say again: well duh. A region locked Golden age Hollywood buff is surely a depressing thing to be.

[jedgeco]

Despite wanting WSSRH? very much, he is not interested in going region free. That sort of reasoning is rife amongst Blu-ray.com and HTF users, especially the North Americans (the Brits seem to be much more open to the idea).

I imagine that there are lots of people who are film fans and enjoy watching Blu-rays, but don't care enough to go through the hassle of buying a new Blu-ray player (from a specialty outlet), shopping overseas, dealing with currency conversion, waiting ~2 weeks for something to show up in the mail, etc.

It's a big country, lots of people are lazy, and it's not like there aren't enough domestic releases to fill up one's time.

[swo17]

Let's say you're an American consumer who for better or worse doesn't have an interest in watching any foreign language films? That doesn't describe nearly anyone here but it does describe a lot of people elsewhere.

What is the benefit to those consumers of going multi region, beyond some slightly cheaper releases from overseas?

Obviously this argument doesn't hold weight, but it does sound exactly like the kind of thing that someone who wasn't region free might think without having done much research. Which doesn't mean they're right exactly but helps explain their behavior.

[kingofthejungle]

Despite wanting WSSRH? very much, he is not interested in going region free. That sort of reasoning is rife amongst Blu-ray.com and HTF users, especially the North Americans (the Brits seem to be much more open to the idea).

I imagine that there are lots of people who are film fans and enjoy watching Blu-rays, but don't care enough to go through the hassle of buying a new Blu-ray player (from a specialty outlet), shopping overseas, dealing with currency conversion, waiting ~2 weeks for something to show up in the mail, etc.

It's a big country, lots of people are lazy, and it's not like there aren't enough domestic releases to fill up one's time.

Ordering from a non-US Amazon site works exactly the same way it does domestically, it automatically converts currency, shipping is usually between $6-12 (depending in where you order from), and my orders from Amazon uk, de, es, and fr all arrive more quickly than my domestic orders from importcds. As everyone else has pointed out, many great American classics are only available in other regions, and as far as I'm concerned, going region-free is a no-brainer.

TT's disc of The Fury will be an interesting test-case for the effect of Region B releases on the value of Sold Out titles. I would imagine that if Arrow's disc is as roundly superior as it's expected to be, it will certainly effect the resale price of the TT disc. It's unlikely that fans who missed out on the initial limited run will pay $70-100 to a scalper for a TT disc, when one can import a better version for less than $35. I also wouldn't be surprised if the hardcore DePalma fans who already own the TT version wanted to upgrade and dump the old disc, which could create a surplus in the retail market that drives down the price - perhaps even below it's initial retail value (if enough people upgrade). The way this plays out will tell us how large a portion of TT's base are region A locked, and might even effect the label's release decisions going forward. For instance, if the value of The Fury implodes upon Arrow's release, it might not be a great idea for the label to revisit Violent Saturday since most of us 'Internet diehards' interested in the film already own the Carlotta disc.

[Moe Dickstein]

I guess I'm just mind-blowingly ignorant but there have only been three things in my life I've ever felt compelled to import, and Rock Hunter is the only thing that would have required me to be region-free. I'm happy to wait for that one from Fox or TT or Criterion.

[matrixschmatrix]

Nobody's arguing that you have to go region free, but it's indisputable that there's a vast treasury of riches beyond the Region A borders, even if you're limiting yourself to English language films, which extends far beyond getting things cheaper. Whether you personally feel any compulsion to explore those riches isn't really debatable, but casually dismissing them is obviously going to raise hackles on a board which a large and active population that doesn't actually uh live in Region A.

[Moe Dickstein]

Yes, but the question was not about members of this forum, but rather something akin to "who in their right minds constitute the TT customer base". I very deliberately stated that my reasoning for my answer applied to basically nobody on here.

[knives]

But your reasoning remains false. You stated that it was for people who only had interest in english language films and thus didn't need to go region free. It has been proven to you in a multitude of ways that that statement is false.

[Moe Dickstein]

It wasn't that black and white, my point was that the vast majority of RA/1 consumers are well served by R1/A releases, and don't have a burning need to look outside those borders. That is not the case around here but there are a lot of people not on here who it does apply to. I still have to explain what Criterion is to most people who aren't savvy to this stuff like say the people that care enough to come to an online forum to post and read about it.

[knives]

I imagine though for someone to be knowledgeable enough to know who TT are, want to buy their (blu-ray product), and know where to do the purchasing are at least savvy enough to know who Criterion are.

[Moe Dickstein]

Perhaps, but since you can just search for the movie on Amazon and it comes up, aside from the high price there you'd never even know that what you were buying was TT. That happened to my boss when he wanted "The Kremlin Letter" after seeing it on TCM. No idea who they were (that was their debut release) but all we found was the oddly high priced listing on Amazon, but he wanted it so he got it. Didn't learn about SAE and the whole business of TT until months later.

[bugsy_pal]

Nobody's arguing that you have to go region free, but it's indisputable that there's a vast treasury of riches beyond the Region A borders, even if you're limiting yourself to English language films, which extends far beyond getting things cheaper. Whether you personally feel any compulsion to explore those riches isn't really debatable, but casually dismissing them is obviously going to raise hackles on a board which a large and active population that doesn't actually uh live in Region A.

Agreed. As an Australian, I had to go region-free in order to watch Criterion blus. I'm also able to watch Twilight Time releases, of which I have a few. I have 2 region-free players - a Panasonic that I paid to get chipped (as much as the cost of the player) and a more recent Oppo that plays anything and everything. I guess it's probably easy to ignore the need for a region-free player in the US - but I've collected a substantial number of Masters of Cinema blurays which are usually the definitive editions. Shipping costs and waiting to receive discs in the post are a part of life if you want the best. Then there are cheap locally available discs that I can get of titles that Twilight Time offer - I can get Sleepless in Seattle and Philadelphia, for example (if I was so inclined) for about $10 each. The other day I picked up Preminger's Exodus on blu for about $12, which I don't think has yet been released outside of Oz. There are great benefits to being region-free, for the discerning buyer.