SFIFF: Brad Bird's State of Cinema Address
Okay, it's official: SFist has a huuuuuuuuuuuge crush on Brad Bird, presenter of the SFIFF's annual Thoughtful Lecture Thingy, loftily titled "The State of Cinema." Previous addressees include Michel Ciment (editor of "Postif," a french film mag) and B. Ruby Rich (critic, curator, cultural commentator), both of whom were probably wonderfully edifying, but far less likely to scream and turn red and make goofy voices than Brad. He kicked off his talk by sheepishly admitting, "I'm a little intimidated." The title of the annual address -- "The State of Cinema" -- is just, well, yikes. "I don't know that I have anything to say that's as important as the title," he said, and announced that he was rechristening it: "A Bunch of Stuff I Think About Movies." Awesome.
Surprisingly, the bulk of his talk concerned the Business End of the industry – specifically, the crappy things that studios, exhibitors, the media, and moviegoers do that allow awful movies to be made and make it hard to enjoy the good ones. At the beginning of his talk, he mentioned his irritation with pre-movie ads, and a few people booed, which made Brad really excited: “Yes! Right! Do that! Everyone!” he exclaimed, then led the entire audience in an en-masse practice-booing, and ordered us to continue booing at pre-movie ads until the exhibitors get rid of them. The audience went nuts at that idea, which pretty much set the tone for his fantastic speech.
His talk reminded us how, when we saw “The Incredibles” a few months ago at the Metreon, the audience clapped at the end of the movie. At the time it just felt appropriate, even though we knew the movie couldn’t hear us. There’ve been a few other times when that’s happened -- we clapped for The Matrix 2 trailer (before we could know that it would suck); the audience erupted at the opening helicopter shot at The Castro Theater’s Sound of Music sing-along; and when we saw the first Spiderman movie at a huge Times Square theater, everyone cheered for Peter Parker like he really was their home-town hero. Brad related a few of his own similar experiences: the first time audiences saw Darth Vader, or on the pan up on Bogart in Casablanca, the audience just KNOWS that something awesome is happening. We’re not clapping for the movie’s benefit -- we’re clapping because that’s just what we do when something has totally freaked us out with how incredibly cool it is. And, Brad says, that sort of thing is happening less and less.
What’s missing these days, he says, is showmanship. Brad's really unhappy about small screens, pre-movie ads, and huge opening boxoffices for movies that are, as he put it, "successful turkeys that nobody likes and everybody sees." He said that he missed the days when movies were events, when there was showmanship and people got excited about going to see a film. People used to treat movies like they're awesome, he explained, because they are; but nowadays, people kinda take them for granted, and the generic theaters, ads, and formulaic crap make it harder and harder to enjoy them.
Here is what Brad Bird thinks about movies: he likes them. "They contain all the arts," he says, "and I love the arts. ... Film is like a fabulous salad bar." But: "Movies are changing in some ways that are not so good. ... The thrill is not what it used to be." He sums up what's missing in one word: showmanship. Going to the movies is not as fantastic an experience as it once was, and still could be, if not for some serious missteps by exhibitors, studios, the media, and us -- film-goers.
Brad recalled the audience cheering at the opening space battle and booing at Darth Vader on opening day of Star Wars (the first one; the real one), before anyone could have been conditioned to love the film. In contrast to his awesome experience at Star Wars, and ours at Spiderman, Brad pointed to the muted reactions people have to crappy movies that they go to see only because they're told to. There was a ginormous marketing blitz behind Batman, for example, but when he saw it in the theater, the audience was silent throughout. As he was leaving, he heard someone say, "that was the most awesome thing I've ever seen," but it wasn't -- you can tell when a movie bowls an audience over because the audience reacts, and Batman (while pleasing in its own way) just didn't. But people go to those movies without fail, and those movies always make money, because studios have learned how to, in essence, buy a successful opening weekend.
That's a big problem, Brad says -- studios feel confident that nobody will mind if they release horrible, generic movies, because they know they'll make back their money if they spend enough on prints and advertising. Their trick is to saturate viewers with advertisements, and to get their awful movies playing on as many screens as possible. By aggressively nagging us to see their dreck and making sure that we have plenty of opportunities to, studios are able to bulk up opening weekend grosses on even the lousiest of product. Clueless filmgoers see that something’s rated number one, and obediently go see the film because they assume that that means the movie’s good. Of course, as soon as people figure out that the movie sucks, they forget about it, and bad films drop precipitously in rankings. But that’s okay, because soon the film will be out on DVD. Studios get a better return for their money on DVD sales, so they’re starting to regard theatrical releases as nothing more than commercials for DVDs -- something to warm people up for buying the movie on DVD.
Just as bad at the studio's cynical manipulation of returns are exhibitors' priorities. Movie theaters exist, Brad said, for three reasons: in descending order of importance, they want to SELL CONCESSIONS!!!! ...and show movies and sell ad space. The quality of the screen isn't really as important to them as the availability of the popcorn -- on which they net a 90% profit margin. That's lovely news for theaters, but it sure sucks for people who want to see awesome movies on big, clean, bright screens.
Brad demands better of theaters, and he wants us to do the same. He tells some great stories about yelling at movie theater managers for their dirty screens, scratchy prints, and projector lamps that are turned down to save money, thereby diminishing image quality. Another exhibitor trick: sometimes they widen the gate (the track that guides the film past the projector's lens) in order to keep the film from jamming in poorly maintained projectors. But that makes the film slightly blurry, which infuriates Brad, because “we SHOT it in focus. You should SEE it in focus.”
As a film student, he said, he used to outright lie to theaters to get them to correctly turn up their projectors’ lamps or fix the gate -- he'd march out to the lobby and angrily claim to have worked on the film, and that they were showing it ALL WRONG. Generally, some high school kid employee would make some nervous excuses -- and at this point Brad busted out a spot-on imitation of the pimply kid from The Simpsons -- and a few minutes later, the print would brighten up to the level at which it was meant to be seen.
One of the worst things that theaters will do is fail to show widescreen movies on wide screens. Brad revealed that it was really important to him to shoot “The Incredibles” in the unusually wide format of cinemascope, because cinemascope looks freaking sweet. (“Cinemascope looks like how people see. Because you have two eyes, and they’re right next to each other, so you see in cinemascope.”) But Steve Jobs, one of the head guys at Pixar, pointed out that theaters with regular-width screens would either shrink the print down or lop off either side and hope that nobody noticed. It was a worry, Brad said, but it was also important for him to make a really great film in a really great format. To the credit of Steve and Pixar and Disney, they allowed Brad to create “The Incredibles” in whatever format he thought would be best -- and it must have worked out well, because Pixar’s next film, “Cars,” will be shown in cinemascope as well. It’s crucial for a movie to dazzle the audience, he says, in the best possible available format. Even the new 3-D technology that George Lucas is considering applying to Star Wars is a good thing: “you’d be surprised,” said Brad, and we are -- it sounded gimmicky at first, but if Brad says that it looks good, well, we’ll give it a shot.
Somewhat to our surprise, Brad argued in favor of allowing studios to own theaters. Back in the 40s, that sort of thing was banned because it resulted in a movie-monopoly: one company controlled a film from creation to exhibition. While that arrangement might stifle come competition, Brad says that it would allow movies to be exhibited properly. He pointed to the El Capitan theater in LA, which is owned by Disney and does a magnificent job of presenting features in a great space. “If Disney owned more theaters,” he said, more people would’ve been able to see “The Incredibles” the way that it was meant to.
So, what’s the future hold for filmstuff? Brad predicts that as technology advances, smaller films will debut in the home. Theaters will continue to make the switch from film to digital exhibiton. The tools to create and distribute home-made films will improve, resulting in better quality and quantity of indie features. And most importantly, the industry will start realizing that consumers want to see films in awesome spaces -- but unfortunately, those awesome spaces are in danger. “I want to save and preserve the great one-screen theaters,” Brad says, “we’re going to need them, and nobody’s going to build them anymore.”
Ultimately, the changes that have to be made boil down to these: the media needs to stop reporting box office results, because they’re being manipulated by studios as a marketing tool. Studios need to “fire the MBAs and bring in people who know film.” The government needs to let studios own theaters, and to roll back some of the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is well-intentioned but caused exhibitors to build smaller, crappier theaters so that they wouldn’t be required to accommodate handicapped people. Exhibitors need to stop showing ads (and here Brad congratulated a guy in the front row who works for Century Theaters, the only chain which doesn’t show ads); we need bigger screens, no more tricks with bulbs and gates, and to be, in general, more fabulous: music from the film played before it starts, celebrities touring the country when a film premiers, curtains opening at the start of the show -- anything to get the audience all jazzed-up.
Brad was getting fairly jazzed-up, himself, as he was talking about how potentially cool movie-going could be. As he wound down the speech, still hollering and gesturing frantically, he struggled for a moment to find the right words to explain why it’s so crucial that movie-going be an awesome experience. Finally, he blurted, “I mean, you’ve gotta have your dream, man!” It reminded us of a time, several years ago, when we were teaching media literacy at a summer camp and asked a particularly energetic and ambitious high-school student why he wanted to be a filmmaker. “I just, you know, THINK in movies,” he said, and it was sort of cute and naïve and idealistic, but it’s also exactly the same brand of passion exuded by successful, creative luminaries like Brad.