We talk all the time about what we like... books, movies, TV. Twenty years ago, it was hard to know what other people liked. You knew what critics liked or panned, but you didn't know what sold or did well. In the past couple of decades, that has changed.
Today, we can see the statistics for box office sales versus movie cost. We can see the number of books that sell by looking at the USA Today best sellers, or the number of books ordered by looking at the New York Times best seller list.
For movies, there is a website devoted to allowing the every day fans to give a movie a thumbs-up or -down. It's called RottenTomatoes.com.
On this website, you can see the new releases and their subsequent ratings entered by viewers. You give a rating of rotten tomato/good tomato to each film you see and want to rate. Then the movie is shown with a percentage listing. When 50% of the fans give a 'like' to the film, it rolls from a graphic of a smashed tomato green against a wall, to a happy, red whole tomato. Pretty easy to discern the ratings whether you're a visual person or not.
There are a lot of things that are statistically wrong with this kind of input... only those that have access can vote. Only those that care will vote. It's kind of like American Idol. Some folks are passionate and vote every time they see a movie. Others couldn't be bothered.
My daughter and her husband use this site to decide whether to go to a movie theater and see a new release or not. We live in the heartland. Movies open on the east and west coast a couple weeks before they get to us. Rottentomatoes has a lot of votes before that movie opens in Tulsa.
I sometimes look to see what a movie gets on the website, but it's not a deciding factor for me. I will still go to the theater and pay full price if I'm excited about a film. They won't. If it gets panned on rottentomatoes, they'll wait and rent the video if they bother to see it at all. They trust the content posted by other moviegoers.
This is a fascinating trend for marketers. How can they predetermine who will use this kind of input from other viewers and combat it? How does the early 'test audience' reaction actually change the end product a movie becomes?
In a world where the Internet allows like minded people to aggregate their opinions in one place, how does the artist/director/producer control negative impacts? Or can they?
In the old days, publicists used to say that there was "no bad publicity". Even when an actor hit the pages of the paper for misbehaving, they felt like his name making the press was worth something. Today, when the media will beat something to death--an actor can't afford to be caught behaving badly. Some publicity is bad publicity. Take Mel Gibson's last two crazy rants... I'm wondering if he's having a hard time finding a lunch date in Hollywood these days?
People judge. They share their opinions. And public opinion can harm the bottom line.
It's time that everyone in Hollywood realized that you can spear yourself, or your work can crucify you. People are finding ways to share their opinions and that media is gaining traction with other viewers. We can't afford to ignore any comments or feedback on our artistic work.
--Sandee Wagner
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3 comments:
Sandee, I'm not convinced you're accurately depicting what Rotten Tomotoes shows, or at maybe you're just not depicting what I look for when I got to. The main thing I look at is the percentage score of positive reviews from professinal film critics/print reviews. I feel like that's more likely to give me reasonable opinion of a movie's quality.
Craig,
Possibly the LAST opinion I care about is the professional critics. They completely lose me. I think that many critics are looking for something aside from 'entertainment value' when they are judging films. Or, possibly, I have very lowbrow tastes. But if the critics acclaim a movie, I've more liable to skip it, than to go see it. spw
LOL, Sandee, on your winged rats.
I've been writing outside every morning for the past few months. I like to set my netbook on a clipboard, and set that on a small pillow on my lap. One day last week, I took everything outside, went back in to get my tea, and came out again in less than 90 seconds, and a freaking bird had POOPED right in the middle of the pillow. I'd've strangled him if I'd had the chance.
Hey, we missed you at the meeting yesterday!
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