| 1. | (4 posts) | "Spirited Away" Cosplay, but for Halloween |
| 2. | (12 posts) | We're Laughing With You |
| 3. | (25 posts) | Disney Distribution Theories |
| 4. | (8 posts) | Film Prints |
| 5. | (9 posts) | Nude Figures and Flatulence |
| 6. | (12 posts) | Length of "Spirited Away" |
We looked at 201 posts by 61 different contributors.
Just broke the 200-post barrier this week. Whee!
Sharon Westfall wins this week's Miyazaki Overachievement Award, "Maui Taiko had our Halloween Party last night with some visiting HS girls from Koriyama, Japan. The Maui folks had no idea who I was suppose to be, but all the girls knew. . . Small groups of them would walk up to me, to examine me and ask, "Who are you?" I'd then just poke my hand out with a handfull of gold foil wrapped Rolo's, and they'd crack up, and take a few. . .
There was this one little boy, he must have been about 2 years old; I made him cry a couple of times. He wouldn't take the candy directly from me; he'd have his older brother get it then give it to him. I told his mom, "I guess he won't want to see the movie then.... in the movie, I actually *eat* some people, too..." Later on, he was playing with a volleyball. He was chasing it when it bounced towards me, so kneeled down and buried it in my costume. The poor thing hightailed it in the opposite direction... like the samurai on horseback in Princess Mononoke, after seeing his buddy get his head cut off by Ashitaka's arrow... I know, it wasn't suppose to be funny... but it was *sooo* funny... ^_^
So here's a couple of pictures of me in costume. . . (#1) (#2)
the costume consists of a black skirt (actually, the skirt for a tall odaiko stand); 2 yards of black lining material, sewed up one side, but with a hole left big enough to fit my head; long black gloves from Claire's (a girl's accessories store at the mall) and a construction paper mask (reinforced with a hanging file paper) with an elastic band. Just the eyes where cut out, the mouth was black construction paper. Then I also pinned a bag to my tshirt to keep the Rolo's handy under my hood.
Robin Casady replied, "Nice costume! Sounds like you had fun. It would have been nice to see some pictures of the Japanese girls talking to you, and a shot of the terrified 2 year old would have been cute -- poor kid."
Michael Johnson commented on the topic of "Why is No-face funny with all the bath tokens?", "Maybe it is because No-face is trying too hard to impress Sen. The manner in which he is trying to get her attention is humorously excessive - perhaps incongruous with the mystery surrounding his character."
This sparked all sorts of interpretations on the nature of No-face. Michael Howe wrote, "I likened No Face to the kids in junior high or high school who try to impress people and almost to an excessive amount. (No Face reminded me of myself with one girl I knew from Band in High School). I remember when she turned down my offer to go to Homecoming the next year or even to Winter Formal, and I could fully understand the sad feelings that No Face expressed."
Kevin Wagner disagreed, "Most of us here on the list understand No-face's intent to entrap Sen by luring her with greed. I suspect that Michael, you saw the film at least once on R2 DVD or in Japan before you saw it in a US theater. You see No-face for what it is before it reveals itself. At least before seeing the film, a US movie-goer does not have this understanding of No-face. Even to me, No-face appears at first to be exhibiting sincere kindness - a childlike eagerness to please that people find endearing or cute. This, I think, is what they are chucking about.
I also believe this is intentional - that we are meant to first believe No-face is benign, so that we can share the bathhouse worker's
shock and surprise at the discovery of No-face's purpose."
Sharon Westfall replied, "I thought of No-face as a social outcast, the putz that nobody notices or pays attention to. Even after the fiasco in the Bathhouse Sen still takes him in, and he even finds a place in Zeniba's home."
Robin Casady tossed in, "I've seen the R2 DVD numerous times, and the theater dub once. I don't see No Face as a sinister creature trying to entrap Sen. I see him as a lonely creature trying to fill his loneliness. He only makes a half-hearted attempt to eat her after she tells him that he doesn't have anything she wants and he should go home. A truly evil creature wanting to devour Sen wouldn't be stopped by a mouse. He chases her because he is enraged that she fed him something that caused him to vomit. Once he is purged of his over-consumption and leaves the bathhouse, he calms down. This is his true nature, as Sen points out to Lin."
Kevin sent back, "I didn't mean to suggest _sinister_. No-face is obviously a rich metaphor open to much interpretation. What I'd like to suggest is that when he offers the tokens to Sen, the complexity of that metaphor are not yet apparent - there has not yet been enough development for an audience to know its true nature. And at such a point, the viewer might equate No-face's behavior with something it is not."
Andrew Osmond wondered, "Well, the line in the sub is 'He's only bad in the bathhouse.' To argue from that to 'His true nature is calm/good' would involve some rather complex philosophical assumptions."
Robin replied, "When I say, "half-hearted attempt" I am talking about his action, not motivation. The attempt didn't look like he was trying very hard. I don't know how you would tell whether he was trying to scare her, or was just not sure about what he wanted to do. . . His true nature is how he is outside of the bathhouse. How you characterize that is up to you. I don't know what the Japanese version of that line literally says, but I could see Sen saying something like, "It is the bathhouse that makes him crazy." and meaning much the same thing.
I see the allegorical meaning of this to be that the Japanese society isn't bad, but when it is in the consumer mania imported from the West, it is out of control.
Deborah Goldsmith broke out the books and wrote, "The original line (according to the film comic, I'm too lazy to get out the DVD) is "ano hito, yuya ni iru kara ikenai no. asoko wo deta hou ga ii n da yo." One literal translation would be "Because he's in the bathhouse it's/he's no good. He should get out of there."
"He's only bad in in the bathhouse" is a pretty literal translation, too.
Chris Kuan closed off with, "I just got back from my first "Sen" viewing. . . my audience didn't react at all. I think they just took it as a mysterious helper trying to repeat their earlier successful trick together. Why not go for the gusto?"
More than a few Disney-themed threads this week, Richard Eii followed up from last week's post with, "The fact of the matter is that when any company goes into Public Relations mode around any event, be it a film, a political gathering or even a bake sale, you've got to let people know about it. San Francisco is an exception. When you look at the numbers in other major markets, there is just no evidence to support the claim that Disney is pushing - for lack of a better word - the "product". . . All of the regular excuses: people don't like subtitles, it's too culturally specific, it's too sophisticated, it's just strange - none of them justify the strategy currently being taken. As someone who has worked in the front-line of advertising and PR for films before defecting to the other side of the fence, I can tell you first hand that that this is a completely bum deal for Ghibli. From having friends in both Disney and in Dreamworks, I can tell you that Ghibli was better off taking the Dreamworks deal. Even some of those at Disney were saying as much (speaking for themselves - not the studio). . .
Essentially, the studios determine the roll-out of a film, selecting their target markets (which for a film like Star Wars is shown in every theatre in every market: major or minor) and then how many prints are struck for a pre-determined number of screens. Films are not chosen like snake-water from a crier in a top-hat espousing the wonder of the substance s/he holds to a gathering of transfixed theatre owners. The studios basically use the theatre chains to determine what and how many films are shown. It is not up to the theatres, who really make their income off concessions, not the films themselves. Just ask any theatre manager or regional director. The consider their job to be like a restaurant, but one that just happens to show movies. As long as they fill the seats, they're happy. If puppet shows were a real crowd draw, you'd see them in the local Cineplex with giant satin curtain and all. Simply because a film is critically acclaimed or considered to be
of high quality means nothing. If the past is any example, merit is neither a guarantee of success nor a reason for corporations to support works of art. . .
Inconsistency is the first sign of a marketing and strategy campaign gone wrong. An average independent film or foreign film hit such as "Crouching Tiger" or Pedro Almadovar's "Stories About My Mother" have done well not because of screen numbers alone but because of good advertising campaigns and consistent approaches in all target markets. This means a consistent number of theatres with a certain number of screens committed for a set period of time. This is not happening even in Spirited Away's first month of release and this is a bad sign. When you bake a cake, you don't decide to add more yeast when it's already in theoven under the heat.
I will not comment on the intentions of the Disney people involved, as I do not know them personally, but I can comment on their approach which has been communicated to me on numerous occasions by people directly involved, whose opinions I trust. They don't know what to do with this film or any Ghibli film because Disney still doesn't know what it means to Disney, pure and simple. . .
In a way, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. For now, Ghibli remains kind of a special event for North American audiences. Like a flower that blooms only at night, it comes and goes and we feel the rush or excitement that comes from being a part of something temporary but enriching. I felt this way when I saw Mononoke. Sure, I would have preferred the theater to have been filled instead of it being just me and my girlfriend, but hey - once the lights go down, you're not there anyway.
Mark Yates replied, "there's 2 things (i can think of at the mo) missing: 1. Marketing... trailers in front of similar films (the effect of missing putting it in front of Lilo & Stitch can only be imagined I'd put it in the $millions), tv spots, newspaper ads, billboard ads, booked time on TV shows for cast and crew - all this appears non existant and therefore has noimpact on the Box Office. How many people in the cinema saw the film because they saw a kickass trailer in front of insert movie which got them interested?
Films such as Crouching Tiger and other foreign films became hits because of a well engineered marketing campaign and a keen ear to the ground from the studio that saw the film was attracting a buzz as their marketing worked and built on this with further marketing until people like Leno and Letterman are talking about it. oh, and 2. The film showing at the local mutiplex to catch people who are wandering by or intentionally going to the cinema looking for a film to see
This is by no way a criticism of anybody's work at Disney, Lasseter, the marketing people, the dub cast, etc.... it is just a lack of $$$ given to the above people, and the management who messed around on deciding wether to pick up the film, and therefore rushing the release schedule (no time for big films to come along between making the trailer and releasing the film) marketing... and by the softly-softly strategy of putting it out there on nothing but it's own steam.
Marc Hairston wrote, "Studios can require two or three trailers be shown with their film whether those films are going to be shown later at that theater or not. The rest of the trailers are the ones the theater chooses because it's going to be showing those later on. . . All the times I've seen SA in the theater (even at the press screening back in August) it's had the "Tuck Everlasting" trailer on it. And I know that Tuck is *never* going to be playing at the Angelika (arthouse theater) here in Dallas. ^_^ So Disney *could* have required a teaser trailer in front of all showing of Lilo and Stitch it they'd wanted to. Instead we got Treasure Planet and Country Bears as the required trailers (which are, of course, Disney productions, so they had priority)."
German Gomez complained about the Disney Store, "We have seen Peter Pan 2, House of Villains, etc, Lilo & Stitch, Country Bears, Treasure Planet, etc. on the Disney Store screen, we have yet to see anything that relates to Sen. I've talked to the employees, and they don't even know what it is. You would think that they could have at least one Sen poster (?)."
Marc explained the lack of merchandise, "This goes back to my point that Disney didn't get any merchandising rights to the Ghibli films. Disney Stores only carry the official Disney (and licensed Pixar) merchandise, so no, they don't carry anything from Ghibli. . . I doubt seriously you'll ever see Spirited Away videos and DVDs there and probably won't see any trailers for it on the official Disney films' home releases. I'd love to see one on the Lilo and Stitch release, but I'm not getting my hopes up."
But wait! There's more! Deborah Goldsmith pointed out a thread at Box Office Mojo with one person (with the ubiquitous "insider information") stating that Disney was keeping the release of "Spirited Away" low to enable it to last awhile at the box office until Oscar nominations.
Sharon Westfall replied, "I saw that... interesting spin. Strrrrrrreeeeetch out the new markets to last through December to make it more Oscar viable? What I think it'll do is get the people who drove miles and miles to see SA in a neighboring city, now go back to see it again, in their own town. I did that, for Princess Mononoke. Only, in the end, it petered out and never really made it to my town. . . It's rather depressing to see SA's 138 screens next to the others; 2,000+ or even 3,000+ screens. Still, with it doing so well in those 138 screens, makes you dream what the numbers could look like..."
Deborah sent back, "It's pretty obvious they have a go-slow strategy. I doubt the goal is "let's make as little money as possible," so the question is, what are they up to? This is one guess. . . I think "Spirited Away" definitely needs to build a market. I also think Disney was unlikely to unleash a multi-million-dollar ad campaign when Princess Mononoke tanked so badly. To advertise a film like "Spirited Away" sufficiently to get it into a huge number of theaters would have been hideously expensive. . .
Here's another speculation: maybe this is a low-profile project. Maybe it's not getting a lot of help from the rest of the corporation. Still, I have to believe the people actually working on it are trying to make the film succeed with what they have. At least they got the Disney name on it.
Another reply from Sharon, "Here's another... Make as much as possible while spending as little as possible. I think there's an internal conflict regarding spending advertisment money on a non-Disney film. There may even be an internal conflict between Disney and Tokuma that caused them to not pick up SA right away. . . Nobody knew of Miyazaki then. They do now, because of Princess Mononoke. There's also the Disney label on it. Totoro didn't have that. And a Golden Bear Award. There is so much more going for this film than Totoro did back in '95. I'm not saying 3,000 screens, but 138?. . . Somebody mentioned My Big Fat Greek Wedding a while back so I checked the Mojo website for it's stats. It basically hovered outside the top 10 for 14 weeks before catching on."
Robin Casady jumped in at this point with, "I think that very few Americans know about Miyazaki now. Mononoke didn't catch much mainstream attention. Go into a supermarket in most USA cities and mention to the checker that you just saw a great new film by the director of Princess Mononoke. You'll either get a blank stare, or "Mono what?" I think Mononoke is mainly remembered only by anime fans."
Gildas Jaffrennou cheerily posted, "Not a chance... Oscars are for American movies everybody knows that."
Mark Penrice quoted another website in a post about Disney refusing to send prints to some theaters and wrote, "Suppose if a film is more of a side project such as SA would inevitably be, the prints may take a while to duplicate (many productions, limited celluloid copying capacity?) and the company simply cannot make enough to satisfy demand?"
Deborah Goldsmith replied, "This is interesting, if true. It would certainly be nice if the demand is there and the slow expansion is due to time needed for duplication. Prints are very expensive, as I understand it, so I can see why Disney wouldn't make a huge number. I guess we'll just have to watch the theater counts over the next few weeks to see if this theory is correct."
Warren Savage wrote, "$14,000 a print average is what I've heard. But what about the film that's released huge -- say, 3,000+ screens? Where do they find the time and the money to do that, especially when the film (meaning the final picture and sound negatives,) was completed only a week before the release date? (Any industry insiders want to comment on that? What's the per-print rush charge?)"
David Mankins put forth, "I think this gives us a simple explanation for why _Spirited Away_ is not in more theaters: Disney doesn't expect to net $14,000 at that many theaters (*net*, not *gross*)."
Paul Mayer whipped out the insider view, "These days there is no set price--everyone negotiates with the labs. On a huge 3000+ print run, the prices can be less than $1000 per print. On something like SA at around 150 prints, I'm guessing the price would come in at around $5000 per print. . . Last weekend eight films opened in wide release, this weekend we have 11 opening wide, so the labs are all very busy. Fitting in a request for a few more prints on a small release like SA would take some logistical shuffling, but it is doable--probably for a fee... ^_^"
John Jenkins commented on a Deseret News review of "Spirited Away", "The DN says that SA " "Spirited Away" is rated PG for animated violence, some mild vulgar humor (flatulence gags), scattered use of mild profanity (religiously based) and glimpses of nude figures."
Flatulence gags? Glimpses of nude figures? We've seen the film several times now and read and reread the film comic. What on earth is
he talking about? My kids figure that the "nude figures" would be the "canary gods," as they call them, but I'm holding out for the Oi
heads.
Deborah Goldsmith replied, "My guess is the nudity refers to Boh and the Radish Spirit, both of whom are scantily dressed by Western standards. I can't imagine what he means by "flatulence gags" and "profanity.""
Michael Kerpan guessed, ""Profanity" -- the song sung prior to the orgy of begging from No-Face. Pretty mild, I'd say."
John wrote, "this is more innocuous than some of the evangelical reviews which take the film directly to task for its pagan content. I don't know whether the current Deserted News film reviewer feels obligated to "flag" things for the paper's ownership (the LDS Church itself) or its readership (I don't subscribe myself), but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the latter like having subtle hints letting them know that the film is beyond the pale -- but then, the fact that it's playing at the Tower in the first place would have told them *that*. :-)
Then again, the guy seems to feel obligated to warn people that there are bare baby bottoms, so who knows? (Goodness knows what he would do
with "Totoro.")
Warren Savage took reviewers to task for calling "Spirited Away" a "too long movie", "Do these reviewers look at the running time before they go into the theater and make a note in their reporter notebook that it exceeds the 90-minute time limit for cartoons for kids? Or do they notice that they themselves are getting a little antsy just after Chihiro and Kaonashi get to Zeniba's place? Did they see the film during a regular showing and note that the children in the audience were starting to fret and fuss after 90 minutes? Or did they see the film at a press screening or from a reviewer tape/DVD with no children present?"
Steve replied, "I haven't seen any length related restlessness during my 6 viewings so far. You might think that kids could start getting tired by the time of the train ride, but I've heard a good many, "Wow, cool!," comments during that segment."
Richard Pardoe added, "My 4-year daughter loves this film having watched it numerous times on DVD and once in the theater. Each time she watches this film, she watches it with rapt attention for the full-length of the film. In fact, she says the movie isn't over until the music of the ending credits stops.
When we saw the film in the theater, I estimate some 100 people were there (in a 150 seat theater). The majority were families with
youngsters. Only a few adults-only couples coming to see the film. For the screening I attended, no fussing or fretting by the audience
throughout the entire length of the movie. The only person I noticed going to the restroom was one of the two adults at the end of our row.
Warren wrote, "I picked the visit to Zeniba's house as the point where adults would likely start to get antsy because, when I first saw the movie in Japan, that's where I started to get antsy -- or at least I realized that the film was essentially over except for the necessary story denouement. . . Somewhere I remember reading that the height of the character arc for Chihiro was when she boarded the train, and that everything after that can be considered the wrapping-up of the story. Hmn...
Could that be the reason why I got antsy on my first viewing? Could that be why all these reviewers note the film 'might be too long'?
Deborah Goldsmith chipped in, "generally kids have been spellbound through the whole thing. The only time I saw a kid get bored was one boy who wasn't even really watching the movie to start with. He was playing with some trading card game and ignoring the screen. He and his mother left halfway through. However, many other children at the same showing were glued to the screen.
One thing I've noticed with "Spirited Away" is that more people than usual stay through the credits. I always stay for the credits, and
usually the theater is nearly empty by the time they're over. With SA quite a few people are staying.
Marc Hairston wrote, "when Disney made the first "feature length" animated film, Snow White, in 1937 it was 83 minutes long. With exception of Fantasia (1940) which ran two full hours, all the Disney animated features have stuck to that 80-90 minute tradition. Part of that is tradition, part of it is economics (minute for minute it's more expensive for Disney to make an animated feature than for almost anyone else to make a live-action film). So for several generations the critics and the American public has been conditioned into thinking that an animated feature is "supposed" to be 90 minutes or less. Anything longer is "just not normal". ^_^ So Miyazaki "shocks" US audiences by making films that "run too long"."
Michael Howe explains at what times movie theaters are crowded. Joe Aguilar reprints the "Entertainment Weekly" blurb that mentioned Nausicaa.net. David Mankins spots life-imitating-art. Lee Johnson posts an oldie-but-a-goodie, the San Lego. Ryoko Toyama links to some "Spirited Away" plushies.
That's all, see you in a few days as I try and complete three weeks worth of writeups in one.
