Balancing budgets with creative decisions


	Balancing Budget Issues with Creative Decisions


	by Guido Henkel


	Creating DVD releases is a very elaborate process as everyone involved is certainly willing to attest. From the outside you would think that every release has the same outset - to release a movie on the shiny disc - but the ways to get there, and the end results can be very different. While in some instances availability and quality of material - or the lack thereof - can determine the content and presentation of a DVD release, in most cases, these factors are delimited by a project budget - the hard cash that is spent to pull it all together.

There is a thin line that studios have to walk to satisfy their customers and to keep their own financials in check. While it is easy to forget from a consumer standpoint that studios are in the business to make money, fact of the matter is that studios can not and do not necessarily want to make everyone a happy camper, and oftentimes a release is ruled by the available budget for that particular title. To understand the practice a little better, let’s just say a DVD release is


	The “Men In Blacks” of this world are inevitably tackled with different budgets than “Project Moonbase”

a small-scale version of a movie’s theatrical release. If you are talking about a blockbuster movie, more money is spent on creating advertising, flashy marketing materials and to book them on as many screens as possible. Smaller independent productions on the other hand can’t do that and are hence delegated to a niche audience who see these - often unfairly obscure - films in an arthaus theater for example. The same applies for DVD releases. The “Men In Blacks” of this world are inevitably tackled with different budgets in mind than “Project Moonbase.”

The question how publishers should allocated their budgets for DVD releases is manifold and the answers vary depending on who you ask. While some feel that all the budget should be primarily allocated to create the best possible presentation of the movie itself, others feel that an array of extras, such as commentary tracks, featurettes and other material should be weighed in just as importantly. Others yet feel that an elaborate menu system is the way to go, and I am sure you can also find people who believe that the packaging of the DVD is what deserves the biggest slice of the budget-pie. It all depends on the point of view anyone has, and hardly surprising there are many different views involved in a DVD production.


	Many forget however that the costs to create such a transfer can easily exceed the entire budget of even middle-scale DVD projects

So, what consequences does a budget restraint have on a DVD? How are creative decisions made to accommodate those requirements? There are obviously many elements that go into a DVD, all of which can become a victim of budget limitations, but many times the thing you immediately notice is the quality of the feature presentation itself.

The purist feels the feature presentation is most important and all money should be spent to make sure brand new high definition transfers are made from the best possible elements. Many forget however that the costs to create such a transfer can easily exceed the entire budget of even middle-scale DVD projects.

If new interpositives need to be printed for the occasion and color correction and clean-up have to be part of this step, costs of well over $100,000 are not unheard of and often make this an prohibitively expensive step for many DVD projects. Keep in mind that some of the smaller DVD releases sell less than 5,000 copies, which would translate into a $20 trade-off on every copy sold. Considering that DVDs retail for less than that - and don’t even think about wholesale prices - it is easy to see that these numbers just don’t add up. Ironically, oftentimes it is exactly those movies that could benefit the most from the quality improvement that comes with a re-transfer. As a result, many studios have to accommodate what they can afford, which may mean, using existing show prints of a movie for transfer, cut back on the clean-up or simply use an existing Laserdisc transfer. The quality decreases proportionally with the budget that is available and there are few - if not no - shortcuts at all.

A remix of the audio may also be in order, especially with older films that were produced in mono and need some beefing up to make them more appealing to today’s audiences. The possibilities here are endless - and so can be the applicable costs. While a generally audio clean-up may be done quickly and affordably, it usually sounds quick and cheap with noticeable lack of brilliance and presence in the resulting track or even audible noise-gating in the worst cases - which


	Making movies is a profession and it involves money!

are sadly out there! More elaborate processes to “contemporate” audio tracks may include a full remix to 5.1 or more surround channels, as we have seen on a number of occasions. Don’t be fooled however, these remixes - like the ones done for “Halloween” or “Terminator” - can cost a fortune since they also imply bringing in the original sound designers of the movies, who usually don’t these things as a hobby on the side and charge for their services. Studio time, equipment renting, talent fees and much more can quickly accumulate to costs that are equally going way over the budget of many DVD projects and are suitable only for the most prolific titles of any studio.

Bonus materials can also become quite a monetary stepping stone as everyone can easily realize. Sometimes a publisher has the opportunity to reuse existing material that has been released on other formats, like Laserdisc, which gives certain titles a nice foundation. However, updating or creating completely new supplements can also run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Although in an ideal world one would think filmmakers should love to sit down and talk about their movies for commentary tracks, in the reality of things that is not really the case. Making movies is a profession and it involves money. As a result not all participants of commentary tracks do them for free. Oftentimes a check may be the only incentive to get people to be a part of a commentary recording session that will be used for the DVD release.


	The bottom line is the budget a studio is willing and able to commit to any given title


	And then there are these spiffy documentaries and featurettes. While it may be fun to watch them, creating them is a business like everything else in the movie industry. It takes time, equipment and talent to create these documentaries, and usually neither comes free. Material costs, editing costs, equipment rental and other things quickly count up the numbers and many times it is impossible to make a documentary part of a release, simply because its costs are prohibitive.

Finally there are menus and other interactive content that can go on a DVD and that consumers have to come expect. Simply still menus are yesterday’s news. Today, everyone wants to see fully animated menus, and preferably with new footage that is not simply lifted off the movie. Themes and integration are the keywords here and as you would no doubt expect, bringing these menus to life can cost a lot of money. Whether it requires shooting of additional footage, restoring of footage from archives, or creating rendered 3D models, creating captivating and fully animated menus is a time-consuming undertaking and one that has little pay-off. It is nothing that you can wholeheartedly advertise as an added-on feature - which doesn’t really prevent some publishers from doing so - and it is basically one of the most irrelevant parts of any release in terms of content. It is eye-candy that helps create a more immersive experience for consumers, a navigation backdrop that ties all the loose ends together, and as such it has value on a very different level, as it can make or break the overall appeal of a DVD release. No wonder it has a hefty price tag attached to it, one that is often too big for many projects, that then have to rely on more simplistic navigational menus.

The bottom line of all these discussions is the budget a studio is willing and able to commit to any given title and that is where major differences are noticeable. Looking through DVD releases quickly reveals the big spenders in the business, those studios that are committed to make DVD as good as possible, and those who treat it more as an additional off-the-mill revenue channel without paying much attention to the format’s capabilities or consumer expectations. Interestingly, this commitment has nothing to do with the actual size of a publisher and there are certain independent DVD publishers that release nothing but brand-new 16x9 transfers, and many titles that are completely remixed, even if the DVD itself does not contain any additional features. This is more commitment than the fans of those films could ever ask for and puts shame on the face of many a Hollywood major studio releases.

Let’s face it. Publishers don’t release DVDs because it is fun to do, or because they feel it is important for people to watch a film with new-found clarity, to see those deleted scenes or to take a look at rare still photographs. Everything and everyone has a purpose and that purpose is profit. If a project is not profitable the publisher has a problem. As a result any given DVD project has to strike a fine balance between financial possibilities and creative opportunities to make sure the title satisfies consumer expectations and turns a profit at the same time.


	This article has originally been published in my monthly column “DVD Unclassified” in “Media Line” and is reprinted here by permission.


	August 10, 2000

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