Packaging The Goods


	Packaging The Goods


	by Guido Henkel


	For years now DVD has been around and we have seen many experiments when it came to packaging these shiny little discs. Some more successful than others, and fortunately the Amaray-style form factor meaning packaging - has established itself as the de facto standard for most regular DVD releases. This, you should think, has given studios the chance to perfect their creative services and churn out DVD cover inlays in their sleep. Their sleep... what an interesting choice of words because occasionally you really do get the impression that certain people are sleeping on the job. You want some examples? I’m glad you asked.

When a studio creates a branded line of releases you would think they adhere to certain standards they virtually imposed on themselves when they create that particular brand. In the case of Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment’s “Superbit” line this train of thought seems a bit lost on the studio. Not only does the studio arbitrarily change packaging for the releases from their branded silver cases to more liberally designed custom packaging designs, they also flip-flop between making them single-disc movie-only versions to 2-disc Special Editions. And every once in a while they also forget to include the cardboard wrappers, they sort of established for the line. The only thing all “Superbit” releases have in common is their high retail price, really.


	Occasionally you really do get the impression that certain people are sleeping on the job


	Incomprehensible is also the studio’s design of the releases from the “Muppet Show.” Here you have a series of releases where one title is virtually identical to the next, so why don’t the packagings match up? I doubt that anyone at Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment has ever lined up these releases on a shelf to take a look at the spines. Otherwise someone would have noticed that there is no consistency at all. The logos move all over the place, sometimes the episode screenshot is underneath the Muppet logo, on others it is above. One time we have the Columbia Tristar logo, next time it’s only Columbia in a different size, of course. Evidently someone should tell the good folks at Columbia’s creative service department, that Quark XPress does support templates and master pages for that very purpose.


	I doubt that anyone has ever lined up these releases on a shelf to take a look at the spines


	The exact same thing happened in 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s release of the “Cary Grant Collection” recently. Here you have a series of films with a common theme and a packaging design that has a red line throughout. Yet one disc in the collection, “People Will Talk,” manages to break the line by adding a small telephone icon on the spine of the packaging in the most inappropriate place, throwing off the formatting and thus breaking the line-look of the entire Collection.

Unfortunately I have to use Columbia TriStar once again as an example for bad packaging practice. The other day I was looking forward to receiving my “Labyrinth Collector’s Edition.” You know the line of DVDs with the linen covered cases that started in cream-colors with “The Bridge On The River Kwai” and eventually turned to black somewhere down the line. It would perfectly match my other ones, such as “Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail” and of course, Jim Henson’s other gem, “The Dark Crystal.” You can only imagine my amazement when it turned out that the packaging for “Labyrinth” is actually about one inch smaller than the other films in Columbia’s “Collector’s Edition” line. Nice going. This reminds me of the Kraft Swiss Sandwich Cheese Syndrome - or KSSCS as I like to call it. It is probably the best case of corporate cluelessness I have ever witnessed, because virtually every time you buy a pack of these, it’s different. One time they separate each cheese slice with sheets of paper. Sometimes they separate them two at a time. Sometimes they don’t separate them at all. Then, in the next run they make the paper smaller, while next time they’ll be bigger. They also change the size of the cheese slices themselves. And then they decide to drop the paper altogether again and so closeth the circle. Some DVD studios are not too far behind this packaging illiteracy, in case you wondered what my point was, and you probably have to skim only over your own DVD collection for a few moments to notice.

Or how about HBO Home Entertainment’s season box sets of “Six Feet Under?” The second season set is also a full inch smaller than the box set for season one. Great thinking, guys! DVD owners never planned on collecting and arranging their favorite TV shows on their shelves to begin with, so why bother, right? Try again…

And what’s that with Paramount’s new packaging design? Not only do we have to commonly cut our ways through the super-glued seals that are borderline offensive on three sides of DVD cases these days, with only one of them offering a bit of a superficial “Peel here” assistance. Now Paramount comes even complete with safety latches... Sometimes I truly wonder what line of industry some of the people responsible for these macabre decisions come from. So far we only needed a knife to open a new DVD that we paid hard-earned money for, but it appears the next step will be that we also require a wrench. What’s after that? I don’t even dare to think about it... lasers, anyone?


	If Walmart or Blockbuster are incapable of keeping shrinkage in check that’s their problem


	I said it before and I’ll say it again. If Walmart or Blockbuster or any other conglomerate that suggest these super-glued, impenetrable packaging disasters on the studios are incapable of keeping shrinkage in check, fair enough, but that’s their problem. Why does the entire DVD community have to suffer for their incompetence?


		August 12, 2004


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