I wonder if there’s a business to be gotten into where one shows movies the way everyone wants to see them: just the movies, from the very first second you start watching. It’s a naive thought; I understand that. But I can’t forget that when those lights went down, when that screen went up, and when that twangy riff kicked in, there were audible gasps and cheers in the audience, and someone behind me yelled out “whoa, awesome!”
I want to believe that there’s a business to be gotten into that capitalizes on “whoa, awesome”.
There’s a mindset that sees space as, well, space. Elbow room. Breathing room. To a designer or artist, space – white space – can help to define the object it encloses, or guide the eye through the content.
And then there’s another mindset that can’t think of the word “space” without inserting the word “wasted” before it… and then dreams up a way to sell advertising to fill it up.
Naming rights. Sponsorship. Closed captioning is brought to you by. Ads on bike racks and coffee cups. And of course ads before movies (and often during them).
Anywhere there’s an expanse of space, large or small, – in time (on TV and radio) or in space – we’re finding ways to slap an ad on it.
Here: have some white space.
Put it away somewhere safe. The world’s supply is getting smaller every day.
What bugs me about “previews” and ads when you go to see films is that you’re a captive audience with no way to mitigate the situation. What severely torques me is at home when you go to view a flick and the previews _force_ you to watch and won’t let you do a “next”.
Absolutely. Case in point: a few days ago, LodgeNet — one of the leading very-expensive-movies-in-your-hotel-room providers — filed for bankruptcy protection. That tells me that captive audiences are finding a way of escaping… and businesses built around being their jailers had better rethink their approach.