Spielberg loses out at the push of a button

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Date: January 11, 2006 4:38:01 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Spielberg loses out at the push of a button

Dave:

Here's a nice front page story from today's (UK) Guardian, about  
region-protected preview DVDs, and how Steven Spielberg is likely to  
lose his chance of getting a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and  
Television Arts ) award for his latest film.

Cheers

Brian


> Spielberg loses out at the push of a button
>
> Xan Brooks
> Wednesday January 11, 2006
> The Guardian
>
> From Jaws and Close Encounters through to War of the Worlds, Steven  
> Spielberg movies have rarely had trouble connecting with audiences  
> in the UK.
>
> But the man who put a capital B into the contemporary blockbuster,  
> whose films have grossed billions and whose name is usually the  
> stamp of glorious cinematic success, has been humbled. By a button.  
> Pushed, it seems, mistakenly.
>
> This has had a profound effect on the director's latest opus, at  
> least as far as the members of Bafta are concerned. By tomorrow  
> they have to nominate the films they think worthy of accolade, and  
> Spielberg's Munich was expected to be among them, tipped for awards  
> both in Britain and at the Oscars.
>
> But the preview DVD sent to the academy's members is unplayable on  
> machines used in the UK. As a result the majority of Bafta's 5,000  
> voters will not have seen the film, due to be released in Britain  
> on January 27, and can hardly be expected to recommend it for acclaim.
>
> Sara Keene at Premier PR, the company coordinating Munich's Bafta  
> campaign, blamed the mistake on human error at the laboratory where  
> the DVDs were encrypted. "Someone pushed the wrong button," she  
> said. "It was a case of rotten bad luck." She insisted that the  
> film's distributor, Universal, was not at fault.
>
> The problem, it appears, was partly down to teething troubles with  
> the limited edition DVD players issued last year to Bafta members.  
> Developed by Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby, the players permit their  
> owners to view encrypted DVD "screeners", but prevent the creation  
> of pirate copies. Munich screeners were encoded for region one,  
> which allows them to be played in the US and Canada, rather than  
> region two, which incorporates most of Europe.
>
> The faulty DVDs only reached Bafta members on Saturday, which meant  
> the film had already missed out on the first round of voting on  
> January 4. In a further twist to the tale, a previous batch mailed  
> out before Christmas were reportedly held up by customs officials  
> in the UK. "It's been quite a cock-up," said one Bafta member, who  
> spoke on condition of anonymity.
>
> "We were promised that they were going to send screeners before  
> Christmas, but they never arrived. Now we finally have a copy but  
> there is no way we can watch it.
>  . . .

Full story at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/ 
0,16518,1683818,00.html
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon  
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/


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