The Wednesday edition of The New York Times has an article by David Halbfinger on the MPAA and the “racy or graphic” red band movie trailer, which includes two paragraphs about /Film. We’re extremely honored to be mentioned in the Nation’s newspaper of record! I highly recommend reading Halbfinger’s article at this link, but here is the gist and then our story.
Backstory
The MPAA is trying to make Hollywood change the way the distribute movie trailers online. While most movie trailers begin with a green band graphic, which signifies that the trailer adheres to the standards for motion picture advertising outlined by the MPAA, which includes limitations on foul language and violent, sexual, or otherwise objectionable imagery. Trailers that do not adhere to these guidelines may be issued a red band, and may only be shown before an R-rated, NC-17-rated, or an unrated movie. However, the red band trailers have not been shown theatrically since 2000.
And while you would at first believe that a red band trailer would be stuffed to the brim with graphic language, violence and sex to appeal to the lowest common denominator, that is not usually the case. If something is not PG, it’s not allowed in a green band trailer. Yes, even a pg-13 joke is not permitted. Imagine trying to cut a joke from an r-rated movie into a green band trailer, trying to cut around a swear or two? It’s not easy. The most recent example is the Knocked Up Red Band Trailer. It’s actually not too different from the theatrical green band counterpart. There is some drug use, some bad words, and some sex humor. I would say that watching an episode of South Park would probably be worse on a young teenager.
The red band trailers out on the web today are now protected by an age verification log-on. But the system is more flawed than the entry page of a pornographic website which asks the internet user if they are over 18 years of age. Truth is, any ten year old kid could enter their parents information into the web form. But the real problem is that the system is servilely flawed. I’m not even in the system. And I’ve heard complaints from more than a few people that are legally (way) over the MPAA suggested age of 18-years-old, but are still unable to access the trailer by entering their legit information. How can this be? The MPAA is making the potential movie-goers jump through hoops in order to see an advertisement which might convince someone to buy a ticket. In an age where the MPAA is worried about Piracy and home entertainment, there is a huge value of allowing the studios to reach their respective audiences.
Our Story
/Film came into the picture because when you search “Red Band Movie Trailer” on Google, we were the top result. Why? Because we were offering “unfettered access” to a couple red band movie trailers. You would think being the top search result on Google for anything would bring heap-loads of traffic, but normal people don’t search “red Band Movie Trailers” on Google, trust me - I know this to be fact. Anyway, /Film was the top result for the search term for many months, even though the MPAA claim they search the web daily to remove such clips from public viewing.
Apparently they don’t use Google. And truth be told, /Film is frequented by people from every major movie studio (we can tell this from our server logs). Los Angeles is our biggest market in the world for web traffic. Not one studio has ever e-mailed us with concern of removing a red band movie trailer from public viewing. It’s advertising their movies. They like advertising. It’s good.
That is, until 30 minutes after I spoke with The New York Times. The MPAA ordered Sony to have me remove the Superbad Red band trailer. And I did without fuss. I even preemptively removed other redband movie trailers from the site. While the MPAA is not a government entity, it is an organization in which most of the major movie studios are members of. Being a member means you need to abide by their rules and regulations. So Sony reluctantly requested that I remove a video advertising one of their future films. How ridiculous is that?
Again, we’re glad to be featured in the Newspaper of record. It’s an honor to even be mentioned.
But the system is extremely flawed at best, and prevents target audiences from seeing an advertisement which more accurately represents the film. How can you accurately advertise a movie like Hostel without showing an ounce of blood? Any little kid could easily google murder and see real violent photos (yes, a joke used in Knocked Up) or even, gasp, pornography. It should be the parents job to monitor their children’s browsing habits and restrict inappropriate content through filters and software. But the MPAA thinks they can help babysit the internet, and makes it harder for everyone. And I’m a bit miffed that some adult webgoers like myself are left without access, while others are asked to jump through hoops to see a movie trailer.
So we’ve decided to do this… How To Gain Access To Red Band Trailers. Enjoy!
June 13th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Red band blah blah blah… Dude, your site was in the New York Times! :-D
Awesome.
Vic
June 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
I am right there with you. In fact, I wrote up an article of support for you:
http://therecshow.com/2007/06/13/slashfilm-fights-the-mpaa/
June 13th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
The MPAA is out of date. I know friends from film school who have tried to write reports about the organization. They found almost nothing. The demographics and requirements for its members, how they decide upon the ratings, and other issues were never answered by the organization. There were times where the MPAA had him on hold for over 2 hours waiting for an answer. When they did finally talk they just sent him to talk to someone else. This organization has way too much control without any accountability.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
There’s a fantastic documentary called “This Film is Not Yet Rated” which incensed readers here would do well to get and watch (you can get it from Netflix or any other online rental/purchase site). They show you how much effort (they have to hire actual Private Investigators) and time it takes to find out absolutely anything about who is actually making the decisions at the MPAA, and when you see who it is, you’ll be ready to march down to Hollywood and start a riot. When Jack Valenti died, I didn’t shed a single tear.
June 16th, 2007 at 2:27 am
All my friend could find out is that one of their requirements was that you had to have children. He couldn’t find anything else. I am going to have to get a copy of that doc to watch.
June 16th, 2007 at 10:58 am
That’s the only thing they’ll release publicly. But the truth is the people who make the decisions at the MPAA are all movie industry executives… people who are in charge of the huge movie theater chains, sony pictures is there, warner brothers… it’s all owned by the industry. They decide what the ratings are. And considering a movie’s rating has been proven to have a seriously strong effect on its success in the market, that allows them to wield a LOT of clout over the film industry. Honestly it borders on antitrust violations in my opinion.
June 16th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
But that doesn’t make much sense. I have heard countless stories where films are given NC-17, and are forced to cut out, 2 or 3 seconds here, one word there, in order to make it R, or drop from R to Pg-13. If the studios controlled it why wouldn’t they just go ahead and drop it down without cutting it. Is there really a big difference between 3 or 5 seconds of on screen blood. Or saying shit 7 times instead of 6?
June 16th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
There’re a few answers to your questions: one is that though some of the major studios are there, the non-majors are not. This means these studio heads are able to have a significant effect on the success of films that are their competitors. For instance there’s a great example in the aforementioned documentary where they talk to Matt Stone (from South Park, Team America, etc) and he explains how when they did the movie Orgazmo, which they produced independently, they were given an NC-17 rating and asked the MPAA what they could do to change the rating down to an R. They were told repeatedly that it was “MPAA Policy” not to discuss any specific reasons why films received their ratings. Then he explains how when they went to make the South Park movie (with Viacom behind them), they had the same thing happen and when they asked for specifics they were literally given a list of the specific things they needed to change to get an R rating.
Also in the film they show a fantastic split-screen montage of indie film sex scenes versus studio film sex scenes, where identical shots and scenes in independent films were given NC-17 ratings but the studio films consistently got R’s.
Trust me, if you watch the documentary they’re much better at explaining the details of this than I am.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
It would be nice if a theater chain would agree to ignore the MPAA.