RichFlix

RichFlix

My son Thomas is a top notch video producer. It is what he does for a living, now on a freelance basis, but previously for Shake Shack and then for an advertising agency. Besides commercial work and promotional videos, he has also been hired to record and storytell for gatherings. He recently spent a week in Cabo San Lucas on the Mexican Baja at a corporate incentive meeting and filmed it with every piece of video equipment, including drones and 360 degree cameras that he has. He is actually now a licensed commercial drone pilot, so he really is pretty good at all that video capture, but his real talent is in the video storytelling. At the recent family clan gathering in Utah, Thomas, with an assist from nephew Josh (also a TV producer) and nephew Will for narration, did what I would have expected, he made a video to summarize our family gathering experience. It was a wonderful piece with majestic shots of the great Capital Reefs landscape and soaring aerial views of the ranch we were staying at. But mostly, it was a wonderfully produced series of cameos of the 47 participants as well as vignettes of our activities from the week. It told our clan gathering story very well. It ended with a Netflix-like logo that spelled out RichFlix in honor of my sponsorship of the clan gathering.

My kids and I all share a love of movies, something I developed in a relatively extreme way during my high school days in Rome, when I was deprived of American TV, which I wanted so much, and instead went with friends to an English language movie theater in Trastevere called the Pasquino, which changed billing every night and was the next best thing to having a TV. That passion developed while I was also spending more time reading novels to quench my thirst for even more stories. I suspect that it was those days in Rome that have instilled in me my love of storytelling of all types. This is so much a part of me that if asked to define myself in as few words as possible, I am sure I would find myself saying among the first things that I am a storyteller. I think that is why I so enjoyed the video Thomas put together and especially liked being effectively attributed the Executive Producer moniker with the title of RichFlix.

Using my friend Mike as an example, I think other people, even those who like movies, are surprised to hear that I watch perhaps twenty movies pert week, most of them movies that I have seen before at some point. Mike likes to say that he limits himself to one movie per week on Friday night. I can’t even comprehend that sort of discipline. COVID took a very old pattern of seeing two or three first-run movies per week in the theaters, and made me into a homebody, like everyone else in the free world that was laid low by COVID. Somewhere during those almost three years, I think I lost my movie Jones…at least in the theaters. About a year ago, Kim and I went back to the theaters for some movie I don’t even recall. We went with Kim’s brother Jeff and Lisa because it was one of the few things they could do to get out of the house given Jeff’s declining physical condition.

Even before COVID, Kim and I had gotten spoiled about theater seats we would deign to sit on, so we would only go to the Angelika, which is in Mt. Carmel and has the big luxurious tilt back seats. During COVID, even the Angelika suffered in that the food service has never gotten back to what it used to be. Kim and I go to the movies at the Angelika now perhaps once every three weeks and even then only if Jeff and Lisa want to go. In other words, it’s not that I don’t still have a movie Jones. It’s just that I don’t fulfill that need in theaters, but rather watch movies more at home. Like so many other things during COVID, the trend towards people going to the movies less often, rather than watching them at home, was merely accelerated by COVID.

Where I had been a very active user of the Fandango app, I’ve almost completely stopped using it, and only use the Angelika app for my ticket purchases. That changed a few weeks ago when, on the same day, I bought tickets to the last Raiders of the lost Ark movie which we went to see a weeks ago, and the Oppenheimer movie, which we are scheduled to see this coming Friday. I pre-purchased Oppenheimer tickets because I had heard that the only way to see the movie was at an IMAX and I understand there are only 19 IMAX theaters where one can see Oppenheimer. I don’t know if that’s correct because it doesn’t sound right but we are lucky enough to have an IMAX theater in the old Regal theater complex in Escondido, a theater I literally haven’t been to in five years. I also can’t remember the last time I saw an IMAX movie, so this should be an interesting experience made all the more interesting because we just went to New Mexico and saw the Project Trinity site and White Sands Missile Range, where the movie will undoubtedly be set. Since I’ve seen several other movies recently about the making of the first atomic bomb, I feel like I know the base line story, but this latest Christopher Nolan extravaganza is getting so much buzz that it should be interesting to see the latest take on this historic moment…and all on a huge screen.

I believe the IMAX theater has comfortable lounge seats, but if it doesn’t, that will be a disappointment and will probably put a knife in any future movie watching either at Regal Cinemas or at an IMAX. Actually, I don’t think Kim and I enjoy going to the movies as much as we used to. It might be about just outgrowing the process, or it might be about getting older and less patient, or it might simply be that the kind of movies that we generally would go to see at the movie theater these days are the ones that are called blockbusters or action movies, the kind of movies that you somehow feel need a big screen and an immersive experience to fully enjoy. Those are generally not the sorts of movies that we like the most, and the ones that we do like are just as easily seen in the comfort of our living room on our 83 inch flatscreen that has perfectly good resolution and perfectly good sound to suit our needs. I guess we are just not serious enough videophiles or audiophiles.

This all somehow feels like the passing of an era. It’s like when talkies replaced silent movies almost one hundred years ago. The era of big theater productions has gone to that place in the sky along with LPs, Eight-tracks, Cassettes, and even DVDs. It’s funny that right now streaming is looking like a stupid decision for all these content providers like Disney and yet there is no replacement for streaming just yet. Quibi tried and failed. Turning movie theaters into restaurants failed. What’s next? It’s like copper lines, satellite TV, cable, DSL, fiber optics, satellite internet, StarLink. Is the answer fiber or is it wireless or is it Satellite? It seems all to be a movable feast at which everyone starves given the extreme cost of the infrastructure. It makes technology look more like the enemy of business rather than vice versa. It’s so confusing and I hope something not obvious to me (like was the case with Bluetooth) breaks through and solves the connectivity issues AND the purchasing/viewing format of choice.

In the meantime, I will just watch and rewatch my RichFlix video and dream of a better and clearer technological and business model day.