Tech Trends | At Home with Tech

March 5, 2023

Why Does it Take 40 Minutes for the Movie to Start?

Are you also puzzled why you have to sit in your movie theater seat for so long before your flick actually begins? Is it to give you time to eat more popcorn?

Watching movie previews used to be a really fun part of going out to the films. Remember when there was even a surprise factor? Of course, today you can find all movie trailers online. So you’ve probably already seen every preview the movie theater is going to throw at you.

But these days, that’s not the half of it. There’s all of that bland Noovie programming with Maria Menounos that runs before the film is scheduled to begin. (It also drifts 5-7 minutes into what used to be the ‘coming soon’ zone.) And then, there are promos for TV shows. And for the final insult, there are all of the commercials.

Commercials!

Limiting my Exposure
I intentionally avoid most commercials, now that I can pay more for a commercial-less streaming experience at home. (The major exception is the commercial line up for the Super Bowl. It’s always fun grading the most expensive 30-second spots on TV.)

Yes, I pay more for our streaming subscriptions to minimize my family’s commercial exposure. I think it’s really worth it. Our twelve-year-old son has grown up consuming his media mostly without commercial interruption.

Sure, I still carry about a fair amount of parental guilt regarding how much screen time he consumes (a much more complex equation than when the debate was just over ‘TV’ time). But at least I can say that commercials don’t bathe his being nearly as much as my own experience growing up.

With this accomplishment, I am especially displeased that movie theaters have become a new Wild West for commercials.

I simply don’t want us to watch commercials before a movie.

I feel inundated, and it’s painful.

By the time we get to Nicole Kidman telling us what a great experience it’s going to be at the movie theater, I want to run away.

Talk about a terrible warm-up act.

A 3-Hour Tour?
No, the preshow isn’t all commercial content, but it bloats the entire block to an unwatchable length. Getting through it all feels like an endurance test.

When I went to see “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with my son, I lost literally forty minutes of my life squirming in my movie theater seat waiting for the MCU to start.

That creates an almost 3-hour viewing experience. Who’s got 3 hours anymore? It’s too much time. Way too much.

Post-Pandemic Reality
I know this is not a new phenomenon, but it feels like it’s getting worse. That’s probably because I haven’t returned to an actual movie theater that many times since Covid closed them all down.

If movie theater owners want all of their customers back, punishing them with content they don’t want to watch is not an especially great plan.

I understand that the business model of movie distribution needs to work, but this is out of control.

How Long Will You Wait for your Entertainment?
Consuming commercials used to be the way people watched television for free. Then we were taught that we could pay for premium movie channels on cable. And that evolved to paying for commercial-free streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix. Sometimes, you can play less per month with ‘limited’ commercials. But for me…that pure experience without any commercial interruption is worth the extra few bucks a month.

So I pay for the programming I watch on TV, and it’s usually commercial free.

And that’s always been the business model for movies theaters. When movie ticket prices go up, you can grumble, but that’s how it works.

But then when you throw in obligatory commercials at the movie theater on top of that, it’s crossing the line.

Today, it’s hard enough to wait 5 seconds to click out of a YouTube spot before you get to watch your video. Waiting 40 minutes for your movie is ludicrous.

Times have changed. When we are offered the option to ‘skip the open’ on our favorite streaming shows, today’s movie-going experience feels entirely out of sync with reality.

Add Back 38 Minutes into your Life
Clearly, the solution is to show up at your movie theater seat about 38 minutes late (as long as you’ve got reserved seats.)

This just takes a little reset in how you schedule your time. Trying to miss the movie previews has now evolved to how to avoid the preshow entirely.

Movie theater owners need to redesign their customer experience and offer something more worthwhile during the preshow.

Or just simply play the movie. That would be quite the innovation.

New Movie Theater Business Model
Okay, here’s a scary question: Would I pay even more for my movie ticket to ensure I don’t have to watch any commercials?
(pause)

I would.

If cinema 1 is playing the movie with commercials and a 40-minute preshow, and cinema 2 right next to it has the same movie that simply starts at the posted time, yes I would pay more for a ticket to cinema 2.

And if that’s been the plan all along, then I have to tip my hat to some really smart marketers who are playing the long game.

For now, I’ll just try to be that guy who shows up a half-hour late.

February 26, 2023

My Life in 30 Seconds

A friend drew this wonderful pencil sketch of my face as the basis for the birthday gift piñata she made for my party. I’ve found that my birthdays have always been a time of reflection. Last year was particularly intense…

With my father’s recent passing, I’ve been thinking a lot about his legacy, which has led me to think a bit more about my own.

And I’ve been reflecting back on my journey to date. I’m talking way back and trying to take in my whole life. What’s my story so far, and how has it evolved?

One way I’ve gone through this exercise is to review the photos I’ve created and collected over the years. They document many of the moments that have helped to define me.

Create a Photo Montage of your Life
Five years ago, I created a little photo project, which I’ve decided to return to and update. It’s been really useful to jog my memories during this time.

The goal is to select just a very few pics that represent my life so far. And then create a photo montage in a short video. The result is inevitably influenced by the chosen group of pictures, which will vary each time I try this.

Still, these photos do represent one way to look at your life. And I’ve enjoyed this exercise to help regain a broader view.

My Life in 10 Seconds?
How many photos do you select? Well, one option is to squeeze down the number to how many can fit into a defined amount of time. Sure, if you don’t want to restrict yourself, the video might last for hours. But what if you just limit yourself to just a fraction of that?

When I first tried this five years back, I held my video to just 10 seconds, and
I explored a few different photo montages at that length.

Okay… That ended up being a little too fast, as my pictures needed to fly by so quickly you could barely register each image. Some of my viewers complained.

So this time, I’m giving myself the luxury of a whopping 30 seconds.

Barrett’s Birthday Photo Montage
Each birthday is a marker in time and one simple way to collect a group of photos to tell a story. So here are my birthdays…

Though birthday pics can look visually similar across the years (mine certainly do), when strung together, the collection acts as a sort of time machine.

For many of these photos, I tried to represent my age by holding up certain fingers. (I eventually gave that up when I ran out digits!)

Barrett’s Life Photo Montage
Without the guard rails of a specific life event to work with, which photos should you choose to represent your life? Yes, that’s a much harder exercise and one that will take more time to figure out.

I created this draft, but it’s hardly ‘finished.’

This montage offers more visual interest as it shows me out-and-about in the world (as opposed to stuck in front of a birthday cake). But it’s still missing a key ingredient in any life.

You’re Not Alone
Of course, it’s all the people you know. Your family and friends are such as important part of your journey. You need to include them in any photo montage that truly reflects your life.

So, happily, I’ve still got a lot of work to do on that front. Until then, my little photo montage is hardly complete.

What Comes Next?
No, 30 seconds is not a lot of time. And hopefully, it’s not enough for anyone to really work with.

If anything, it’s just a taste or an echo of something much larger… and longer.

But I’ve still found it to be a useful exercise to try to hone in on just a few highlights.

And perhaps, it might help focus me on what my next highlights could be.

Time machines can work in both directions.

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February 5, 2023

“For All Mankind” Needs these Course Corrections

Here is my review for the first 3 seasons of this alternate reality TV series that chronicles the space race from the 1960s to the 1990s.

I originally checked out “For All Mankind” when it premiered on Apple TV+ back in 2019. And while I understood the premise that this was an alternate reality where the Russians landed on the Moon first, I expected some type of explanation as to how this reality evolved or was created. That never comes. (Yes, I admit I’m heavily influenced by the whole MCU multiverse.)

And while it’s interesting to watch how this timeline continues to branch out, it’s really just background.

And as I watched the first episode, I couldn’t help but feel how slowly it moved. The plot kept focusing on the family lives of the characters instead of the space program.

And then it finally hit me. Oh, that’s what this show is really about. It’s a character-driven drama about the astronauts and ground support engineers who work for NASA… in an alternate timeline.

It’s fiction. But not really science fiction as we might traditionally expect.

This Alternate Timeline Moves Slowly
“For All Mankind” is created by Ronald D. Moore, who is royalty in science fiction television. He executive produced the reimagined “Battlestar Galactica” and was a writer and significant influence on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

The premise of an ongoing space race opens up so much possibility. It’s a great idea. But it’s not the engine that fuels much of the drama in this series.

The show takes its time, and you’ve got to be willing to go along for the ride with a whole host of characters, some more interesting than others.

The payoff wasn’t there for me. So, I quickly gave up on “For All Mankind” after the first couple of episodes.

A Second Chance
Fast forward a few years (as the show likes to do between its seasons). Some friends told me how much they enjoy “For All Mankind.” When I told them how I couldn’t reach orbit with the show, they told me that it gets better after season 1, and that season 3 was really good.

So I tried again.

Yes, season 1 was a slog with so much emotion to get through, but the series does get better. So I decided to strap myself in and get through all three seasons that have been released to date. And I’m happy to report that I’ve accomplished my mission.

And I’ve got a few thoughts to share (with some minor spoilers)…

A Rerun of our Past
“For All Mankind” is really ambitious, especially as it jumps from decade to decade. And in doing so, it leaves inevitable holes in its storytelling.

It tackles many of the major societal social struggles of the past half century. You’ve got to give it credit for its reach. But at the same time, this narratively forces the show to focus backwards on our actual past instead of forwards towards an alternate future from our past. (Got that?)

Science fiction stories often bake big social themes of the day into the storytelling. It’s simply more front and center here. But while the series does rewrite some pieces of history and has fun with an alternate set of presidents, the world is still fundamentally the same. This reality hasn’t branched out that much.

At its core, “For All Mankind” is simply a drama. Or maybe a historical narrative from an alternate timeline. Again, it’s not science fiction as you might expect.

That said, I do appreciate it when the writers throw a few bones to sci-fi fans with references to “Star Trek” and “Space: 1999.”

Lots of Secrets
The storytelling structure is unusual in that there really aren’t any ‘bad guys’… just a lot of grays in many of the characters. Yes, there are a few episodes on the moon when the Russians aren’t at their finest, but they have reason to be upset at the Americans.

It’s often difficult to create narrative tension where you don’t have a villain. And the writers do a pretty good job working around that by making sure just about all of the characters we care about have a secret that has the potential to destroy their lives.

Houston, We Have a Problem
While the heart of “For All Mankind” is focused on relationships at home on planet Earth, the best parts are indeed off planet and where the show comes closest to an action/adventure series. In many ways, the series finds a better balance as it sets its sights on the mission to Mars in season 3.

But as much as the show finally finds its groove in the 1990s, the writers continue to inject instability by (spoiler alert) killing off major characters across the seasons.

Is that supposed to make me feel that anything is possible in this show? I suppose. But I don’t feel all warm and fuzzy about a series that keeps killing my favorite characters.

And some of the ways our astronauts act are a little far-fetched. (Do they really disobey orders as a norm in this reality?) Then, I have to remind myself that this is not real… it’s still fiction. But does that make it okay?

And (spoiler alert) after the explosive ending to season 3, what’s really left that I might want to care about? A problem for the writers… to be sure.

Don’t Exhaust the Viewers
So yes, I’ve now watched all three seasons. And clearly I’ve got some issues with “For All Mankind.” Is there a reason to keep watching into season 4 when it comes out?

Well, that final reveal into 2003 at the end of the last episode that previews season 4 is certainly enough to peak anyone’s interest.

Here’s one suggestion for the writers…

Reality is tough. I know every story doesn’t get a happy ending. And this alternate reality seems intent on maintaining a healthy dose of this cruel truth. But that can feel exhausting.

I think it’s time for a little more healing, thank you very much.

Find the Right Balance in this Timeline
“For All Mankind” is bold. There’s nothing else like it as it jumps from decade to decade with many of the same characters. And each season improves on the last. But it takes a commitment get through.

The show has teased going to Jupiter after Mars. I’d like to still be there if that happens. But I’d appreciate a few more thrills and a few less tears along the way.

Mr. Moore, I’d prefer this journey across space and time to just be a little more fun.

Make it so?

Category: Tech Trends

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