The thing that annoys me most about broadway musicals that shake their fists at those ‘pesky bootlegs’ is… You have professionally filmed your musical, I KNOW you have, most of them have promotional material and even full songs filmed and recorded, they’re on youtube!
What the fuck is stopping you from just spending 1 entire day, maybe 2, on recording your musical, let it be edited and slapped on a dvd, ready to be mass-spread across the globe and earning potentially millions from musical-kids who are not rich Americans?
It would take no time, no budget (compared to the loads you spent on the stage production in the first place), it would stop bootlegs from being a thing and you’d make so many people happy. You’re not stopping anyone from coming to your musical because those who can’t afford it WON’T COME TO YOUR MUSICAL, and those who can, WILL. Because that’s the audience you’re dealing with: devoted theatre lovers. You don’t have to lecture us on how the stage production is better than what will eventually be released on the dvd because, trust me, WE KNOW. And we will forever mourn the fact that we might never be able to see our favourite musicals on stage because plane tickets and hotels are fucking expensive, but in the meantime, we can enjoy all your hard work, we can enjoy the cast’s amazing singing, acting and dancing, we can admire the decors, the lights, all the costumes, the music.Most importantly, you are making your fans happy.
So why the crap are musical dvd’s not a goddamn market, right now?
so broadway can remain “elite”
Ever since we got Newsies on Netflix, I can’t TELL you how many times my friends and I have watched it. So many times, in fact, that if it ever gets revived we’d probably take a trip to New York specifically to watch it.
1. Rights issues: You’ve contracted Star A to do Play A on Stage A for X weeks for $$/Day or $$/Show (equity contracts are not my strong suit) If you now add in Film A of Play A on Stage A for X days, you had bet your bippy every agent is going to make every actor in that show sign a different contract, which means (more than likely,) they will now be making more money. And they may ask for a percentage from the sales of the video, which means they could be making money for a REALLY LONG TIME. The same thing goes for designers, choreographers, musicians, literally anyone whos work shows up in that filmed version of the show.
2. Film and theater are two DIFFERENT beasts. Filming theater is spendy and time consuming if you do it well-a crappy one-angle wide stage shot (like the monitor feed that already exists in most theaters) is not going to sell well, which means you’re going to have to do multiple angles and closeups over many days of live show, including closeups and edit it together, or spend a couple of days doing performance after performance without an audience and a film crew crawling around the stage to get what you want. (Pro tip, no theater is going to want to be dark any longer than they have to be, because dark days don’t make you $$)
3. Similarly, crews who know how to film theater well are far and few between, and will cost $$! PBS has some great teams that can do this well, but I am SURE they are not cheap.
4. If you want that video to sell, although you may be saying BUT EVERYONE WOULD BUY HAMILTON, there is still a level of promotion and packaging and promo design and all that to be done, which, guess what, is still $$.
5. There’s also a fair amount of gushy touchy feely stuff that goes into live theater as well-if you go to see a show, you experience it with the other people in the theater, and you can literally see a slightly different show every night. Live theater is just that-live. Part of the joy is hearing the musicians, seeing the actors interact with each other, the show evolve, and catching tiny little inconsistencies and bobbles of live shows. One of the joys of my job some nights is trying to figure out how to get a costume piece forgotten onstage back off because someone else has to wear it in the next scene. It sounds dumb, but those moments and ad libs can MAKE live theater.
The National Theater in the UK and the Met Opera are starting to get around some of this by doing simulcasts-it’s still technically a live production you’re seeing, so they don’t have to pay the All Different Contract for everyone working in the building. They do add a few different angles of camera into the audience, so it may be a less awesome experience for folks directly in camera path, but it’s then simulcast to movie theaters around the world, and you can see the shows for around $10/each. (I saw their Frankenstein this way). The shows are also taped (they re-broadcast Frankenstein every so many years, thanks Blondybunk Comberlouse for being popular and in it) but they’re never put up for SALE for the reasons above. The NT won’t even send you a copy for educational use (there’s some brilliant costume and makeup work in it that I Very Much wanted to show a class and i got turned down when I emailed them)
So sure, you can claim it’s because broadway wants to stay elite, but in reality, there are a billion different people working on any show all getting a tiny sliver of that pie, and filming adds a level of complexity to the whole shebang that’s really cost prohibitive to many many productions.
All of those thing are surmountable, and I say this as a former theatre person. Yeah, there’s nothing quite like a live show, but NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD THAT.
THAT is the bottom line. Not everyone can afford the elite “special” experience of being in the theater. A single-angle-camera with ambient sound is in fact pricelessly better than never seeing the musical at all.
You want people to choose between “never” or “spend thousands of dollars” like that’s even a fair fucking choice.
1. When you are writing a contract, it is not that difficult to add a “video rights” line. When WKRP In Cincinnati was being recorded DVDs weren’t a thing so they bought TV rights only to the songs they incorporated into their episodes, so now the DVD editions had to put in different music, but TV shows since then have learned to put DVD rights and Netflix rights into the music licenses and everybody does it because now DVDs and Netflix are a thing. Broadway musicals could do that going forward.
And asking for a percentage of the sales of the video means they’re making money for a long time? That’s a positive.
2. Film one angle a day? Hang the cameras on the balcony so they’re not blocking the audience’s sight line? Just two thoughts off the top of my head to record a stage show without having the theatre go dark. I could come up with more if I saw the individual building and knew what I was working with.
3. If it became an industry, more people would learn to do it and they would be more and nearer between.
4. They already sell cast albums, they would not need additional sales infrastructure to sell video recordings.
5. That’s that elitism again. How many people in the audience do you think come often enough to recognize the tiny little bobbles? How many millions of people fit into the theater on any given night? How many shows run for ten thousand performances? If everyone could go see it live, the price would just go up until everyone couldn’t go see it live anymore.
Literally twelve years ago I saw a gym with a highly popular fitness class post on their website “We’re not releasing videos of our classes because a workout video is no replacement for coming in and getting the full social gym experience” and in the exact same post “We’re turning people away at the door because we’re too crowded, it’s so great!” It’s stuck with me these twelve years just how bullshit that argument was. It may not be a replacement for coming in and getting the full social gym experience but it’s sure as fuck a replacement for being turned away at the door.
When I can afford to go to Disneyland, I will go to Disneyland. I will not decline to go because I already own a DVD of Disney’s The Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy. Until I can afford to go to Disneyland, I have the DVD, because I just love the Haunted Mansion so much.
Whenever my town’s local symphony orchestra plays Holst’s The Planets, I go see my town’s local symphony orchestra playing Holst’s The Planets. In between my town’s local symphony orchestra playing Holst’s The Planets, I have Holst’s The Planets on my iPod, because I just love Holst’s The Planets so much.
It wouldn’t actually be revolutionary to do this to Broadway musicals too.
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