Fri, May 28, 2004

In all likelihood, I'll be headed to the movies this weekend, for the first time in quite a while. And, as always, I expect to be greeted by Manny Perry.

Those of you who don't go to the movies often enough may know Manny Perry but not realize that you know him. Those of you who go to movies farther from the feudal lordship of Jack Valenti here in Los Angeles may not have met Manny Perry at all. But I know him. Ah, I know him well.

Manny Perry is a stunt coordinator for the movies. He's worked on such high-action films as Daddy Day Care, Kangaroo Jack, and One Night at McCool's. He currently appears in one of the PSAs that the film industry is using to battle piracy. Valenti, head of the MPAA, is freakishly obsessed with the piracy issue because he thinks what happened to music is going to happen to movies. (I disagree. Maybe a few people will download movies, and you'll always have kids with camcorders in theatres, but it's a tiny minority. Downloading movies will never hit the epidemic level of downloading music, because of quality. The reason so many people download MP3s is that the experience of listening to an MP3 is almost exactly the same as listening to a CD. Watching a movie shot on video or watching a compressed movie file playing in a tiny window on your computer screen just isn't worth it.)

The campaign ("Movies. They're worth it.") was intended to illuminate the collaborative nature of filmmaking and show potential pirates that the economics of the industry mean that piracy hurts the "little guy" – the craftsman just trying to ply his trade. The basic point is that there are so many middle-class people working on films, and pirates are taking food out of their mouths. It's a little melodramatic as a premise anyway, but it's even less effective because out of all of these tradesmen who make up the film industry, we've met... two. Manny Perry has been on screens for the better part of a year, and before him there was only David Goldstein, a set painter. The easiest way to lose an audience is to wear out your message (just ask the Kerry campaign); now, when we see Manny Perry whining and moaning about how he risks his life every time he does a film like Katie Holmes's romantic comedy First Daughter, it's lost all meaning. We just roll our eyes. We're bored with him. Bring on somebody else.

For that matter, bring on the kid fresh out of film school who's shopping his indie script around town and getting turned down. He's the one really affected here. If Paramount's profits are hit so hard by piracy that they greenlight ten fewer movies this year, there will still be plenty of movies that need their sets painted and their stunts coordinated. But if Miramax or Focus are having to turn away young filmmakers looking for a start, those kids are going to have to find other careers. Careers at TGI Friday's or (God forbid) careers in marketing. The main problem with showing Manny Perry or David Goldstein is that they talk about how cool their jobs are and how many great movies they've worked on. I want to be them! They have it easy! They just remind us that they're lucky – if underpaid – bastards who get to hang out with celebrities and sleep late every day. When Goldstein says he thinks piracy won't affect producers as much as it will laborers, it makes me want to download movies just to put those producers in their place. At least the set painter has a skill. Those goon producers are just soaking up money for doing nothing at all!

Stupid Manny Perry. "People put ... lives on the line, and then someone comes along and pushes a couple of buttons and reaps all that benefit. It's just wrong." Oh, boo hoo. "All that benefit"? They reap the benefit of watching a movie. Big deal. You want a medal for risking your life on Love & Basketball? You can't lump yourself in with NYC Firefighters on this one, Manny. You get to play around with firecrackers and meet David Duchovny and J.Lo. Get over yourself.

Jack Valenti on Piracy, Munchkins [Defamer]

(You'll want to click all three Defamer "related" links at the end of the piece – really funny stuff.)