Media Guardian’s top 100 so far…

Like the Wired 100 I really don’t see the point in these top 100’s they seem to serve the purpose of making people feel underwhelmed and under appreciated. Either way the Media Guardian’s 100 at least has a better scope of what people are doing all over the country including the north.

At the time of writing only 100-60 was available.

Excellent to see Herb Kim (new entry) at number 83. Someone is obviously reading wired magazine and taking note of the feedback. and our own Peter Salmon director of BBC North at number 84. Noel Clarke at number 81 is a interesting decision, I would personally put him higher because his films have been such a inspiration over the years. Really showing what street life is like without going up its own ass.

It is a shame to see Stephen Fry going from 45 to 64 but to be fair he’s been rather quiet recently. But what the hell is Big Brother doing in the chart at number 100? I thought the top 100 was about people not shows or formats?

Orange Wednesdays saves Cinema?

I’ve been going to the cinema quite a lot recently, further proving that file sharers are truly film lovers an will pay for convenience and the film industry should consider this. So far I’ve been to the cinema 4 times in the last 2 weeks. I even bought Empire magazine while waiting in Manchester Hospital for my physical therapy session

Anyway, I went to the cinema today and it was packed. Compare this to Tuesday and even Thursday last week, where it was very quiet.

It got me thinking about the effect of Orange Wednesday.

It seems a lot of people are waiting to Wednesday to go to the cinema which makes sense with it being two for one.

Obviously it was setup with the major cinema chains because Wednesday is officially the last day of the cinema week, so anything to get people in on the last day makes a lot of sense. The weird thing is that a phone company would do this, specially with everything the cinema chains have tried to get people in. Everything they have tried from offering one pound tickets on cinema day to playing computer games on the massive screens.

Orange Wednesdays certainly nets the cinemas a huge amount of money and I wonder how they compare to Saturdays and even Sundays. There’s little secret that the cinemas make almost all there money on Food and drink, the money for films actually mainly go back to the distributor and studio depending on the popularity of the film. Something like 4,3,2,1 which I saw on Monday will typically take all the box office money in the first 2-3 weeks. Something like the dark knight or even avatar will have a longer period set on its return. Maybe even up to 8 or even 10 weeks for a high ranking blockbuster. Which means cinema usually try and hold a film as long as they can or have many theatres as possible (hence things like the 16 screen AMC multiplex in Manchester, my local cinema). Obviously on the flip side they also try and get rid of the films that don’t do so well for them too, quickly.

You could say Orange Wednesdays was a early Four Square or Gowall type system, its just a shame the cinemas are only just catching on to the potential of loyalty schemes. How good would it have been if you could have a home cinema and got points or even prizes if you visited others? Heck they could have bluetooth access points in the box office area where they could do a whole bunch of things.

Orange Wednesday is a very clever concept, and if you look beyond the silly ads you might find its the saver of modern cinema.