Why aren't more Broadway shows preserved on film?

[passing strange]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 8:48pm

Hi all!  Happy New Year!  I just had a quick question.  I have recently acquired a Broadway HD account, and have noticed that there is very little content.  I realize that there are several recordings of theatre productions on other streaming services also, but not as many as there should be.  It is essential that theatre is made accessible to as many people as possible, especially in light of the quickly rising prices of theatre tickets.  Why can't more productions be preserved on film, and made accessible via streaming services after the show closes?  What if anything can be done to change this?

Updated On: 1/3/18 at 08:48 PM

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 9:10pm

$$$$$$$$$$$$

[passing strange]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 9:14pm

I get it, but after the show closes, how does it help them not to release it on film?  Forgive me, I know nothing whatsoever about how the theatre business works.

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 9:28pm

This doesn't so much help your actual question (which I hope others chime in on, though the answer is probably all $$$-oriented)... but in theory, if we institute a practice of filming each and every Broadway show, then the incentive to buy tickets to see shows declines. Then Broadway dies. Which is not good.

[passing strange]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 9:41pm

To be fair, Broadway also dies, if the younger generation doesn't know what they are missing, and doesn't see the value of buying tickets.  I don't think everything should be filmed and released, but more should be IMO.

[cryan71]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 10:02pm

Is there any actual evidence of a filmed show have a significant box office drop after it was filmed?  What about tour numbers? 

I think many of the shows filmed for the Lincoln Center library should be released to the public. 

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 10:02pm

But when you film it, you have to have contracts with the creatives, the cast have to be paid, which requires all of the unions to come to terms, and right now, the cost of recording shows versus the money they will bring in commercially is still prohibitive. You don't just have to pay to film it, and once it is edited, you're done. When they do record shows, it is often to unpaid houses, as well, which means paying for a few shows with no box office revenue, and on and on...

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 10:41pm

There is the cost, that someone has to choose to pay. (And the Lincoln Center recordings are financially feasible because of concessions from the unions.)

There is the fact that not all that many shows could draw a crowd.

There is the quality. (Those Lincoln Center archive recordings are not good enough to be accepted by the general public.)

I believe that, without regard to the economic cost to a property, and I think it can be high in some cases, there is major damage done to the notion of theatre by releasing any and all videos because it conveys the mistaken belief that one is seeing a show when in fact a show can only be experienced live. It is the unique essence of live theatre that it cannot be replicated, and to suggest otherwise diminishes the art form.

[cryan71]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 10:41pm

All issues that attorneys and accountants can deal with.  There is obviously a market for these filmed shows as seen by Allegiance and Newsies returning to the movie theaters multiple times.  And the sales of DVD, airline movies rights, TV rights, foreign distribution rights, and streaming will not only cover those additional costs, but make it back to the general fund of the show.  Movies pay their actors, directors, et al -- and they make money, why not Broadway shows?

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 10:56pm

Because most of the time, they can't afford to.

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 11:18pm

My students (middle and high school) claim to have seen many Broadway shows even though they’ve never been to New York City. They watch full show bootlegs of the original cast of Hamilton, DEH, Great Comet, Aladdin, etc and to them, that’s the same as seeing the show in person. That indicates that producers need to more careful about releasing shows on Netflix etc because there are many people who are growing up thinking that theater is something you watch on your phone. Not to mention the myriad of unions that have to agree on a pay scale for a recording.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 11:34pm

BroadwayConcierge said: "This doesn't so much help your actual question (which I hope others chime in on, though the answer is probably all $$$-oriented)... but in theory, if we institute a practice of filming each and every Broadway show, then the incentive to buy tickets to seeshows declines. Then Broadway dies. Which is not good."

 

That's just flat out false. This theory has been thrown around for years but hasn't played out to be correct. If anything, theatrical properties find greater success and interest from the strategic exposure on additional media platforms. 

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 1/3/18 at 11:56pm

Read what I wrote, dude. I said “each and every.” The very small number of Broadway shows that have been filmed and presented to the public have mostly been successful in the way that you describe, which is great. But if we applied that practice to EVERY SINGLE BROADWAY SHOW, meaning you no longer had to buy a ticket to see any show on Broadway at all, then the incentive of seeing live theatre collapses.

[whatdoesntkillme]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 12:12am

I also think there's something to be said for the very notion that these shows were literally created to be experienced live. That's the point of theatre. If the creators intended for audiences to view the shows on a screen, they would have written and created a film.

[jbird5]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 2:03am

I miss the old days when PBS did things like “Mourning Becomes Elektrs”, “The Prince of Homburg” with FrankLangella and “The Andersonville Trial”. They were made for TV, but they were great. Still waiting for “A Few Good Men”.

Seems like the non-profits are more willing to put their stuff out there. They don’t generally do tours.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 6:40am

Yes, if all...or even most productions were released, I think that ticket sales would lose. " We'll wait for the release!"

And, to address the ops subject line: Almost every show IS preserved, and if you are in N.Y., you can make arrangements to see the recordings.

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 8:46am

dramama611 said: "Yes, if all...or even most productions were released, I think that ticket sales would lose. " We'll wait for the release!" "

That may be the case.  But i wouldn't call it a certainty.  I am old enough to remember similar things being said when movies starting being released on VHS for the first time so that people could view them at home. There was lots of handwringing about how people would never go to the cinema anymore, and just wait for the video to come out.  But people still kept going to the cinema, even though it is the exact same film that they could see at home, because going out for an evening was a social outing, or because they didn't want to wait the extra four months to see something that everyone was talking about. And then additional people rented the videos at video stores, and additional people purchased them at home, so additional revenue streams were added on.

With theatre, there is even more of an incentive to see it live, since that experience is different from seeing it on film (being able to focus on either the whole-stage choreography or one actor's expression, being 'in the room where it happens', etc., so just as people keep seeing movies in cinemas, it seems to me that they would probably also keep seeing live theatre for all the same reasons plus the additional ones about the advantages of it being live. 

And as the movies for Chicago and Phantom showed, they not only didn't cannibalize the ticket sales for those shows, but they seem to have even bumped them up, as more people became aware of the stories and music, and then wanted to go see the shows live.   Lots of shows have had bootlegs posted online that people can watch for free and yet attendance is soaring. Think of all the people who saw the movie of Frozen who will still go to see the stage show.  It's like that, but with live vs. videotaped.   I think it is quite possible that DVDs would drum up interest and possibly increase sales rather than decrease them, plus provide an additional revenue stream towards recoupment, making it a safer investment to produce shows, and maybe even allowing smaller, quieter, riskier shows to be produced if there is less requirement that they have to recoup all their investment in the broadway production. 

 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 9:07am

@adam.peterson44 Your analogy to the movies and VHS is a lousy one. The going-to-the-movies graph is a dismal one, no matter which metric. 

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 9:29am

The point is that movie box-office records continued being broken after home video started to come out (e.g. Titanic, etc.).  Plus VHS and then DVD and then streaming add additional revenue streams that get added to box office grosses.  But box office grosses are still big for blockbusters.  

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 9:39am

And while I see the point you are making....the cost factor is far different.  A movie you purchase for twenty bucks...it only cost 10 bucks/person to go see it.  (A rough average cost).  A movie musical will still be approximately 20 bucks, but (likely) over a HUNDRED to purchase a ticket.   A family of 4 could go to the moivies for 40 bucks, and STILL shell out 20 for the vid.   That same family might/probably would make different choices when the difference is  spending nearly five hundred bucks or waiting and paying twenty.  And again, I think that with occaissional shows having a filmed version released makes no difference, if ALL did (or many) that's when I think we'd see the difference.

 

Live theater needs to be live for the most part -- to truly soar.  I think we can look at the limited success of the tv versions of musicals lately as proof.   They fall a bit flat.

 

For whomever brought the argument of future audience members, that's a ridiculous excuse for video -- we've kept b'way alive for DECADES without film.  

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 9:44am

Yeah, I think the old saw
that releasing a video will
inevitably kill a live
production has been
pretty much disproven.
It used to be boiler-
plate that film rights 
contained a clause
preventing a motion
picture until the live show
stopped running in NYC.

But it turns out (in my
opinion) that as theater
got more expensive,
customers wanted a
guarantee that they would
like that for which they were
paying hundreds of dollars.

haterobics was right
at the top of the thread: it's
about the cost (and I would
add the difficulty of capture-
ing the emotion of a live
experience).

Now perhaps if ALL
productions were to be
eventually released
commercially, it would make
a difference. We've never
gotten close to that.

But once folks start
paying for DVDs, they
aren't going to be happy
with the rough bootlegs
we see on YouTube.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 11:07am

adam.peterson44 said: "The point is that movie box-office records continued being broken after home video started to come out (e.g. Titanic, etc.). Plus VHS and then DVD and then streaming add additional revenue streams that get added to box office grosses. But box office grosses are still big for blockbusters."

Your premise is wrong, for several factual reasons, but this is not the place to get bogged down in false analogies. 

 

[Broadway Joe]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 11:15am

I live here but still have a decent drive into the city if I want to see shows. I would absolutely skip a ton of shows if I had the option to watch them in HD from my couch. I try to see everything that opens but if I could watch it from home in high quality I would absolutely skip the ones I was on the fence about seeing or had ticket prices that were too high.

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 11:46am

They are. You just need to physically go to TOFT and have a legit reason to watch them.

[passing strange]

Posted: 1/4/18 at 12:55pm

dramamama611 said: "And while I see the point you are making....the cost factor is far different. A movie you purchase for twenty bucks...it only cost 10 bucks/person to go see it. (A rough average cost). A movie musical will still be approximately 20 bucks, but (likely) over a HUNDRED to purchase a ticket. A family of 4 could go to the moivies for 40 bucks, and STILL shell out 20 for the vid. That same family might/probably would make different choices when the difference is spending nearly five hundred bucks or waiting and paying twenty. And again, I think that with occaissional shows having a filmed version released makes no difference, if ALL did (or many) that's when I think we'd see the difference.



Live theater needs to be live for the most part -- to truly soar. I think we can look at the limited success of the tv versions of musicals lately as proof. They fall a bit flat.



For whomever brought the argument of future audience members, that's a ridiculous excuse for video -- we've kept b'way alive for DECADES without film."

Broadway is alive, but is it reaching it's full potential???  I read somewhere that 4 out of 5 Broadway productions fail to recoup.  In what other business is an 80% failure rate considered success???  Just think about it.  How many excellent productions have you seen, that have closed before they could find an audience?  The industry needs to increase the number of people who attend theatre regularly, and not just when a celebrity is cast or when there is a huge media hype surrounding it.  Maybe a little more exposure of what is out there couldn't hurt.