Image: so pure, so pristine, so obsolete?
Not so long ago, choosing to watch a movie was really less of a choice and much more of a quest. Want to re-discover a classic or check out some new releases? You’d have to leave the couch, hop in your car and drive to a bona-fide brick-and-mortar video store.
Now, those rousing trips to the local Blockbuster have been usurped by the ability to sit back, ‘chill’, and queue thousands of options from a laptop, phone or smart TV. The round and shiny discs that once captivated our imaginations just don’t do it anymore for a generation that demands everything at the push of a button.
Across the suburbs, the family DVD stores have died one by one. At DVD behemoth JB Hi-Fi, sales of the discs have halved, while Blu-Ray has become a technological joke.
But there is a resistance movement run by the men and women who love their movies and the culture that goes with them. Digging in their heels and refusing to budge on the service that loyal film buffs still cry out for, niche DVD retailers know that true movie connoisseurs will always want the good stuff: special features, director’s commentary and limited edition box art galore.
In Melbourne, you’ll find towers of hard-to-find and long forgotten films beckoning as you enter PLAY Music and DVDs, one of the few remaining DVD stores in the city.
Stores like PLAY offer the culture and sense of ownership that remains one of the key selling points to buying a DVD.
‘The DVD industry has become more about the connoisseurs and less about the common denominators, that’s the industry that’s kind of dying whereas what we found is that there are people who want the good quality stuff – movie as art, that’s what we sell a lot of,’ says owner Rex Rekhi.
Where once the only way to watch a movie was to rent or buy it, now it takes just a few clicks on a keyboard. eBay, Amazon and Netflix have replaced the men and women behind the counter offering advice, connection and warmth. But Rekhi says the industry he lives in will continue to flourish as people start to miss what made entertainment so great to begin with: sharing it.
‘People are shifting back towards it because they want that individuality. They want to surround themselves with things they like, rather than cold hard things that are great for access but have a coldness about them,’ he says.
‘It’s one of the reasons why people are turning towards vinyl. People say it’s a better sound. It’s not a better sound on a $200 system, what they’re trying to say is it’s a better purchase. It makes you feel good and it brings back that personality.’
While the niche marketplace might prosper in a cult market, the once great suburban enterprises can’t evoke the same loyalty. But they too are refusing to surrender.
To try and reclaim the ‘common denominators’ interest, Franchise Entertainment groups Video Ezy and Blockbuster have fundamentally altered how they target consumers, placing rental kiosks in high foot traffic areas like supermarkets and shopping centres.
‘Stores in general use 20 per cent of their space to display new releases which make 80 per cent of their income. DVD rental kiosks have a small footprint so cost little in rent, and staff costs can be as small as a day a week to run a fleet of kiosks,’ says managing director Paul Uniacke.
But as the franchise groups have focused on making their products more ‘convenient and accessible’, they have lost the human touch. They are in danger of being just as cold as the new technologies they are fighting.
An extensive back-catalogue unavailable elsewhere is what Movieland co-founder Paul Spano says will continue to make rental shops important.
‘That’s our point of difference, our offering is a lot greater than what you’re going to get out of a kiosk,’ he says.
Unlike Uniacke, Paul Spano says he couldn’t see the ‘old technology’ succeeding when he was approached to incorporate them into his business.
‘You’re not really moving with the times, you’re basically just modifying the old-school model and I just didn’t see it as the way of the future.’
Spano is one of the men behind the rise of the video rental industry in Australia, responsible at one point for over 140 stores in his Movieland network across the country. Terabytes of movies can now be stored on a hard drive the size of a VHS tape, but in 1982, the big and clunky boxes of magnetic tape housed just the one and there was never enough to go around. So expensive were the tapes, only 3 or 4 copies of a blockbuster movie would be available for the hundreds of customers walking in on a Saturday night.
‘The industry went through a stage that frustrated customers because they couldn’t watch what they wanted when they wanted to watch it. So there was dissension happening and it was frustrating. But it was still a vibrant industry,’ Spano says.
Fast forward to today and we have lost the patience to wait. We have the world at our fingertips.
‘There’s much more demand from people for instant gratification. We’re exposed to what’s on in America now through magazines and television and the internet. Before we had the internet, people had to rely on us to find out what was new,’ says industry veteran Lyndall Richardson.
But for those committed to the analogue industry and fighting the good fight by waiting for a movie to reach them, they can often be waiting a long time to eventually grasp the box set in their hands – which is a big part of the problem.
‘In America and England and Europe everything is available. We don’t even get a third of what’s been released overseas,’ says Jeanette Bresaz, manager of boutique retail store DVD Collection.
To offer what JB Hi-Fi and local distributors couldn’t, the store used to stock the movies and films unavailable in Australia. But when the classification board caught wind of what was happening, a lot of stock imported from overseas was removed from the shelves.
‘We had to re-do everything and everything had to change. We lost two whole sections and have changed the process, checking that everything’s been rated here [in Australia] before we order it,’ Bresaz says.
So when there is no legal alternative, it’s no surprise that Australia ranks as one of the biggest offenders for illegal downloading. It’s not because it’s free, it’s because there is no other option left.
‘Just saying “don’t pirate” isn’t useful. It’s better to say “well, people are getting things digitally and they do want things immediately and don’t want to wait a year for the latest season of something, so how can we offer that in a reasonable way?’’ says filmmaker Phoebe Hartley.
As it stands though, people are unlikely to look to DVDs for the answer and Uniacke’s fight or flight response to push the kiosk business over the bricks-and-mortar stores is merely splitting whatever business there is left.
After selling the rights to Movieland in 2002, Paul Spano saw all his stores turned into Video Ezys and Blockbusters. The few shops he kept himself operated as Video Ezy franchises until 2012. Faced with signing on to the corporate structure for another decade when the contracts to Video Ezy expired in 2012, Spano has since left the franchise business, downsized to a single store and joined Network Video.
A buying group that allows its operators to be independent, Network can also pride itself on staying true to the service of a video store, putting no faith – or stock – into the kiosks. ‘While some groups have put a lot of faith and investment in kiosks, we don’t see them being a major driver of business,’ says Network buying manager Dan Steadman.
And while franchise groups will dictate how many copies of a movie should be stocked, Network allows much more freedom, which could make all the difference.
‘The corporate structures of a Video Ezy or a Blockbuster are gone. The independent stores fully stocked with hard-to-get product will be around for years,’ Paul says.
After riding the wave of the rental industry back to the seaside shores of Sandringham where the final jewel in his crown stands proud and booming, Paul says the industry is returning to where it all began.
‘When it first started there were no groups, they were all just independent “mum and dad” operators and Movieland was one of the first to corporatize and brand a name, and that created a huge success,’ he says.
‘But I think the demise of the industry is there. I think there’ll now be a niche market and there’ll be a cottage industry, back to where it started.’
The men and women still entrenched behind the counter will often hear the question ‘do video shops even still exist?’ if they mention where they work. But just like the dusty vinyl covers in your parent’s attic, you can rest assured that the packed shelves and creaking cases aren’t going anywhere. They’ll just be a lot harder to find – and a hell of a lot more worth it when you do.
