[PRIVATE STUFF REDACTED]
Thanks, and have a great time.
Warmest wishes,
Your friends at Grace Hill Media
So, let me get this straight. I have been "chosen and confirmed" for the screening, but this choosing and confirmation does not guarantee me entry to the theater. Huh. And yet, I'm s'posta do all this stuff.
If I, a weblogger, a breed of writer well known for its intransigence, independence, and bullheadedness, jump through all these here hoops, there's a chance that I might get into a screening of this movie. I've not been asked to help out, but told that if I do all this stuff and show up early with a big smile, I might get in to see the movie.
As a coblogger in my other life put it:
Actually, the funny thing about this is really just the heavy-handedness. If I went to see the movie (which I likely would have anyway) and was moved by the spirit to post about it on this blog, I likely would have included a link to the film’s website as a matter of course. Linking is what we do here in the blogosphere. Likewise, a small synopsis would have not been out of the question. That’s normal.But having to use the exact, and poorly written text of their synopsis is a burden, along with the lack of a guaranteed seat. Show up forty five minutes early, for a shot at a ticket? Please, not when I have to arrange for baby-sitting for a two year old son if my wife is coming along. And can she? Or do I have to grant her one-day access to the blog so she can post the same synopsis[?]
All this makes me wonder: do "[my] Friends at Grace Hill Media" actually know any webloggers, or how they as a community tend to be? In its execution, what seemed to me at first blush to be a fine idea smells more like something coughed up by an eager apple-polisher at a Thursday morning marketing meeting: "hey! I know how we can get oodles of ad space, for free!"
Hei Lun at Begging To Differ has a similar reaction, except he's much angrier:
In other words, if you become a complete shill for them, they just might let you see their movie. Or they might not—sure, they have only 150 seats in the theater, but if they can get 200 bloggers to get down on their hands and knees and beg them for a ticket, who cares if 50 of them can't get in? Mighty tempting (well, not really), but no thanks.
Article comments
1 - LegendaryMonkey
Good post! Now I'm glad I didn't rouse myself to poke a finger at that.
Guess I'll just do what I was gonna do, anyway... pay to see the film and then write whatever I want about it afterward.
Screw all this giving in, say-what-we-want crap.
2 - Chris Beaumont
I liked this part:
"· DO NOT bring in a camera or a cellular phone that takes pictures. They WILL be confiscated, and you will NOT be allowed into the screening."
So, if i bring a camera phone, they will take away my phone and not let me see the movie? Huh?
3 - John Owen
That struck me as both shoddy editing and bad policy too... "give us your phone and get lost!" What... like trying to get it in to your screening makes it your phone?
Too bad there's no second amendment protecting your camera-phone. Then again, as we've seen in New Orleans, that's not much help either.
4 - Carny Asada
John, as one of the pathetic Firefly fanpersons who said, "What the hell, I'll wh0re myself, it will only hurt a little" -- and then wound up literally in the cold without a ticket, I can only say, right on. I lowered my standards Because It Was Joss. Lesson learned.
5 - Matt Moore
I'm glad I didn't get that email (I think my spam filter killed it). Instead I just showed up, was on the list, wandered in with my camera phone in my pocket, watched the movie, and wrote about it. I linked their site, but that was by chance.
Like I said, I'm glad I didn't know I was breaking all the rules. I guess I'll have to pay to see the sequel they might not make?