I did offer my services for free, regarding subs... doubt they'll actually take me up on the offer though.
They won't because these are actual conditions to respect when issuing a movie on a DVD for a market, it's simply a thing determined by commercial and distribution contracts.
Yeah, I fully agree - but the fact that anyone can buy a Cinekult DVD, regardless of what country they are in, with just a few mouse clicks makes that point completely redundant in the real world.
Blue Underground, Severin, Cinekult, RARO, FilmArt, Camera Obscura, etc... only have the rights to these films in their respective countries... so anyone (for example) buying a Camera Obscura disc outside of Germany is, in fact, breaking the terms and conditions the rights holders laid out to Camera Obscura. They only have the rights to sell their discs in Germany... and so on.
You are perfectly right Quidtum, hence my comment that they probably won't be contacting me anytime soon... but it's a situation that makes very little sense.
I also wonder what kind of dialogue these people actually have with the rights holders? One universal release would yield them far more cash than six or seven staggered releases that barely sell... The only comments I've heard 'behind the scenes' is that a lot of these companies aren't particularly friendly to each other - and therein lies the problem, it all boils down to cash at the end of the day. The films come in second, hence the endless re-issues of the same films... over and over again.
I don't take much joy in working on the Cinekult customs - I would rather they were English friendly from the start - and the extra money they make would go back into getting more 'new' titles released. Is there any chance these films would have gotten a release if we hadn't made these customs? Nope, there's fuck all to suggest they would (see my previous point)
Some more food for thought (and completely unrelated to my above points - but it might give some people an idea of the bigger picture)
Interviewing Umberto Lenzi I was surprised to learn that all these films we know and love only had a shelf-life of just 5 years - after that time the prints were destroyed. Bear in mind that right up until the late 70's and early 80's there was no hope of these films being screened on national television because they were (at that time) generally considered too violent, or sexually explicit. It wasn't until the private channels reared their heads that this all changed - the only downside, of course, is that they also played a key part in killing the industry as people could now stay at home and watch these films instead of paying to go to the cinema.... It didn't kill the industry (many of these channels were essentially pirate channels and didn't pay the rights holders anything) but it was a significant factor in the decline and then (almost) demise.
Umberto Lenzi (as an example) hasn't made a penny from any VHS or DVD release, along with all his contemporaries, the only time they see any financial return is when their films are screened on national television here in Italy. There's a law that states that royalties must be paid to the director, composer, and scriptwriter. It's this money that allows a lot of these people to survive.... not from any sale of a DVD or Blu-Ray disc.
