New Youtube Video! How Release Dates Effect Film Performance

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Mostly I wanted to do a video to play with my new toy, moviemavengal gave me a lapel mic as an early Christmas present.  I think it works pretty well!  The video is too sunny and my head isn’t exactly centered, but by golly the microphone is perfect!

This is something that I think a lot of us take as a given without really talking about it, but I thought I might as well talk about it just so we can all go “oh yeah, I never put it into words, but that’s what I always knew”.  The way films come out at regularly scheduled intervals through out the year, and how there is a certain kind of movie that you think “oh yeah, that’s a good Diwali release” and another kind that you think “oh yeah, that’s a good Independence Day release”.

8 thoughts on “New Youtube Video! How Release Dates Effect Film Performance”

  1. Yay! The mic works with your phone, and sounds great. Framing of your face could be better though! It looks like you’re sitting in a hole.

    Do a short test video to check your framing before you record the whole thing is my advice. I film with the phone facing me so I can see on my screen how I’m framed. It’s then not the highest resolution camera on the phone, but good enough for HD.

    I am only now starting to get the rhythm of the Indian holiday release year — and you were only talking about HIndi releases in the main. On top of that, we have Onam for all the big Malayalam films!

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    • Yeah, the framing was terrible for this, oh well.

      And thank you for the microphone! All I have to offer in return is my extra special cards, this a nice thick envelope of them on the way to you now.

      On Sun, Dec 3, 2017 at 4:02 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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  2. You’re a little off on the theme here:

    Indian film release schedules are also influenced by the school year and college semester ends and national level exams plus shadi season plus weather!

    Board exams (SATs?) are conducted between February and March. That’s why they have the IPL in April-May (which is also sort of the end of the winter cricket calendar- no big tours!) Cricket USED TO make producers shift their release dates but not anymore.

    Most small releases are timed to release at the start of or middle of college semesters when college kids would have money for books, etc which they can spend on anything but books. Navratras (both puja holidays before Diwali and the ones after Holi) are peak shadi season.

    The January release is in the middle of shit-cold/fog/smog season in the Hindi belt. We get bad visibility, smog, fog and generally depressing weather and no big holidays in January. post- New Year which isn’t a big holiday for everyone but plenty of young officegoers spend a lot of money on their NYE plans. Later half of January is when they have money and the weather is good. Republic Day is just dry day and most shopping streets observe a holiday so even they’re free to go watch a film.

    Valentine’s Day is not a holiday of any sort. It’s a bad time just before exams.

    Holi again falls in the middle of exam season which is why no big film releases around holi. That’s why Bahubali 2 released after all the exams were done. They even did a promo video wishing students the best

    Late April is post-exam/new session in schools. Plus harvest! Summer holidays begin around May 15. First week of June is when people leave for holidays. And we’re the kind of people that watch films even when we’re on a holiday LOL

    Eid-ul-Fitr (Sewaiyyon wali eid) has gotten big for film release only because Salman has made it so. And if I’m not mistaken that’s because in the last decade, most of his big releases had other big releases breathing on their necks. It’s just clever. For this Eid, the big shopping takes place after Eid is declared and there are plenty of iftar parties to go to and the legacy non-veg shops have special menus which brings people out. If you’re on a roza and can’t eat or drink, you go to an airconned theatre and cool off.

    Eid-ul-Adha (Bakre wali eid) is less spectacular and people save up for buying the animals and it’s more of a cook-at-home festival rather than eat out festival. This is a semester starting/post Civil Service preliminary exams/mid-monsoon time. The big I-Day release usually comes only when the day comes with bank holidays/long weekends around it. I-Day is again dry day so no booze and shopping streets also have their shutters down.

    Puja holidays/garba season/Diwali is big because it’s before exams and during shadi season. Also, this is harvest time. October-November are usually happy (unless the government does something as drastic as the noteban last year!)

    Christmas is again sort of just a long-weekend kinda of deal. you get a public holiday (no dry day!!) plus maybe a bank holiday (second and fourth Saturdays) plus a Sunday before or just after Christmas.

    This is why our movie release calender varies so much!! It’s all about the shifting holidays!!

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    • The whole idea of “Exam schedule” is so hard for me to wrap my head around! Not just that everyone is on the same exam schedule all over the country, but that whole idea of “exams” like that. Even the ACT and SAT here are just not as big a deal. Maybe you take a prep class for them and read a few test books, or even hire a tutor for the last few months, but you can also just go in cold and do fine. I didn’t study for them at all and I was in the 99th percentile blah blah. And outside of those, your grades are based on cumulative stuff all semester long, midterms and papers and so on. And you start fresh every semester, you can do badly on one exam for one class and it has no effect on anything else, it’s just not a big deal.

      On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 6:34 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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