TEMPLE OF SCHLOCK: Support the indy DVD companies this holiday season

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Support the indy DVD companies this holiday season

In the past month we've participated in several heated online discussions concerning torrent site downloading and whether or not it's taking money out of the pockets of indy labels such as After Hours/POP Cinema and Synapse Films. We here at Temple of Schlock believe that torrent sites and newsgroups can be a great resource for fan subs, out-of-print DVDs and VHS rips of rare movies, but they can also contribute to a considerable loss of revenue for small specialty labels when DVDs that are still in print and readily available in stores are uploaded and distributed free of charge. Sites like Cinemageddon need to be more strict in what they allow to be uploaded and linked to on their boards, because the smaller genre companies are being raped and left for dead. Recently our friend Mike Raso of After Hours/POP Cinema had to take legal action against the moderators of Cinemageddon in order to get them to remove links to over 80 of his DVDs. Even if you believe the writing's on the wall for the DVD industry, that's no reason to hasten its demise by illegally uploading and downloading discs that are still in print from smaller independent companies that need the business.

As a show of support for our friends in the industry who have been victimized by illegal downloaders -- Mike Raso, 42nd Street Pete, Don May Jr. and Jerry Chandler of Synapse Films, David Gregory of Severin Films, Todd Wieneke and the gang at Dark Sky Films, Robin Bougie of Cinema Sewer magazine -- for the next week or so I'm going to blatantly advertise a number of the DVD projects I've been involved in over the past 7 years.

Back in 2003, I wrote detailed liner notes for Synapse Films' DVD of BRUTES AND SAVAGES. For a small sampling of those notes, click here to read my blog post on the film's producer, Arthur Davis. To read the rest of my essay, well, you're going to have to buy the disc!

EXPLOITATION EXPLOSION, the third entry in Synapse's popular 42ND STREET FOREVER trailer compilation series, featured an audio commentary I recorded with Michael Gingold of Fangoria and Edwin Samuelson of AVManiacs.com. It was an instant success, selling out its first run in less than a week. One year later we returned for the fourth installment, COOLED BY REFRIGERATION.