Saturday, August 05, 2006

Carmike Corporate Propoganda

The following is a minor rant I sent to Carmike Cinema's corporate site - will probably get lost in the mix. (Thank goodness for blogs!) I just found the pre-show spot to be so terrible I felt compelled to complain. If you were in attendance and saw Carmike's new "All Digital" promotional advertisement (or whatever it was called - see? The actual point of the promo didn't register with me!) then maybe you'll share some of my sentiments... my letter goes something like this:

Your new "Carmike" promotional spot, the one espousing the virtues of Carmike's various digital services, its digital projection capabilities, etc., is pure #$%@! The spot ran tonight before "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and (I'm not kidding) nearly spoiled the entire evening for me and I'm certain many others in attendance! If there was anything funny, interesting or at all appealing about the piece it would almost be redeeming - but there is not! The marriage of music to visuals is most horrid - I wanted to escape the theater - it was absolutely maddening. But then, when the spot continued on and on for what seemed like five minutes, it seemed obvious to me that the team that put this thing together was clearly was out of their minds.

The spot, which was presumably produced to accentuate the virtues of Carmike (as if Carmike has some sort of lien on digital technology), does quite the opposite. It was insulting to me - after shelling out good money to be entertained - to have to sit through what seemed to me to be some sort of corporate sermon. What did we all do to deserve this? Are we not attending movies enough? With a pre-show prelude like this, it's no wonder.

Please pull the spot, fire the folks that put it together and realize that people go to movies to be entertained. Bag the propaganda and the mind-numbing self-indulgent corporate spots - your audience won't take it.

Rob Birdwell

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ran across your Blue in You while searching for a small combo score for Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill.

I have looked many places and cannot find one.

Am looking for an arrangement for piano, sax, trumpet, and trombone.

Surely someone has published this arrangement either as a separate arrangement, or in a book of small combo arrangements.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know

I printed out your concert lead and Bb Blue In You. Have not played it yet but it looks nice.

Thanks for any help

Rob Birdwell said...

Now why on earth would you, Mr. Anonymous, want to inject your own rant into my cheesy non-productive rant?

As to your comment on my "outlandish comments"? (And I'll grant you the "being taken seriously" jab - hey, I'm a musician!) But what's outlandish about thinking something (like the Carmike "all digital" spot) sucks? Sucked that is...as that particular spot is, thankfully, ancient history...maybe it simply ran its course or maybe I was not alone in my opinion that the re-mix and re-purposing of Anastasia's tune, Unwritten (which I have no problem with) was beyond bad...it was worthy of whiny comments on my cheesy blog!

I just didn't dig it - hated the corporate dribble they were trying to push on us.

Anyway, thanks for your comment Mr. Anonymous!