JF Waste?

[Mark Roberts]

On Nov 10, 2009, at 10:19 PM, Aaron Gerow wrote:

> I think that companies do not want it generally known abroad that  
> one can either get the JF to show the film at a JF office or  
> Japanese embassy/consulate (with admission being free and the JF  
> only paying 25000 yen to the distributor), or rent it via the JF for  
> reduced shipping costs. Why? Probably because they hope that you  
> will either rent it at full cost or that you buy the real theatrical  
> or DVD rights. In other words, they don't want the JF to function as  
> a substitute for or competitor with regard to foreign distribution.

This is a persuasive explanation for the secret catalog -- and as a  
policy, it does seem short-sighted.

I suppose the JF could be considered "competition", but don't they  
have a more symbiotic relationship with the rights holders?

If the secret catalog policy is due to fear of competition, imagine  
that the JF film service simply didn't exist. There would be no  
competition then, but the films in question would almost certainly be  
seen by far fewer people. Some of them might never be shown outside of  
Japan. From an economic standpoint, would the rights holders profit  
more from such an arrangement?

Also, how many film programmers are prepared to deal directly with  
them? The barriers would be much steeper. I see that Shochiku has a  
bilingual web site, set-up for making inquiries about their catalog,  
but Toho, Toei, Nikkatsu and Kadokawa (Daiei) do not. The catalogs  
must be searched using kanji. Directors names in romaji don't yield  
results. Only those fluent in Japanese can really navigate their  
online catalogs. And do they have subtitled prints readily available?  
It looks like Shochiku has some, but what about the others? If they  
are not going to subtitle their new DVD releases, why would they  
subtitle their back-catalog film holdings?

This year, there have been significant retrospectives of Ichikawa Kon  
and Oshima Nagisa touring the world. Without the JF film service, I  
wonder if those would even be happening.

The JF is not just providing films under a different price structure  
that "competes" with that of the rights holders, they are publicizing  
the rights holders' catalogs to an international audience. They are  
connected with a network of programmers and specialists in  
cinematheques who understand how to communicate with foreign  
audiences. I can think of a few DVD releases in Europe and America  
that probably wouldn't have happened without screenings via the Japan  
Foundation that brought the films to the attention of foreign  
distributors. Those DVDs mean distribution contracts for the rights  
holders.

There must be somebody in the Japan Foundation who understands all of  
this in more detail, and might be able to make a business and/or  
heritage case for it. It would be interesting to have some hard  
numbers on spectatorship. It's difficult to measure the "return" on  
publicity, but that doesn't stop companies from pouring huge amounts  
of money into advertising. As the old saying goes: you have to spend  
money to make money. But here, paradoxically, it's as if the rights  
holders are viewing the publicity of their assets as a form of  
competition, or thinking that somehow they will make money on future  
distribution contracts that might never happen without that publicity.

M