Originally Posted by Rik (Post 412180)

I think most peoples annoyance with the delays is if they've preordered direct from Arrow, meaning they've paid for them and maybe(as Stephen has pointed out) budgeted to suit AKA skinted themselves, so when they're delayed it's frustrating to say the least.

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs (Post 412189)

Not only that, but in the weeks or months between placing the preorder and the item being shipped, the money is in Arrow's bank account earning interest instead of yours. A system whereby you can choose to be charged when the item ships would be very welcome.

Originally Posted by SShaw (Post 412192)

I am perhaps a little more cynical.

I believe that Arrow has a cash flow problem.

The delays are too regular for this to be just unfortunate coincidence.

I think their business model is to announce releases well in advance, and before any significant production work has begun, in order to generate cash through preorders on their website.

I think the desperation comes across also in their regular sales, I am surprised that so many people are pre-ordering so many titles rather than waiting for the sales, and the steel book releases - which again can only be about generating cash flow.

Rabid Dogs/Kidnapped is a good example. Announced more than a year ago the recent update talks about problems finding usable elements. I'm sorry, but most companies develop their product before announcing it. They don't announce it, start taking money, and then begin the development.

This practice needs to stop, otherwise Arrow will become (remain?) a company who can't be trusted to do anything other than be late.

I for one won't be making any further preorders from Arrow until such time they start charging on the day of dispatch.

Originally Posted by Nemesis (Post 412202)

The big mistake that I think Arrow made is that it dribbled out the delays over several days; it should have come up with one annoucement for all titles.

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke (Post 412222)

I promised myself I wouldn't get too involved with this discussion (although some of the wilder speculation has been highly amusing, especially the citation of the extreme outlier Rabid Dogs as "a good example"), but I'm afraid this last bit is simply not true.

The announcements were actually all made yesterday afternoon, spread over the course of roughly an hour (feel free to check Facebook and Twitter for corroboration), precisely because Arrow didn't want to "dribble out the delays over several days"!

Originally Posted by Nemesis (Post 412225)

Like you, Michael, I don't want to get drawn into this too much either. But I will not accept that I told an untruth as you seem to imply: as per your suggestion, please feel free to check Arrow's facebook page on 23rd July where it says and I quote "Unfortunately, owing to complications at our manufacturing plant we have had to delay the releases of both Branded to Kill and Bound until August 18th."

Originally Posted by Rik (Post 412236)

Think this thread should be renamed The Arrow Video Discussion Thread, seeing as it's rarely used for new announcements, so people that get email notifications will be expecting that when they come here. Just a suggestion

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs (Post 412247)

But I want to know about new announcements! :tongue1:

Originally Posted by Rik (Post 412249)

Give up, you find out weeks before us anyway! :tongue1:

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs (Post 412250)

:lol: Maybe once upon a time, but now I'm at the mercy of their Facebook announcements like everyone else.

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs (Post 412259)

Does Callum not work with Arrow anymore?

Originally Posted by J Harker (Post 412467)

Does anyone know this new Spag Western they've announced? I've never heard of it.

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke (Post 412512)

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke (Post 412512)

Originally Posted by suziginajackson (Post 412510)

It tells four stories revolving around particular taboos (virginity, female masturbation, bloodlust, incest)

Originally Posted by suziginajackson (Post 412515)

Well, two of those I can relate to!

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke (Post 412520)

You can add "bestiality" to that list if you're watching the five-episode version.

Which of course you shouldn't, as it's FILTH.

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke (Post 412520)

Which of course you shouldn't, as it's FILTH.

Originally Posted by JAMIOUSE (Post 412543)

How flithy is Immoral Tales as a matter of interest?

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke (Post 412091)

That's completely unwarranted cynicism, and I suspect you know it.

I'm reluctant to speak for my colleagues, but my own delayed releases had sound reasons behind them, namely:

The Long Goodbye - at a fairly late stage in production, Arrow decided to redesign their menus across the board (which I was firmly behind, as I never liked the white-bordered ones). The first one with the new menu, Big Trouble in Little China, took forever to get right because the disc structure was so complicated, which meant that the other late-2013 releases had to wait their turn. (I don't think the delay was that severe, but I do recall late November releases turning into mid-December ones.)

Sullivan's Travels - this was all set to go to replication as per the original schedule until at pretty close to the very last minute I was told that I could have the big Preston Sturges documentary after all (after spending much of the autumn trying to track down the European rightsholder, I'd more or less written it off in January). But including it required re-encoding and reauthoring everything, not least because the authoring house suddenly had to create space for a 75-minute documentary - so there was no chance of hitting the original deadline.

Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection - the original June 30 release date was entirely feasible based on the original plan: four BDs, five DVDs, and a mixture of newly-created HD and off-the-shelf SD material. But thanks to the success of the Kickstarter project and the smooth running of the Goto restoration (which freed up quite a bit of contingency funding), we were able to scan everything in HD - the feature, the five shorts mentioned in the Kickstarter campaign, two more shorts (and an alternative cut of an existing one) that weren't, three commercials and the 16mm on-set footage from The Beast. But not only did this require a lot of extra time to create new masters (film materials had to be tracked down and imported from France, James White and Deluxe had to find extra time in their busy schedules), but we then thought that we might as well go over the extras and upgrade all their clips to HD as well. And all of this work dominated April and May, when according to the original schedule we should have been authoring and QCing the final discs. The most recent delay is because I wasn't happy with the subtitles on Immoral Tales and we're experimenting with ways of making them clearer when they unavoidably have to appear over big wodges of text - I could have let them through as they were, and many labels undoubtedly would have done so, but I felt that we'd come so far that it would be a crying shame not to get it absolutely perfect.

In other words, in all three of those cases I could have met the original release dates - but you'd have ended up with inferior packages every time (I'd argue significantly inferior packages in the case of the last two). And one of the great things about working for Arrow is that they're flexible enough to allow you to react to sudden changes of circumstance - I can well imagine other labels saying of something like the Sullivan's Travels scenario "No, it's too late - just go ahead with what you've got".

Oh, and as a footnote, when the Borowczyk project was being budgeted, I agreed a flat fee rather than my usual practice of charging per day, as Arrow otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford two full-time producers (which the project badly needed, given the workload). Thanks to the delays, I've effectively been working for nothing since at least May (and that's aside from the fact that I'd already ploughed most of my fee into the Kickstarter campaign), and it would obviously have been far more convenient for both me and my family if I'd simply adhered to the original specs and stuck to the original schedule.

But would you really have preferred that?

Originally Posted by Rik (Post 412236)

Think this thread should be renamed The Arrow Video Discussion Thread, seeing as it's rarely used for new announcements, so people that get email notifications will be expecting that when they come here. Just a suggestion

Originally Posted by JAMIOUSE (Post 412682)

So The Burbs specs are coming today, eventually.