SESSION 107, ILLEGAL_CINEMA

Screening proposed by Javier R. Pérez-Curiel followed by a discussion.

Since a few years ago, when I feel like watching some movie that’s on at the cinema,
and I don’t have time, don’t feel like going all the way to the cinema, or don’t have the
money, I visit different websites that you can access to download or watch some
movie via streaming. Some years ago this was very common, although it’s less so
nowadays. Películas Yonkis, Cuevana, are some of the names of websites that I
remember, pretty recently, although there have been many others that have been
closing because they reproduced films illegally. At times the reproductions were of
different “qualities”: the options included RipDVD, Screener or CAM. In reality, rather
than different types of quality of the copy, these are different methodologies of
copying. RipDVD is the direct recording of a DVD, copying its information. Screener are
the films recorded with a video camera, but directly from the projector in the
projection room. CAM are the recordings made with a camera in the auditorium during
a commercial screening. In audio-visual material obtained in this latter way you
sometimes see the shadow of people passing between the screen and the camera that
is recording, hear the voices of some of the spectators in the auditorium, find that the
camera reframes the film, or framing that does not maintain an orthogonal relation
with the image or does not include all of it. At first, when I really wanted to see a film
and there was no other link, I would watch the CAM of the film. Some years later I had
the unexpected pleasure of seeing that audio-visual product, instead of a RipDVD copy
or Screener, and I choose it deliberately. This is an invitation to watch something that I
like, which, rather than a specific film, is a form of audio-visual making. We will even
be taking ourselves a little further on this occasion. BROADCAST LIVE FROM…

Javier R. Pérez-Curiel, aka Chavezito, aka DTRNMNT, visual and sound artist.