Cleaning Up the Movies, Part I
by Kieth Merrill

"It's a great movie!"
"But it's R-rated."
"Ya, but there are only a couple of bad scenes."

Sound familiar? Ever caught yourself reciting this dialogue? Ever been caught in a compromise between 102 minutes of really great cinema and 2 minutes of trash?

The list of otherwise excellent films polluted by a few minutes -and sometimes seconds—of unworthy images, actions, words and ideas is longer than you think. The notion that "there are no good movies anymore," simply isn't true. There are a remarkable number of good films, and a few great ones, rendered "no good" [or at least "inappropriate" by LDS standards] by a brief inclusion of sex, profanity and/or graphic violence.

Remarkably, these offensive moments are most often not essential to the story, the characters or the impact of the film.

Frank Capra, the wonderful director of A Wonderful Life, said, " Only the morally courageous are worthy of speaking to their fellow men for two hours in the dark." But social morality changes and "morally courageous" in our topsy-turvy world is too often twisted into "politically correct" and tainted by a perverted notion of "normal."

Giving Ourselves to the "Wizards behind the Curtain"
When we go to a movie, we choose to spend two hours in the dark with the mind and morality of the "wizards behind the curtain." They manipulate our emotions and etch ideas in our sub-conscious. They consume us with the absorbing power of images and sounds to which we willingly connect our senses. We are wired to a little black box not always certain what's inside or whose hand is on the switch.

If we choose to see a movie in the theater, we see it the way that it was intended to be seen. The way the director wants us to see it. The way the producers and distributors believe it will earn the greatest profits. Their sensitivities are often different than our own.

If the movie contains scenes that offend us, our only line of defense is closing our eyes, covering our ears and humming loudly to ourselves. If you have ever been in a movie and actually seen a woman doing this, it was probably my wife. "Mothers," she explains, "do not need to go to movies to have emotional experiences. Our whole life is a vicarious roller coaster ride. Why buy a ticket for another?"

After raising and surviving 8 kids, Dagny has NO interest in paying money to be anxious, nervous, frightened, startled, emotionally engaged, vicariously empathetic or for goodness sakes offended.

As a voting member of the Motion Picture Academy, I watched 76 films last year. Dagny watched 5 of them with me. She covered her eyes and went HMMMMMM in only 2.

Dagny feels safer watching movies at home with her finger on fast-forward and the mute button near by. Home theater is changing the way we watch movies. Hollywood Video, Blockbuster and the mini-market around the corner have walls covered with video movies for rent. Large screen TV, surround sound, and elaborate home entertainment centers have made watching movies at home a major entertainment event.

A significant force driving the home movie market is a miraculous little four and a half inch disc, called DVD. Digital images, digital sound and all kinds of extra stuff make movies on DVD the best bargain of the new millennium. The "v" stands for "versatile". We have only begun to see the possibilities.

At home the baby is asleep. The popcorn costs less than a buck. Dad gets salt. Mom gets butter. The kids each get their own bowl of popcorn. The drinks are made from powdered lemonade and you get all you want. Even if you spill you get another one.

The DVD rents from Hollywood Video for $4.30 for five days or you can buy it brand new at Amazon.com for $19.95. If you do six family movie nights a year and invest the $49.00 you save in a good hedge fund, by the time the 6 year old is ready for college, you've racked up $2,500 dollars - and all from watching the movie at home.

Among the movies I've made are a pile of IMAX films. For me bigger is better. I love watching movies on the big screen, stadium seats and immersion in digital sound. But when it comes to Hollywood movies a night in the theater comes at a PRICE and it comes with some RISK.

We've talked about the price. Let's talk about the risk.

Relying on ratings from MPAA may not always protect you from exposure to inappropriate language, images and ideas. PG-13 may be the most dangerous movie zone of all. On the other hand, some truly great films are rated R. What's a person to do?

Taking Hollywood movies home saves money but the risk of exposure to unwanted scenes remains. Not any more! We may never have to close our eyes and cover our ears and hum a loud church hymn again.

A Revolution in Viewer Control
A revolution in viewer control for home theaters and computer based DVD players has arrived. It surfed in on the wake of the same technology largely responsible for the surge in personal home entertainment options in the first place. Half a dozen young companies have bubbled up in the churning foam. They offer conservative consumers some fascinating options to remove nudity, sex, profanity and violence from Hollywood movies viewed at home or on personal computers.

The dialogue can be rewritten now.
"It's a great movie!"
"It's R-rated."
"There are only a couple of bad scenes."
"In that case I'll watch it in a "cleaned up" version.

"Cleaned-up" movies are available from several sources. The promotion of these products is straightforward but the process remains a mystery to most. The Mom who wants to watch a cleaned-up R-rated Brave Heart with her family with adolescent children doesn't really care how it happens. She doesn't care about companies, controversies or copyrights, but a look inside this business is fascinating.

Each of the various companies distinguish themselves in one way or another, but in the end there are two basic ways that Hollywood Movies are being "cleaned up." The business is too young to have generic nomenclature to describe the process, so I'll choose my own. I will identify the two basic approaches to "cleaning up the movies" thus: (1) DIGITAL FILTERING and (2) RE-EDITING.

DIGITAL FILTERING is a technically complex option with almost endless possibilities. It deserves its own page. I will explore this fascinating solution and the primary companies doing it - Clear Play and Movie Mask- in Part II of this 2-Part article. Digital Filtering offers remarkably sophisticated solutions to sanitizing content. I can promise you a fascinating read in Part II.

RE-EDITING is by far the most common technique used to "clean up" Hollywood movies. You may already be familiar with the companies doing it and the products they produce. The clever and explicit names of the companies offering "editing services" and access to re-edited films leave little doubt about purpose, products or perspective.

CleanFlicks, [http://cleanflicks.com]
Edit My Movies, [http://www.editmymovies.com]
Family Flix, [http://www.familyflix.net]
CleanFilms, [http://www.cleanfilms.com]
Play it Clean, [http://playitclean.com]

In preparing this article, I contacted the principles of most of the companies noted above. Most were cooperative, helpful and willing to provide background, personal motivations and perspectives on the industry and their role in it.

My intent is NOT to evaluate or compare services or products, but rather make you aware of the options available to you to take control of the way you watch Hollywood movies at home.

Options for Cleaning Up
[ A tremendous source of information is The Viewer Freedom Foundation. Founder. Merrill Hansen has set forth the mission statement; " We promote and enable the freedom of choice to avoid offensive content in videos. We build win-win-win solutions for the viewers, artists and production companies." For an excellent overview of the movement and links to all the players, I suggest you visit them on the web at http://viewerfreedom.org.]

While each re-editing company emphasizes their "unique differences" all of them have two things in common. 1) They were started by people who enjoy films but don't want to be exposed to "the garbag,e" and 2) In one way or another they edit out nudity, sex, violence and mute or cut out profanity, then make these "edited versions" of the movies available to their costumers.

Clean Flicks was started by Ray Line who began by editing movies for family and friends. "I enjoy movies but I got tired of sitting in theaters saying, if only they had left that one scene out." Ray has been on the front lines of the rising controversy over companies who take it upon themselves to re-edit Hollywood's sacred treasures. Ray has been invited to appear on the Today Show, Fox News and has been the target of Jay Leno's sardonic humor. Today Clean Flicks have 70 stores in 6 states. [10 wholly owned, 60 franchises]

Edit-My-Movies was created as an additional service of Jared Martin and Terry Hale whose company was already offering TV Guardian, TV Time Manager, Internet Filtering and Channel Blocker to provide families with all kinds of solutions for managing entertainment and media in the home. As the product line expanded, the name of the company was changed to Family Safe Media.

Family Fix is the brainchild of a husband and wife team, Terry and Sandra Teraci. "We were motivated to start this company when we just grew tired of the extra trash that the Hollywood producers write into the movies. After watching every Disney Movie, at least twice, we decided to do something."

The MPAA, which rates Hollywood motion pictures, claims that the film ratings come "from parents just like you." You only have to watch a couple of PG-13 movies to know that whoever decided it was appropriate for young teenagers is NOT a parent who shares our values and concerns.

My personal conversations with the men and women editing Hollywood films to make them family friendly are-on the other hand-what MPAA promises, "parents just like us." {Whether or not they are actually parents.] The conservative standards they use to "clean up" Hollywood movies are much more in line with Middle America than the nameless, faceless few living within 50 miles of Encino California who rate movies for MPAA.

Company to company, the business model varies only slightly. The customer buys a movie on VHS video or DVD. The customer sends the movie to the company. The company edits the customer's movie by taking out nudity, profanity, graphic violence and profanity.

The Delicate Tap Dance
This rather cumbersome process is in place for practical reasons. By only editing movies owned by their customers, the companies argue that there is no violation of copyright. In their vigorous defense of this approach they make an interesting point. By requiring their customers to purchase films that they might not otherwise purchase, it adds revenue to Hollywood. (which may explain why Hollywood is unhappy but leaving them alone.) The added cost of editing is for service, not "a version or a copy" of the film so their delicate tap dance on the tight wire of copyright is fiscally sound if not technically accurate.

I say "delicate tap dance" because while the theory of the process seems defensible, in practice there are some practical short cuts. For starters, you don't have to buy your movie at Wall Mart or the local video store and send it to the re-edit company. You can buy your movie online from the company itself so the "ownership" is at that point a digital notation in cyberspace. But in the electronic world of information, the old adage that "possession is 9/10 of the law" is meaningless. This is no different from buying at Amazon.com so this convenience changes nothing and the theory is in tact. [If you like tangible commodities, you can also buy them at the store and have them shipped to where the editing takes place.]

So now the customer's VHS or DVD is at the company along with an order to "edit out the bad stuff." At this point, the actual process begins to slip away from the purity of theory. None of the companies actually edit the physical original video tape or DVD purchased by the consumer. It would be impossible for any of these companies to survive if in fact they disassembled the VHS tape, threaded it up on an editing system to cut and splice the videotape. Moreover, DVDs are digital and can only be edited when the digital information is dumped into a computer. In practice, the editing takes place electronically, but only once for every title, not discretely for each and every customer.

Before your or I ever order our "cleaned up" version of The Patriot, the company has already purchased it in DVD* , dumped it into a computer, and dropped the graphic violence. [* Not all of the companies have DVD available. When selecting a service be sure to check if DVD is your medium of choice as it is mine.]

The Realm of Controversy
We have now enter the realms of controversy. Let me state for the record that I believe in the right of consumers to have control over the content of entertainment exhibited in their home. These companies offer a positive solution. My goal here is to provide information, not pass judgment.

The editing of a Hollywood film requires that the DVD [or video] be digitized. DVDs are encrypted to prevent piracy. None of the people interviewed were willing to discuss the details of the technology they used to digitize the DVD. Those willing to discuss it at all assured me that, "We don't crack encryption, but have other ways of getting it into the digital domain."

Since I believe in the rights of consumers to see movies the way they want — and this is one of the ways that is possible - I am disinclined to become Sherlock Holmes on this issue.

With the movie inside the computer - usually a high-end Macintosh with Final Cut Pro 3 - the movie can be completely re-edited. But the only edits of interest are the ones that eliminate nudity, sex, profanity and graphic violence.

The result of the edit is a digital master of the movie - or edits - on hard drive. It is this "version" — a word none of the re-editing service companies like very much — that becomes the target of those who believe the process is a violation of copyright. This re-edited digital copy, opponents claim, creates "a derivative work" which is a pivotal concept of copyright law.

It is interesting to note of course that this "derivative work" - if that is what it is— is never sold "in stead of" an original copy of the movie. It is sold as a "replacement of" a movie already purchased. A copy of this digital master is returned to the costumer. What the customer actually receives is NOT a re-edit of the actual DVD or VHS purchased by them, but a re-edit of the same movie used to replace it.

"Replacement " is very interesting. If the movie purchased by the consumer is on VHS, the copy of the edited digital master is recorded onto and OVER the customer's original VHS tape.The original video, purchased by the consumer is returned to them on the same piece of video tape and in the same package, even though the movie has been erased and replaced by a copy of the edited digital master.

If the movie purchased by the consumer is on DVD it is not possible to erase and over-record. In this case the digital master is used to burn a new DVD-R, which is returned to the customer, together with the original DVD. Some of the companies disable the original DVD to diminish any claim that the process creates a pirated copy and deprives Hollywood of revenue.

There are variations on a theme. Play It Clean Company operates a membership co-op. When you become a member, you "co-own the videos with the company and share them with other owners." Some argue that this approach deprives Hollywood of rental income from their films. With only 6 stores the impact of Play It Clean product does not merit the focus of Hollywood legal eagles at $450 per hour. At least not yet.

Copyright is the big discussion. Revenue is the big issue. I know enough about copyright law and re-editing process to believe a case can be made for copyright infringement. That said, I agree with Richard Teraci, Family Flix, who said "As far as copyright issues, they have been in existence for over one hundred years, and we take them seriously. I think because editing movies is such a fairly new thing, there is no definitive case law to determine legality. I truly believe it's really a win-win situation. We purchase every movie that we edit, so we are creating a whole new market of buyers. It's a whole new area."

When the New York Times did a story on Clean Flicks in January, 2002, they interviewed MPAA president, Jack Valenti. He went on record to say that he didn't like what they were doing. Clean Flicks called Valenti and explained, "that this is a win-win. Every time we edit a movie the cash register goes "Ca'Jing". Every time we do a movie we have to buy a movie. We are making you more money because more Mormons are watching R-rated movies."

Valenti was silent for 3-months. Finally an attorney called from Washington "on behalf of Jack Valenti's attorney" to offer a formal response. "We don't like what you are doing. We feel it is a violation of copy right, but to be honest with you this is not a priority with the studios right now."

The bottom line may ultimately have nothing to do with copyright. It may only have to do with the bottom line. Movie making is a business. The art of Hollywood is making money. The fact that all of the companies with whom I discussed the revolution in viewer choice go to great length to insure that for every edited version of a Hollywood film made from their resident digital masters, a new copy of the film must be purchased by a consumer. Curiously, they do not participate in the profit of the purchase of the original movie. That revenue - and to a large extent new revenue - belongs to Hollywood.

The issue is a simple one. Even if there is a technical copyright infringement, how has Hollywood been disadvantaged? As long as the companies continue to demand that their customers buy a new copy of any film they wish to "clean up", Hollywood makes money. The moment any of them decide to sell their "cleaned up" versions on any other basis, they become media pirates and will end up in jail.

It stands to reason that people willing to commit themselves to "cleaning up" Hollywood movies are men and women of values, principle and integrity. That was certainly my conclusion as I listened to the strenuous efforts made to insure that nothing being done to deprive Hollywood of revenue. It may be self-serving and essential to survival, but I opt to believe that they have simply taken the higher ground.

Impressed with such fundamental integrity, I was surprised to discover that some of the smaller operations — not mentioned in this article — have allegedly been "ripping off" their larger competitors by making copies of the copies. One of the most successful of the editing companies told me, "The sad part is that most of the competitors are break-offs from our company and they basically have taken all of our movies and copied them. They buy one copy and dupe them and sell them in their own stores."

Industrial espionage aside, I have been impressed by the moral integrity I encountered in my interviews and conversations. The people I met in this curious new industry are motivated by a genuine desire to offer products that expand entertainment options without polluting personal lives. In most cases the founders remain in charge of editing choices. The choices are not easy.

Ray Line said, "PG-13 has as much sexual innuendo as R would ever have because it is based on comedy. It is very difficult to edit out because it changes the tone and story of the film. It is almost always more difficult to edit PG-13 for sexual content than an R. In an R movie sex and nudity is easy to get out."

Richard Teraci explained, "One of the most difficult edits was Erin Brockovich because of the amount of language used and the way she dressed. This movie is clearly on the border of what Family Flix edits. We obviously could not edit out her clothing attire with the low-cut, push-up bra scenes. She dropped the "F" bomb numerous times. That required more time to carefully cut-away the language but leave the story intact. The movie required over 100 edits. By comparison, The Patriot required minimal editing. There was virtually no language, no nudity, but a few graphic scenes."

For all of the clean-up-Hollywood crusaders, the moral thermometer is simple and consistent. No nudity. No sex. No graphic violence. No profanity.

The rising popularity of re-edited Hollywood movies, the increasing number of stores, and growing number of people willing to pay a premium for re-edited Hollywood movies suggest that "cleaned-up" movies are not a fade but an orphan child of the entertainment industry that must be taken seriously.

TO BE CONTINUED

CLEANING UP THE MOVIES - PART 2 will explore the world of Digital Filtering, the other way to clean up the movies. We will take a look at the companies, the complexity and remarkable capabilities that allow you to plop in a DVD from Hollywood video and see a "cleaned up" movie, customize your movies to your precise and personal standard, and even crate your own filters.. Stay tuned.

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Kieth Merrill, in addition to being a fulltime, Academy-award winning director, is Meridian Magazine's Movie Editor.

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