Need Ideas for a Movie Night (Usual Suspects)

[japes 24]

All right I need some ideas.  I am having some friends over tomorrow night to watch Usual Suspects mainly because they have never seen it.  I'm going all out and putting my setup on display and I was planning on putting some slides together but since they've never seen the movie I don't want to risk ruining anything.  So my thought was to take random slides from the Classic packs, such as the 1995 slide from the Blockbuster set.  I'm thinking just grabbing random mystery movie types from those sets and throwing them in together for the event.  Maybe some random movies staring the same actors...that sort of thing.  I'm curious if anyone has any other ideas.  Possibly for shorts as well.

 

[VonMagnum 13]

21 hours ago, japes said:

All right I need some ideas.  I am having some friends over tomorrow night to watch Usual Suspects mainly because they have never seen it.  I'm going all out and putting my setup on display and I was planning on putting some slides together but since they've never seen the movie I don't want to risk ruining anything.  So my thought was to take random slides from the Classic packs, such as the 1995 slide from the Blockbuster set.  I'm thinking just grabbing random mystery movie types from those sets and throwing them in together for the event.  Maybe some random movies staring the same actors...that sort of thing.  I'm curious if anyone has any other ideas.  Possibly for shorts as well.

 

I wouldn't use trivia slides from the movie under any circumstance (like you say you'd be giving things away in the movie).  What I think you want is to impress them with the overall movie theater-like experience and IMO that doesn't necessarily mean you have to even use trivia slides at all.  Personally, I've got scripts for

No Trailers

No Trailers with Cartoon Short

No Trailers with Trivia

No Trailers with Trivia and Cartoon Short

I also have the same WITH trailers with the above options.  My default is NoTrailers (least obtrusive for my own personal viewing when I don't have visitors but still want THX bumpers, etc. to play).

So the question is then what do I play beyond trailers and possible trivia or cartoons (which are Disney or Looney Tunes randomly picked).  I'll run through what I use and when.  Keep in mind I got 90% of these from YouTube captures (at 720p when possible).  I'll show the full script order and (if used) ones are only there if that script is selected:

 

1> (Trivia Intro if Trivia selection is used) - I couldn't find ANYTHING useful online except CinemaVision's own trailer downloads and they're so specifically themed, I didn't want to use them so I made my own with iMovie with some effects and sounds.  I thought it turned out pretty cool.

2> (Actual Trivia Slides if used)

3> Countdown - I have 14 Countdown videos randomly picked to let you know it's getting ready to start (whether leaving Trivia or just starting the movie process) ranging from old film style ones to space or breaking glass, etc.

4> Courtesy Video - I've currently got 32 courtesy/rules/intro videos ranging from turn off your cell phone videos to MrBean cinema rules to No Smoking in the theater videos to "Welcome to Cinemark" intro videos and even the recent Angry Birds courtesy video.  I've also got stuff like "Lets go the lobby" here including the Geico modern version and the Simpson one where homer bites the head off the walking hot dog with screams/panic.  It randomly picks one.

5> Theater Intro - That's the name I use, but instead of a theater intro (pointless for me since it's covered in Feature/Courtesy/Coming Attraction videos already) I use a short candy-or drink themed commercial no longer than 15-25 seconds at most.  I have Reece's, Payday, Twix, Milky Way, Coca-Cola, York Peppermint Patties and some of them are theater themed.  Others fit well anyway.  Plus I have a bunch of those Snickers commercials where "you're not yourself" including celebrity ones with MrBean, Joan Collins, Betty White etc. as they are kind of funny.  It's kind of a movie gimmick/snack reminder without being long enough to be irritating.

6> Short Film - Here I currently have 48 randomly picked videos.  27 of them are M&M "funny" commercials including some movie theater based ones.  Most are 720P HD.  I have a funny skittles commercial as well.  I also have several "sexy" Carls Jr. Burger commercials, Go Daddy commercials and 9 funny Subaru commercials featuring dogs driving the cars (My last three cars have been Subarus so it makes sense for me plus they were pretty funny).    These are either meant to be funny or entertaining and generally are longer 25 second to almost a minute (I don't want 'boring' ads here)

7> (Trailer Intro If Trailers are used in script) - Currently 13 randomly picked.  Most of these are from real theaters or designed for a real theater "Coming Attractions" type messages.

8> (Trailer if used)

9> (Cartoon Intro if used) - I found some cartoon network and a "cartoon explosion" 'intro' if cartoons short option is used

10> (Cartoon if used) - I use video play "directory" for this and have hundreds of Disney and Loony Tune cartoons (I bought some rather complete sets on DVD a long time ago and while not HD, they still look pretty good even on a 93" screen).  I have so many, in fact, it'd be nice if CinemaVision would keep track which ones were played so they don't repeat until they go through them all.

11> Feature Intro - Currently 28 randomly picked entries.  These are mostly from real theaters or designed for real theaters and I've got most all the General Cinema stuff from 1970s until they were bought out to all the cartoon Cinemark videos, the Regal Roller coaster, etc.  The key was to find as high/clean resolution as possible.  This was difficult in some cases (e.g. most of the Cinemark cartoons are poor resolution and have copyright and other messages added in the corner that did not exist in the theater; one provider had the unmarked videos in better quality, however).  The regal roller coaster was available in HD due to it being re-released, but the video had a YouTube "intro" text tacked on that destroyed its usefulness, but some editing in iMovie fixed that.... I've even got cinema feature intros from British theaters in England. 

12> Feature Outro - I use this to randomly pick one of 17 videos for either THX Bumpers or Cinemark "XD" bumpers.  Who doesn't love THX bumpers before the movie?

13> Audio Bumper - Detected Audio Used selects a matching bumper.  I've got 5 stereo ones (Dolby Stereo, Dolby SR Stereo and Ultra Stereo plus two generic Dolbys), 15 Dolby Digital ones, 2 regular DTS ones, 5 DTS-HD Master Audio ones, 1 dolby digital plus, 2 Dolby Atmos, 2 Dolby TrueHD, 2 DTS-X and 1 DataSat.  I don't think Atmos, DTS-X or Datasat are detectable yet and I'm not sure about Dolby Digital Plus detection in Kodi (I don't have any to test it with).  DolbyTrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital and stereo (OTHER) all work fine.

14> Rating - I use blue styled rating slides instead of videos as Kodi seems to cut off the fade in/out here for some reason.  These are detected and match the movie and don't show up if there is no rating (as opposed to officially "not rated" which has its own slide).

15> FEATURE MOVIE (Yay the movie finally plays!)

16> (Intermission) - If 2+ movies are queued instead of just one, it randomly selects one of 6 Drive-In style Intermission videos to play between the movies.  These are 6-10 minutes in length and allow people to go to the bathroom or get snacks while showing classic drive-in videos for those still sitting there waiting (nostalgic).  Sadly, these aren't the highest video quality, but they're still cool.

17> Any Additional Movies Play with 16-17 repeating until the queue is empty.

18> Theater Outro - Random selection of 7 items here.  This plays if you let the credits roll all the way through on the last movie feature.  I've got a drive-in goodnight message, the ending to Ferris Bueller (funny bit it really showed at end of credits "You're still here?  It's over!  Go Home....Go!") and a few variations on the Loony Tunes "That's All Folks" including a funny one from the end of Space Jam where Porky keeps stuttering until they turn the lights out on him and he finally just says "Go Home folks".

 

Again, most of those videos I have are on YouTube.  All are available somewhere on the Net and the trivia and some of the audio bumpers are from right here.  Hopefully, that will give you some ideas.  I did have at least one person react with "This is the stuff I hate at the theaters and want to skip!" but most thought it was pretty cool, especially if they recognized the old theater feature intro as something they hadn't seen in ages (e.g. 1970s General Cinema stuff or even the 1990s candy band bits)

[japes 24]

I used trivia slides from other "similar" movies and other stuff.  The only slides from the movie were non descript ones such as the title of the movie coming from Casablanca.  The other slides were things such as LA Confidential and actor scrambles using actors from the movie.  I couldn't think of any short videos to play but I too use the Disney and Looney Tunes DVD's for shorts for my son's movie nights.  Also the 1940's Superman shorts work well too.  We also have a Woody Woodpecker and Yogi Bear DVD of shorts animations as well.  Pixar Shorts of course lead into Pixar Movies and likewise with Dreamworks shorts and movies.  My son enjoys the Dreamworks Music videos as preshow shorts as well.  For kids I'm set I just need to get things set up for grown ups.  I wish I could select different folders for Trivia slides in each sequence.  As it is I need to physically exchange the slides in the folder and then load Cinema Vision to rescan.  I wish I could set up at least two different folders as Trivia - one for kids and one for grown-ups.

[VonMagnum 13]

1 hour ago, japes said:

I used trivia slides from other "similar" movies and other stuff.  The only slides from the movie were non descript ones such as the title of the movie coming from Casablanca.  The other slides were things such as LA Confidential and actor scrambles using actors from the movie.  I couldn't think of any short videos to play but I too use the Disney and Looney Tunes DVD's for shorts for my son's movie nights.  Also the 1940's Superman shorts work well too.  We also have a Woody Woodpecker and Yogi Bear DVD of shorts animations as well.  Pixar Shorts of course lead into Pixar Movies and likewise with Dreamworks shorts and movies.  My son enjoys the Dreamworks Music videos as preshow shorts as well.  For kids I'm set I just need to get things set up for grown ups.  I wish I could select different folders for Trivia slides in each sequence.  As it is I need to physically exchange the slides in the folder and then load Cinema Vision to rescan.  I wish I could set up at least two different folders as Trivia - one for kids and one for grown-ups.

Have you considered using PROFILES in Kodi?  With that, you basically can have a different set of settings for each "person" added to the list.  It's also a great way to block adult content for younger viewers, etc.  You could have a separate user setting for your son and "his" settings for CinemaVision could have different trivia slides, etc. than yours.  You could alternatively use this for different presentations in general (SciFi, Classics, Family, etc. etc.).  Basically, you create a default setup for everyone (normally defaults to whatever you already have set up for a single user) and then you can modify that setup for the new accounts (remove video sources, change plugin settings, etc.)  It may not be perfect, but it's probably better than having to manually exchange slides, videos, etc.  You would, of course, have to have a different CinemaVision set of directories for each user to have different settings, but you only have to do this once instead of moving files every time.

[Ragnarok 198]

8 hours ago, japes said:

I used trivia slides from other "similar" movies and other stuff.  The only slides from the movie were non descript ones such as the title of the movie coming from Casablanca.  The other slides were things such as LA Confidential and actor scrambles using actors from the movie.  I couldn't think of any short videos to play but I too use the Disney and Looney Tunes DVD's for shorts for my son's movie nights.  Also the 1940's Superman shorts work well too.  We also have a Woody Woodpecker and Yogi Bear DVD of shorts animations as well.  Pixar Shorts of course lead into Pixar Movies and likewise with Dreamworks shorts and movies.  My son enjoys the Dreamworks Music videos as preshow shorts as well.  For kids I'm set I just need to get things set up for grown ups.  I wish I could select different folders for Trivia slides in each sequence.  As it is I need to physically exchange the slides in the folder and then load Cinema Vision to rescan.  I wish I could set up at least two different folders as Trivia - one for kids and one for grown-ups.

The good news is, that's on our radar. We're going to be adding in the ability to specify a trivia slide directory in the next release. We also have plans to tag slides with metadata so you can filter them based on things like rating, genre, etc. in your Sequence, though that's a ways off.