Letterboxing Lesson
Steven Spielberg's salute to high-flying fire fighters, Always (MCA/ Universal), may have a rough landing in video stores. It's not
that the movie had a mediocre run at the box office, but that
Spielberg insisted the video be released in the letterbox format — a
framing method that places black bars across the top and bottom of
the TV screen to give the movie the same rectangular shape on video
that it had on movie screens.
Letterboxing is slowly becoming more common on ape. ''The creative community wants it,'' says Bart Story, director of market research for the trade publication Video Store. ''But it's going to take some time for the public to accept the format.'' Previous releases letterboxed on cassette, including Woody Allen's Manhattan and Spielberg's The Color Purple, have brought complaints from renters. ''A lot of our customers thought there was something wrong with The Color Purple,'' says Debra Mackenzie of the Video Orchard store in Glen Cove, N.Y.
Letterboxing is far more common — and accepted — on videodisc. When Paramount released both letterboxed and conventional versions of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on disc, the letterboxed copies outsold the others four to one.
Spielberg hopes to win more converts to the practice with the Always release. In a written message at the start of the tape, he explains that letterboxing ''gives the viewer at home the opportunity to see a film with its full image intact. . .The viewer can see more and experience more.''
Nintendo Rx
To prevent what it calls ''Nintendonitis'' — irritability and
obsessive behavior — Safe Care Products Inc. is selling Homework
First, a lock for Nintendo games that blocks the opening of the
cartridge compartment. Safe Care president Tom Lowe invented the 15.95 device after hearing that a friend's 14-year-old son stayed up
all night playing Nintendo instead of studying for finals. Homework
First has received endorsements from a pediatrician and the Council
for Children's Television and Media. Nintendo refused to cooperate
with Lowe, but he has sold about 25,000 locks in toy stores and by
phone (800-235-6646, ext. 480).
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