THE HOME THEATER DEMO CHALLENGE

This will be a fairly long post. However, if you are interested in the topic, you will pick up some interesting information about conducting demos. To make it even more interesting, there will be a competition for the best demo. The winner will receive an exciting new accessory product from Outlaw.

Background

Two years ago, I taught a course for Nationwide’s ‘Primetime’ event. Nationwide is a buying consortium of audio/video dealers and the purpose of the course was to provide them with the knowledge to properly set up and demonstrate a home theater system. This course, ‘The Art of the Demo’, was designed to teach them how to convey the power and excitement of a movie experience in the home. One aspect of the course provided the basic principles of selecting and demonstrating the best demo material.

This year I have been asked to teach the course again with demo material that was not used in the last course. I have started the search and am reviewing a variety of clips that will present the home theater experience in the most dramatic way. This year, however I decided to enlist a panel of experts that love movies and watch a lot of them - our own Outlaw Saloon members. If you are interested in participating in the demo challenge, I am offering a reward for the best choice. Whoever submits the winning ‘best demo’ will receive one of the first units of an exciting new accessory product from Outlaw. Of course the winning clip will be used in the course at Primetime, with attribution given to the winner.

So far this sounds easy-until you learn about the “rules’ of a good demo. If any of you ever attended an Outlaw demo at one of the Stereophile shows, you may not realize that it takes a month or two to select the right film clips for these presentations. Below are the standards we apply. It is a challenging and fun process and in the hunt you will find things you can show to your friends that will blow them away.

The “RULES” of a Great Demonstration
Demonstration Length The demonstration should be a continuous film sequence no longer than six or seven minutes (there are a few exceptions). The clip should leave the viewer wanting more.

The Selection The selected clip should be a micro-story having a beginning, middle, and end. It’s very frustrating to the viewer to cut off a scene right in the middle.

While many selections often involve action, the scene should not be depressing or disturbing. While men might enjoy explosions and carnage, wives and small children can get turned off or frightened. This exclusion does not refer to over-the-top action scenes that are like a comic book, but things that are too close to reality. As an example, Blackhawk Down is not a great family demo.
Stimulating the Senses A good demonstration should stimulate the following senses:

1. Visual stimulation: The program material should look great - colorful and sharp.

2. Aural and Spatial stimulation: High intelligibility of dialog is essential. There should also be a good sense of ‘Acoustic Space’ – good separation and good surround using a great musical score.

3. Actual Physical Stimulation: Deep bass in the soundtrack at the appropriate level can actually be felt. This is necessary to achieve a true physical reaction such as goose bumps, or feeling the throb of the base in your chest.

4. Stimulation of the Imagination: The program material should draw the customer into the story or action. The viewer should ‘be there’. For a brief moment he or she should forget that this is only a demonstration.

At this point, the viewer has absorbed the “experience.”
If done right, the customer will want to repeat the experience in their home.

Great Examples:
Seabiscuit - Chapter 22, ‘Showdown with War Admiral’, is a near perfect demo. It revolves around a two-horse runoff witnessed by a crowd of thousands. It has everything – a great picture, sound with good bass excitement and an uplifting finale.

Vertical Limit - Chapter 18, ‘Use Your Axe’. Mountain climbers are hanging from a cliff, fearing that everything will break away. This scene is guaranteed to give the viewer sweaty palms.

Red Planet - Chapter 28, ‘Bye Sweetie’. An astronaut trapped on Mars has a final showdown with circling, flying killer robots. Great dynamic range that goes from virtual silence to massive explosions. You can cut the tension with a knife.

Fantastic Four - Chapter 4, ‘Bridge Scene’. This scene also has it all…great story, visuals and surround, unusual bass track, humor. It’s thoroughly exciting and uplifting and rivals Seabiscuit.

Live Free or Die Harder - The tunnel scene where the villain shuts down all traffic lights and causes mayhem in a NY tunnel. Great visuals, superb surround sound, and terrific bass highlight the tension and unbelievable escapes of Bruce Willis and his passenger.

The Natural – Although this is an older movie, the final scene still delivers in the elation of Robert Redford winning the game with a dramatic home run. The great visuals and unique sounds of the stadium night-lights exploding are excellent aural stimulations. This highly emotional ending has moved many people to tears. The musical score in this scene has such a memorable impact that it is often played in some ballparks when a player hits a home-run.


The Rules of the Challenge In order to qualify for the competition, you must post a description of the scene in the chosen movie with a short statement as to why you believe it is a great demo clip. Once the selection is posted, no one else can later make that selection. It is now locked as a choice.

Our primary ‘rule” is that you should avoid the usual clichés, the clips that everyone has seen or heard dozens of times. These include but are not limited to the overused Top Gun, Gladiator, Independence Day, Titanic, Twister, Fifth Element, Speed and soon-to-be Avatar. Your audience will groan “not that again” You all know what they are.

Of course, the greatest discovery of all is finding the elusive “hidden gem” - an awful movie that hardly anyone saw, but contains one really incredible scene. We stumbled on such a film a couple of years ago. In the movie The Core, an early scene involves the space shuttle getting in deep trouble while returning to earth and being forced to crash-land in one of the storm drain channels in Los Angeles. The scene was a great hit at the Stereophile show and the local Blockbuster reported that they had a run on the three remaining copies in stock.

The fun is discovering your own great scenes. Test them on your friends and family and enjoy yourself in the hunt for the ‘best demo.’

The winning clip will be selected no later than the end of June. To the participants, Enjoy and Good Luck

Peter

Sounds like a fun challenge. I'll have to see what I can think of, and I'll be curious to see what ideas crop up.

Excellent…I can't wait to see what the gunslingers and desperados come up with.

Here are 2-3 possible demo scenes. All of them A+ in both picture and sound, with beautifully recorded music tracks. Paycheck's movie score was recorded by Shawn Murphy, arguably the best music recording engineer in Hollywood, and possibly the best symphony orchestra recording engineer working anywhere. He has worked extensively with John Williams (virtually all his of his scores since the mid 1990s), James Newton Howard, and (prior to around 1998) James Horner.

Paycheck
Chapter 12:
Start at about 50 minute point if you want to keep the length down. The selection starts with a conversation between two characters and ends as a subway train comes to a stop. It includes plenty of ambient sounds in a crowded train station, a shoot-em-up gunfight but no blood (the movie was directed by John Woo, and while it was one of his box office failures, he still knows how to choreograph an action scene), a can and mouse pursuit, a couple of standoffs standoff between two characters with the drop on each other (another Woo favorite) and a tense scene with the hero being chased by a train. There are one or two uses of the S-word here, if that's a consideration.

9
Not the recent musical, but the computer animated feature.
Two suggestions here:

From about 2-3 minutes into the movie (there's an impressive base undertone somewhere in that span) to the end of the battle with the beast that resembles a cat's skeleton. This sequence sets the tone of the story, includes plenty of ambience and deep bass.

Chapters 10 and 11:
Taken together these are nearly ideal in length and in forming a closed story. It begins with the characters moving through a wrecked and abandoned church where they are hiding out and ends after a pitched battle with a mechanized flying monster.


9 is definitely not animation for kids, and likely bombed in the theater because it's very dark (dark in its theme, not in its video). Probably the best post-apocalyptic sock-puppet film ever made. Lots of action but not bloody (how bloody can a sock-puppet get?) This movie is a full 16:9 image, with no black bars if you are using a 16:9 screen.


PS
I can think of two other conditions you might add:

1. The movie should be available on Blu-ray

2. The scene should not be the end of the movie, or give away the end, or include a major spoiler (such as a key character dies, or the ship sinks!). Unless perhaps the movie is relatively old--say, for example, 10 years. By then, if the viewer hasn't haven't seen it, it's unlikely he or she will be interested enough to ever do so, in which case telling how it ends won't give anything away. But in that case you should at least point out before the demo that there are spoilers. The age limit obviously lets The Natural slip into consideration (one of my favorites as well, by the way).

Those Home Theater shows were great and a lot of fun. Actually I was at many shows. I remember the demo of the "Core" that PT mentioned but also remember a demo that was really unique, no action scenes, no monoluge just music with a driving tight bass coming from Outlaws' LFM-EX sub....the movie? "Signs"

Here is my selection.

Movie: The Ring, with Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson.

Chapter 20, The Well (1:23:40)

This scene has a tight and intense storyline. There are very good visuals and sound effects. Not much deep bass, except for the well cover. Even if you know nothing of the movie plot, this chapter grabs you and makes you wonder, 'what will happen next?' This selection nicely covers the 4 rules, but might be a bit too intense for young children.

The chapter runs until 1:34:10 - 11 minutes, a bit long for the demo. Possible ending points are at 1:28:40 (5 min, falling into the well); 1:30:48 ( 7 min, hand grabs the arm, but an abrupt place to stop); 1:32:19 (9 min, end of vision).

Fellow Outlaws, enjoy!

How about Star Trek Blu-ray, chapter 5, 40:20 thru 41:36?

Peter,

Any update on the demo clip selection?

Well, after checking all the demo's, AV Tom wins with Paycheck. His selection will be added to the recommended list and he will be acknowledged at Nationwide. His prize will be shipped to him just before we announce a new accessory in the fall.

For all of you who posted in this thread BEFORE today (even without a demo suggestion) we have a surprise: ALL of you will be able to purchase one of these new devices at 50% off.
Thanks to all

Peter

^^^SUCK!

Just kidding, that's awesome!