"An Alternative Take on the Video Biz" From "Motive": Entrepreneurs Section, February 16th, 1995 Until recently, Ed Wood was a name that few were familiar with; perhaps that’s because "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "Glenn or Glenda" were outrageous flops, unintentionally hilarious and poorly constructed reminders that talent does not always reside in those behind the camera. Yet somehow, Wood demonstrated himself to be an integral, if incomprehensible, element of the Hollywood fabric. Floyd Chan, also involved in artist management and Mike Greaves, a film student at the University of Waterloo don’t necessarily agree with that sentiment, but it is their unwavering and obsessional fascination with the off-centre and out-of-sight film that is the driving force behind GenX Alternative Video & Media. Tucked in a two storey house on Waterloo’s Spring St., GenX is a vibrant testament to the collective will of the people to see movies that, well, you can’t seem to find anywhere else. Currently celebrating their 10th week of operation, Chang and Greaves confirm that business is "rockin’". And all this despite the fact that GenX carries little to no ‘blockbuster’ flicks, the type you’re more likely to find in the typical strip-plaza outlet. Such an idea might have been a precarious one financially, and that raises the question of just why such a venture was undertaken. "It was frustration in terms of not being able to find what we wanted whenever we went to a video store", says Chan. "You know, you go to a Jumbo or Blockbuster, you know what it’s like... Fatal Instinct VI!" "I think we can pin it down to last May, when Mike had to write a paper on Martin Scorsese and he couldn’t find a Martin Scorsese film in K-W. Well, he could find one or two, but he’s got 14 films! So what he did was come into Toronto for a weekend, we went to a video tore called Suspect, and we got all 14 of them at once and spent the whole weekend watching Martin Scorsese films."
"Well, we thought, ‘Why is that, that you can’t go into a regular video store and get what you want? And then we started thinking about the viability of actually opening our own store." That thinking took over eight months of intensive research by the pair of cinemaphiles, including obtaining information from StatsCanada and observing other video outlets. The number of video stores throughout the region is testimony enough to the competitive nature of the business; but GenX had a different mission in mind. "We had a really good feeling that it was going to work, we just needed the proof – not only for ourselves but for the bank, for the people we were going to go hit up for money. We did research by going to the library and doing a lot of reading, going to StatsCanada. We got a lot of stats. We managed to compile it all and sort of digest it". Evidently, that research proved a demand for an alternative video outlet; indeed, people were interested in seeing, as Chan simply puts it, "good films". Those people include the large student base present in Waterloo, attendees of Wilfrid Laurier and University of Waterloo. Conveniently enough, both offer film studies courses. The success of the nearby Princess Cinema also told Chan and Greaves there was a market for fine film. Thus far, Generation X Alternative Video & Media is a fledgling success; young, true enough, but grabbing its share of the market. Which leaves the issue of competition looming overhead. The big players haven’t jumped on the idea yet – the question is: will they? "I think they will wake up at some point," Chan theorizes. "But not right away. Right now, the biggest problem with the major chains is they’re family oriented. So they’re very leery of going into areas that we’ve gone into with such things as the unrated films, foreign films which tend to be a little bit more risque, you know, from a major chain’s point of view. "Also, I think it’s a problem wherein they don’t know the titles to purchase. The way they system is set up, most video stores get catalogues from the major distributors, and they list the newest films coming out. Most video stores simply buy from that list." With all of the unseen problems and obstacles inherent in starting a new business, the biggest hassle, oddly enough, has been dealing with suppliers. The video rental business may be, shall we say ‘bloated’, in much the same fashion as any other established, complacent industry. So Chan and Greaves must fight the slings and arrows afforded them by the video status quo. "Our biggest problem that we’ve had in putting the store together has actually been getting cooperation from the rest of the industry, at all levels. Whether it’s finding distributors, or getting information as to how a typical video store runs. It seems to be a very closed industry; every video store seems to be very afraid that another video store is going to open up just down the block and take away all their clientele. "A lot of videos that we have here are actually used. There are companies that buy up dead video stores and resell them. What they’re used to is somebody walking into their store and saying, ‘OK, I’m opening up my own video store and I’ll need 2,000 videotapes’, and what they’ll do is go back in the warehouse and randomly pull out 2,000 videotapes. Well, when we walked in their stores and told them we’d like to go through their warehouses and hand pick our videos, it blew them away – they couldn’t understand we would want to do that! There was no comprehension at all. "We came up with a list of about 2,000 titles that we wanted and we took these in to the three major distributors in Canada (of new tapes) and we gave them the list. One of them actually took a look at the list and flat out refused to quote on it. We even told him the order was probably worth in excess of $20,000. He said, ‘No.’ All the distributors in Canada and North America have all gotten lazy. They’re so used to ordering 2,000 of one title, like True Lies, rather than sitting down and ordering one title of each of 2,000 different movies. The whole industry’s just really screwed up." The duo managed though – just look at the bevy of movies in the house. Everything from underground low-budget flicks to art house classics reside there, and if you have an question about anything, chances are Chan or Greaves can help you out. As for personal favourites, the consensus (jokingly) seems to be either "Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S." or its more famous sequel "Ilsa: Keeper of the Oil Shiek’s Harem". Cheese? Perhaps. But like Ed Wood, these films contribute to the cinematic landscape – after a fashion. "We started collecting that," says Chan of compiling bad movies. "We have Howard the Duck, Cool as Ice (with Vanilla Ice), Highlander II...". What about "Colour of Night", with Bruce Willis’ less-than-riveting portrayal of a beleaguered psychiatrist? "That one is so bad," he says, "we’re not going to get it."
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Perhaps it is that kind of determination to
track down a director’s work that makes GenX such a viable business. The treat is in
the details: films are arranged neatly by director (a welcome change from the typical
free-for-all approach to cassette presentation), free condoms are available at the
counter, reams of film and alternative ‘zines reside in racks on the wall.
