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VIDEOMATICA IN THE NEWS
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For more than 20 years, people have been talking about Videomatica and the media has been quick to take notice. Videomatica has been the subject of countless articles in newspapers, magazines, and other print publications.
“There’s no store like it anywhere in the world”
-The Vancouver Sun
"This store is serious about video, taking the medium to new heights”
-The Province
"In terms of the range and the quality of films available for rent, Videomatica wins, hands down.
Indeed it is reputed to be one of the best stores of its kind in the world."
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The Georgia Straight
"The best alternative video store in North America. Run, don't walk to this movie buff's paradise."
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The National Post
"Videomatica caters to film buffs whose interests span every conceivable cinematic genre…It’s a collector’s paradise.” - Vancouver Magazine
“Videomatica stocks the best of independent, foreign, and classic flicks."
The Westender
Here are just a few articles and excerpts that feature Videomatica.
Please follow the links below to go straight to the articles of your choice.
ARTICLE INDEX
April 5th, 2006, The Province -- DVDs by Mail a Joy for Rural Folk by David Spaner
March 9th, 2006, The Georgia Straight -- The DVD Please by Pieta Woolley
September 14th, 2005, The Golden Star -- Online video rental shop vies for Golden Market by Ryan Starr (Excerpt)
July 5th, 2005, Business in Vancouver -- Companies aim for box-office hits with mail-order movies by Glenn Drexhage (Excerpt)
June 9th, 2005, The Georgia Straight -- DVDs by Mail by Dave Watson (Excerpt)
March 18th, 2004, Canadian Entertainment Network Magazine -- Videomatica 20th Anniversary by Justin Anderson
February 21st, 2004, The Vancouver Sun -- Mining the Video Niche by Katherine Monk
January 18th, 2004, The Province -- The Place Where Movie-Lovers Go by David Spaner
December 2003, Hollywood@Home -- Vancouver film buffs celebrate the 20th anniversary of Videomatica, the independent video store for true collectors by Lorne Granofsky
April 5th, 2006
DVDs BY MAIL A JOY FOR RURAL FOLK
David Spaner
The ProvinceValerie Hennell's walk to her island mail box is filled with a new anticipation since she joined Videomatica.ca DVD Rentals by Mail.
"I got one in the mail today," she says on the phone from Protection Island. "To get it, I have to walk down the road to a bank of mail boxes. When I open my box and there's a video, I'm always excited."
Hennell fell in love with the movies while attending UBC back in the 1960s. So, the new Videomatica.ca program was a natural for her and her husband, singer-songwriter Rick Scott, longtime Vancouver residents who now live on the island near Nanaimo.
"When we discovered we could have films mailed to us, it opened a whole new realm of possibility. One, it's so easy and two, there's such a wide range of films available."
Videomatica.ca was started less than a year ago by Vancouver's legendary Videomatica video shop, which has an ample supply of rare independent, foreign, Canadian and classic Hollywood films.
Members of the program pick through Videomatica's site, coming up with a film list they submit online. Videomatica.ca does the rest, mailing the films by order of request. Depending on the number of films ordered, the cost varies, starting at $11.95 a month. "You can pick a plan to suit your lifestyle. How many DVDs do you want at one time on your coffee table is what it amounts to," says Videomatica co-owner Graham Peat.
Graham Peat and Larissa Loyva of Videomatica mail out some DVDs.
Photograph by : Jon Murray, The Province
Though a surprising number of city residents have signed on (They don't have to drive, they don't have to line up," says Peat), the impact is particularly felt in more remote areas, enabling people who have retreated from the bustle ("We didn't want to have television," Hennell says) to see films not carried by local, mainstream outlets.
"We'd been looking for a long time and Protection Island just appealed to us," says Hennell. "I saw it in 1998 and I moved here in 1999."
Hennell grew up on the west side of Vancouver, attending Lord Byng high school, then UBC, where she regularly attended Cinema 16 screenings.
It was the era of campus cinephiles, where film societies across North America would present old Humphrey Bogart and Marx Brothers or Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini films.
It was a creative time at UBC and Hennell had other interests, too, from writing to music. Soon, she teamed up with fellow student Ann Mortifee, becoming the glorious singer's co-songwriter and manager. And her active, varied career would include everything from producing TV specials to publishing music. "I've been nonstop in the arts since I was 19."
Her film interests are varied, too, from silent pictures to docs. "I can't think of a kind of movie I'm not interested in," she says. "Right now, we're seeing the Red, White and Blue trilogy. On my list is the original Ocean's 11, Waiting for Guffman, The Constant Gardener, Life of Birds and The Five Heartbeats.
"It's easy, it's relatively inexpensive and it shows up in my mailbox. And they provide you with an envelop to mail it back, and it's stamped. For someone who lives in relative isolation, with no easy access to stores, it's just a gift."
© The Vancouver Province 2006
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March 9th, 2006, The Georgia Straight -- The DVD Please by Pieta Woolley
The DVD, Please
By Pieta Woolley
The Georgia StraightFor the seventh annual Videomatica Alternative Oscars—45 all-indie nominees—best picture could have gone three ways. Separated by only seven votes, Transamerica, Downfall, and Me and You and Everyone We Know were filmie favourites.
“We had a movie about Hitler, a transgendered mother, and a shoe salesman,” Jasper Anson, Videomatica’s director of marketing, told the Straight. “It shows the range of the interest of the audience, the subjects of independent films, and the range in our catalogue. It really shows how much the independent-film world has grown.”
Voting, which for the first time was opened on-line to non–Videomatica members, closed March 5. The results were:
Best picture: Transamerica; followed by Downfall; Me and You and Everyone We Know; Layer Cake; and Mysterious Skin
Best director: Miranda July for Me and You and Everyone We Know; followed by Oliver Hirschbiegel for Downfall; Duncan Tucker for Transamerica; Gregg Araki for Mysterious Skin; and Matthew Vaughn for Layer Cake
Best actor: Felicity Huffman in Transamerica; followed by Bruno Ganz in Downfall; Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow; Daniel Craig in Layer Cake; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Mysterious Skin
Best actress: Laura Linney in The Squid and the Whale (by seven votes); Maria Bello in A History of Violence; Miranda July in Me and You and Everyone We Know; Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto; and Alexandra Maria Lara in Downfall
Best supporting actor: Jeffrey Wright in Syriana; Jesse Eisenberg in The Squid and the Whale; Seth Rogen in The 40 Year Old Virgin; Val Kilmer in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; and Jesse Bradford in Happy Endings
Best supporting actress: Thandie Newton in Crash (by a landslide); Amy Adams in Junebug; Frances Conroy in Broken Flowers; Catherine Keener in The 40 Year Old Virgin; and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Happy Endings
Best nonhuman actor: the penguins in March of the Penguins (another landslide!); King Kong in King Kong; Paris Hilton in House of Wax; the Tumbler in Batman Begins; and the E-474 plane in Flightplan
Worst picture: Dukes of Hazzard; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Stealth; Fantastic Four; and The Fog
Best Canadian feature: Water; C.R.A.Z.Y.; It’s All Gone Pete Tong; Scared Sacred; and Saint Ralph
© The Georgia Straight 2006
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April 5th, 2006, The Province -- DVDs by Mail a Joy for Rural Folk by David Spaner
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September 14th, 2005, The Golden Star -- Online video rental shop vies for Golden Market by Ryan Starr (Excerpt)
Online video rental shop vies for Golden market (Excerpt)
by Ryan Starr
The Golden StarVancouver-based alternative video store Videomatica has launched a new website and is turning its attention to rural markets like Golden in a bid to gain more customers by offering mail order video rentals.
"We basically built our reputation on having things that people are looking for," says director of online marketing for Videomatica.ca, Jasper Anson.
"It's for people who are sick of mainstream films."[....]
Customers sign up for a subscription package, pick a list of movies from the website and then wait to receive their DVDs by regular mail. (How many depends on the type of package you signed on for - typically two to five at a time). Once customers are done with their DVDs, they can return their selections in a pre-paid mailer through Canada Post. Upon receipt of the returned DVDs, the company then sends other titles from your list.
"The number that you see in a month is determined by how quickly you turn them around in the mail," according to Videomatica's promotion materials.
Local video business owners, when asked last week about the prospective competition, didn't exactly seem to be sweating the matter.
"If you want a movie now, you're going to come to me anyway," says Star Video's Gurmit Manhas.
"Competition to me is healthy. If they want to do it, more power to them."
East Kootenay Electronic's Dean Goulding, who stocks a fair share of alternative and film festival selections at his store, isn't too worried either.
"It's not a major threat because we hit that market," he says.
"I don't think they'll be able to compete against us in Golden."
© The Golden Star 2005
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March 9th, 2006, The Georgia Straight -- The DVD Please by Pieta Woolley
Companies aim for box-office hits with mail-order movies[...] (Excerpt)
by Glenn Drexhage
Business in VancouverA local rental hotspot for film esoterica is boosting business thanks to a new service that lets aficionados enjoy their viewing selections without having to set foot in the shop.
[...]
Videomatica, the specialty film rental shop, began offering a service that allows customers to order DVDs via the mail about two and a half months ago.
Brian Bosworth, Videomatica's managing director, said mailings are already accounting for about 15 per cent of the shop's total DVD rental business.
He's bullish about the service's prospects.
"I would not be surprised, in two or three years, that we've got the equivalent of another five stores in the Lower Mainland [due to this service], which would increase our revenues by 500 per cent," Bosworth said.
Annual revenues at Videomatica are above $1 million, he said.
The shop has become something of a local institution since it was founded in 1983 by Bosworth and his partner Graham Peat.
Located on West 4th Avenue, it specializes in renting films that fall outside the mainstream. Videomatica has an estimated 17,500 titles in VHS and DVD formats, including foreign and independent films, documentaries, and gay and lesbian cinema along with new releases. Depending on the season, the company has 15 to 17 staffers.
Here's how its mail service works. Say, for example, a customer signs up for a two-at-a-time package, the most popular option.
She then provides a list of movies-the suggest minimum is 20-that are ranked according to viewing preference.
If the first two films are available, Videomatica sends them out, and customers in the Lower Mainland should receive their posted DVDs within one to three days.
When the viewer has watched a film, she posts it back in a pre-stamped envelope.
Videomatica receives it and mails out the next film in the cue.
Customers sign up for the service at Videomatica.ca Monthly fees, which include postage, are $19.95 and up.
Discounted amounts are available for quarterly payments, and referrals can also results in discounts.
Videomatica managing director Brian Bosworth: mailings are already accounting for
about 15 per cent
of the shop's total DVD rental business.
Photo by Dominic Schaeffer.
[...]
Bosworth said Videomatica's offering differs from other services available due to its specialist focus.
"We're in different markets. We just carry stuff that nobody else does."
He said Videomatica began seriously considering offering mail-service rentals after receiving an e-mail query from Burnaby.
The author noted that he lived too far away to drive to Videomatica's Kitsilano location. He said he already belonged to other local subscription services and inquired about accessing Videomatica's inventory.
So the research began.
"We found that in Canada, there are probably about 10 to 15 of these companies doing this," Bosworth said.
Videomatica also looked at the U.S. example of Netflix Inc. Bosworth said recent figures indicated that mail rentals account for about 15% of the overall DVD rental business in the U.S., up from eight per cent a year earlier.
He initially thought the notion would only appeal ot people living outside of urban areas who don't have access to rental shops.
"Of course, it turns out that the market was the exact opposite of that-the market is dense urban areas," Bosworth said.
© Business in Vancouver 2005
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June 9th, 2005, The Georgia Straight -- DVDs by Mail by Dave Watson
DVDs by mail (excerpt)
By Dave Watson
The Georgia StraightYou want an example of a local business adapting to larger e-business developments (and of the increasing localization of the Web)? Long-time Vancouver video-rental store Videomatica (www.videomatica.ca) has begun renting DVDs by mail for a monthly subscription fee. [...] Besides film selection, Videomatica boasts fast delivery times in Western Canada—often next-day in the Lower Mainland, which can add up to many more movies per month.
© The Georgia Straight 2005
Videomatica 20th Anniversary
by Justin Anderson
Canadian Entertainment Network MagazineVancouver's Videomatica has been breaking new ground in the independent video retail and rental market for 20 years now. With an emphasis on new technologies-the store was on of the first to offers DVDs for rental way back in 1997 -- and a remarkably deep e-tail site at www.videomatica.ca, Videomatica has cared out a niche for itself as one of the most innovative indie video stores in the country. CEN editor Justin Anderson recently chatted with Videomatica co-founder and GM Graham Peat about the store's first two decades.
Q: With the late fees amnesty in December, you wrote off some $2000,000 worth of late fees. Given that you're an indie store, was that a bitter pill to swallow or did the press and goodwill balance it out?I talked to my partner and said, "Look, the computer says that we have all this information collectively on people's accounts and I know we don't get more than 10 percent of it from time to time. And it also creates this bad will. There are people that just won't come back."
What we find is that people make a mistake and go to other stores. They want to come back, but they either have to bite the bullet and pay it for they don't come back. If we want our customers to come back -- and many of them want to come to us rather than other places -- we don't want them to have this problem of having this huge block. So we decided that, for the entire month of December, anybody who comes in and has a late fee from the past, we'll wipe it out.
At first the thought was that it would be a lot of money lost, but it's not, really. It's money you don't have anyway, and it takes effort -- too much effort -- to get it.
The goodwill is the thing, and I think it will keep a lot of customers happy. The bottom line is keeping the customers happy. It was very successful. A lot of people were really happy to come back and do it. And that's when I thought, "Hey, we should do this every year."
Q: What are some of the other events you've held and have planned to celebrate your 20th year?We've tried to do at least one promotion every month, so it'll either be a community event or something that will benefit our customer or both. Aside from hosting a lot of events that we put our name on, we've been sponsoring lots of movie previews that I go and host every week and we try to do in-store contests.
There's something we do every year, which we did last month, and that's our Alternative Oscars. The customers vote on the stuff they feel missed out on getting an Oscar and the staff puts together the ballots and we post all the results. It's a very popular contest and it's unbelievable the amount of ballots we get. I don't know how many thousands we got; they could barely count them all. We had to unload the ballot box four times, it was so full.
Across Canada they have something called The Performing Arts Lodge. For all the people who are actors and performers and work in stage and shows and film, they build retirement homes for them and there's always a foundation for them in their town. We're doing a benefit for them, a big contest, and we have all these prizes. People buy tickets to it and all the money goes to The Performing Arts Lodge.
Because the Dalai Lama is coming to Vancouver in April, we're doing a Celebrate Tibet Month in April. Our store happens to have a huge number of documentaries relating to the east and Tibet and all of that, so we're featuring all of them all month at a huge discount and we're putting up all kinds of displays to do with the Dalai Lama.
Videomatica
Q: Was Videomatica envisioned from the start as a kind of alternative video store?
I'm not sure that we used that word back then. I know they used it for music, but we always used either specialty or alternative or movie buff's paradise. Our original specialties were classics, and that was huge because you couldn't get them anywhere. Foreign films were also in demand and, when we first opened, believe it or not, so were music videos because there was no MuchMusic as of yet.
We added more specialties as we went, and they were documentaries, adult, gay and lesbian, and British TV series' and films, which are really big in Vancouver. Anime eventually became a big one, and we thought it was healthier to carry all the specialties. We tried to be selective about our new releases. Our buying formula is different. When a normal video store buys 50 copies of a new release, we buy five or 10 and we spend all the rest on things that no-one else carries. That's how we've built up this collection of everything imaginable. It's really well-organized by genre. The other thing that has always been popular with the public is that we display the classics by decade.
Q: You opened a sales-only store in 1990, well before a lot of other video chains got into sell-through. What went into that decision at the time?
We really believed that we could do a lot in sell-through. At the time it was VHS and laserdisc, and we used to have a huge selection of laserdiscs before we went to DVD. We just didn't have enough room for it all, really. The other reason is that, in our building, we have two tenants we sublet to in smaller unites. We figured why don't we take over one of those unites and make the sales department by itself, so that's what we did. It wasn't a bad idea because we did have a lot more sell-through. We had the space and we wanted to use it.
Q: As much as anyone, you've seen the shift in consumer behaviour turning home video from a rental-driven business to a more even split between rental and sell-through. How has that changed your business?We've never had the success with VHS sell-through as we have with DVD. The big change is that you would have to wait three to six months for the price of VHS to come down, but people like the fact that now, on release date, if it's $25, I might want to get that and keep it, and I don't have to wait. The only thing they have to worry about is if a new special edition comes out in six months.
With DVD it's taken a lot longer to reach the 50% point and pass it for DVD rentals than we thought it would. We think it's for two reasons. We have so much VHS and people are buying DVDs more. We didn't catch on to that for a long time. We didn't realize that quite a few people were going and buying them on the release date. They're also buying previously-viewed DVDs from us a lot.
Q: What made you get into the DVD format so quickly? I remember many people at the time were still concerned that it could become the next Beta.My partner, Brian Bosworth, is the technology guy. I'm more the content guy. He loves to jump in early on things. We were so anxious about DVD that he used to drive down to Washington State and buy the first DVDs that were out in test markets that weren't even out in the rest of the U.S. We were definitely the first ones to have them for rental in the area.
Graham Peat
Q: The incident of a Blockbuster location opening across the street and closing about two years later brings up the issue of indie retailers versus majors.
We realized that they opened it to kill everybody, and two things happened. There's a Rogers store nearby that's quite strong in our area, and people liked Rogers more than Blockbuster because people thought if it's a chain store, at least it's Canadian. So they weren't only really loyal for the new release stuff to Rogers, they were really loyal to us. What started to happen was that we started to feel a little dent of maybe 10 or 15 percent down in rentals at first, and we were kind of worried.
But slowly within the first year, we not only got it back right away but we found out that all the staff at Blockbuster were sending people to us all the time because they didn't have any of the stuff that people wanted. They were sending us business all the time. So when they closed up shop two or three years into their lease, we put up signs saying "Blockbuster members: free membership and free rental, come on over!".
We got all kinds of people right away. I think we're the only place where Blockbuster opened up next to a strong independent and didn't do well.
Q: What are some of the challenges you face as an independent store in an increasingly chain-based world?Every time we think it's going to get easy, we always have some new challenge. We've always had a good formula. I think the thing that's always made us the most popular, and I think what works best for our customers, is even though we have to fight the image that we're more expensive and more exclusive, we try never to do that. We won't hire staff that have really strong opinions or that look down at customers because of their choices. They have to be really good about that because we have people coming in for everything, and we can't have film snobs at the counter.
Because we are small and responsive, we're able to buy what people want and be sensitive to what the public is asking for. We have a request e-mail line. I get quite a few requests a week and I deal with those personally.
We send an e-mail back saying we're going to buy that title, and they're always happy that you've replied. So whether they want to rent or buy a title, we'll always response. They love the staff because they can hunt down hard-to-find videos for them. Everyone in the company loves movies and is willing to do that for them and, even if we have to say, "No, you can't have that", they go away happy because we try. And I think that by being able to buy what they want and not have some office buying what we carry, they may not always get the newest release on a Friday night or a guaranteed rental like at Blockbuster, but they'll always get something that no-one else carries and they'll always be able to get some response or personal attention. I think that's what counts.
We have a lot of staff, too, and we don't just have people running the till. We have people out on the floor answering questions. We have a huge amount of overhead in just answering peoples' questions and giving them information. We invest a lot in giving information.
Q: Videomatica has a very comprehensive e-tailing site in Videomatica.ca and you do mail-order worldwide. What has that meant to your business?Instead of having stores all over the country, we decided quite a few years ago that, since we had a successful sales operation and we'd always been doing traditional mail-order before the web, there was no reason we couldn't be a really good web retail source. The national site we have is good because we do a lot of mail-order around the world, especially in Canada. And about 50% of our sales go to film schools, universities, film programs, libraries and schools. There are a lot of institutional sales, not just individual customers. That's really our profile.
It's an interesting operation all from one building. It's the opposite of the philosophy of having stores everywhere, which we never thought we could ever handle because what we do is too complicated. We didn't think we could franchise it. We just try to do everything in one building, which works pretty well for us.
© Canadian Entertainment Magazine 2004
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February 21st, 2004, The Vancouver Sun -- Mining the Video Niche by Katherine Monk
February 21st, 2004
Mining the video niche
While big chains feel the pinch, independents secure their own market
By Katherine Monk
The Vancouver Sun
Graham Peat (left) and Brian Bosworth operate Videomatica on West Fourth in Vancouver, pleasing customers with a broad range of movies. Photo by Ward Perrin.From behind the large plate-glass windows of their shop at Fourth and Burrard, Graham Peat and Brian Bosworth have watched a war of the worlds unfold.
Co-founders and owners of Videomatica, one of the country's premium video rental operations, the two film buffs have witnessed technological change, mounting threats of piracy, the erosion of the rental-store customer base to sell-through DVDs, and industry cannibalism of the worst kind.
Some outlets have managed to survive. Others perished, or suffered the consequences of corporate acquisition.
The most recent victim is Blockbuster, North America's largest chain operation which was put on the auction block last week by its corporate parent, Viacom.
Once the golden goose of the Viacom empire, Blockbuster's bottom-line is a perfect barometer of the changing times. Viacom will take a $1.3 billion charge to write down the value of Blockbuster's business, and that's just the beginning.
Blockbuster revenues were down by seven per cent in its fourth quarter, prompting Viacom chairman and chief executive Sumner Redstone to say the video-rental business "was evolving and moving away from our core area of focus."
With 400 stores in Canada, Blockbusters is the biggest video-rental chain in this country, claiming more than 30 per cent of the market, according to recent Statistics Canada data. If it goes the way of the dodo, does that mean the entire industry is at risk? If anything, the demise of the chain store could mean a whole new beginning for the neighbourhood rental shop, say Peat, Bosworth and other leading independents across the country.
For the past 20 years, Peat and Bosworth have watched the chain stores come and go, and while they've watched their fortunes rise and fall with the emergence of different technologies, they've learned a few things the men in the boardroom have yet to understand.
"This is a business based on consumer satisfaction," says Peat. "And if you offer just one type of movie, you're going to please one type of person. Most people like all different kinds of movies, but that's not what the big chain stores offer. They stock hundreds of copies of the latest studio release and forget the rest because that's what's in the best interest of their owners -- the big studios."
Peat and Bosworth love movies: good movies, cult movies, trash, classics, foreign, animated. You name it, and chances are, they have it. The two film buffs are the godfathers of the art-movie rental business in Canada, setting up Videomatica 20 years ago and operating on one simple premise: get the best movies available, and share them with as many people as possible. They've succeeded on both scores, with a catalogue of several thousand titles and a client list that includes some of the biggest celebrities in the business.
"We were going crazy because no one was carrying the kinds of movies we wanted to watch," says Bosworth. "We opened the store with 400 titles, including Casablanca, and some foreign films." Before long, the store was so successful, it had to move to a larger location a few doors down to satisfy customer demand.
"Back then, our biggest hurdle was deciding whether to go VHS or Beta," says Bosworth. "You invest so much in your library and we weren't sure, but we opted for VHS. When laser discs came into the market, we embraced that technology, too. But it didn't quite do what people thought it would."
Bosworth and Peat say they were the first shop in Canada to make DVDs available to rental customers. That was in 1997. Today, DVD has surpassed all video formats worldwide as the No. 1 choice in rentals, but for all the success of the format, it could still kill the chain stores because statistics show consumers are more likely to buy a DVD than to rent one; the price points are that close.
There's a lot of competition on sell-through software, making everyone from Wal-Mart to the Virgin Megastore a threat to the video-rental market. Statistics Canada reported a record year for prerecorded videocassettes and DVD sales, hitting the $1.5-billion mark in this country, up an average of 23.7 per cent per family since 2000.
According to the report, the increase was fuelled largely by DVD sales, which accounted for close to one-third of all entertainment software spending. DVDs do well at Videomatica -- which also has a special sell-through section in the store -- but the videocassette will have a place on its racks for some time to come.
"It can't always be about technological shifts because not every consumer is going to hop on the bandwagon. They keep their old technology for vie, 10 years," says Peat. "Most importantly, we can't get half the titles we have on VHS on DVD. They simply aren't available, and until they are, we have to keep this catalogue that we worked so hard to build."
Peat says it always looks as though all kinds of DVD titles are available, but just try to order one.
"You can click on Amazon and it looks like you can get everything, but half the time it's not even out on DVD, let alone anywhere in stock."
Graham Peat (left) and Brian Bosworth operate Videomatica on West Fourth.
Photo by Ward Perrin.
Finding the arcane, the out-of-print, the cult B-reels and the world's best movies has been the key to Videomatica's longevity, and has made it a favourite for Vancouverites and an elite clientele of such visiting celebs as Johnny Depp (who racked up $100 in late fees during his stint on the made-in-Vancouver TV series 21 Jump Street), Glenn Close, and Kirsten Dunst.
Jodie Foster once sent Peat a handwritten letter to apologize for some missing tapes. "I'm really sorry about not returning these tapes. But my mother, Brandy, left the country and stowed them in the closet, forgetting to tell me anything about them. It's unlike me. Forgive me. Jodie."
Staff have heard all the excuses and on the occasion of their 20th anniversary, Videomatica granted amnesty to all late charges -- about $2000,000 worth in total.
"This is a business about customer satisfaction. We want to make sure people find what they want, and that they feel comfortable in the store. Even though our staff probably know more about movies than a lot of people, they can't be stuck up cineastes," says Peat. "There has to be a balance."
Finding that magic balance has been the key to other successful stores in Canada, many of which looked at Videomatica and emulated its model.
"We looked at what Videomatica was doing, and what the record store next to them, Zulu Records, was doing, too" says David Ringer, one of the founders of Winnipeg's Movie Village.
"Videomatica has the huge selection of art films and other speciality titles, but Zulu showed us what you could do with the buy, sell, trade model, which has become even more important to us in the wake of DVD technology. People get tired of watching the same movie, so they trade in for something else."
Five years ago, before Ringer embraced DVDs and the buy, sell, trade model, he says things looked pretty bleak. He even thought about shutting the operation down. "Instead, we recommitted to DVD, and the business grew at the same time the technology shifted. It made a huge difference. Now, I probably sell more DVDs than Blockbuster. The margin is lower than on rental, but you can sell more. By the same token, having the rentals is what brings people into the store, so each side of the business complements the other."
La Boite Noire in Montreal and Casablanca in Calgary have remained close to the Videomatica model, focusing on niche market rentals and customer service over software sell-through.
"Everybody who works in this store has to know what films are in stock and a little bit about them because a customer might come in and ask for recommendation, and if it's a good one, you know he'll come back," says Nicholas Otis, store manager at one of La Boite Noire's two Montreal locations. "We also try to carry what the big stores have not got, and we have a big Web site, so people can look through the catalogue online."
Casablanca in Calgary is also a large supplier to the online video fan, with an exhaustive Web site catering to a variety of customers.
"There's just a lot more you can do when you don't have a large corporation setting the agenda about what you should stock," says Aaron Brown, assistant manager at Casablanca.
"I think about where we are now, and where we could be in 10 years -- and it could go either way," says Bosworth. "We could disappear completely or we could be the only people around who have something on the shelf other than 200 copies of X-Men 5."
© The Vancouver Sun 2004
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March 18th, 2004, Canadian Entertainment Network Magazine -- Videomatica 20th Anniversary by Justin AndersonNEXT ARTICLE:
January 18th, 2004, The Province -- The Place Where Movie-Lovers Go by David Spaner
The place where movie-lovers go
David Spaner
The Province
Graham Peat (left) and Brian Bosworth, co-owners of Videomatica.Video shops seldom come to mind when there's talk about city landmarks.
But Vancouver's Videomatica, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, has become part of the city's landscape. It's one of the great video stores anywhere and the shop of choice for many film personalities.
Hugh Jackman, for instance, would stop by when he stayed in Kitsilano while shooting X-Men 2 in the city.
"I looked up and said, 'What can I do for you?' And then my mouth went dry," says the store's rentals manager, Pauline Walsh. "He came in a couple time with baby in stroller. He was very friendly and much taller than I expected."
A visit to Videomatica is akin to dropping into the history of cinema. Step through the entrance at 1855 West Fourth Ave. and you're standing among Chaplin and Eisenstein and other icons of the silent-picture era. Turn the corner and you've moved on to the great musicals and screwball comedies of the 1930s, then you're sharing the postwar years with Brando and the French new wave and film noir.
This cinematica journey continues to the store's mounds of current films, including some of the films you'll see anywhere, such as Finding Nemo or American Wedding. At Videomatica, though, they have to share shelf space with lesser-known films Flower & Garnet and The Wild Dogs.
What separates this store from the rest is that it's run by and for movie lovers.
"To me it's all been content," says co-owner Graham Peat. "It doesn't matter about the box office, it's always been content."
The store's co-owners, Peat and Brian Bosworth, met while they were working at Rogers community TV about 1980.
Longtime cinephiles, the former UBC students had grown up in the pre-video days when seeing the classics meant late nights in front of a TV or visits to the city's few revival theatres and art houses.
When video stores opened in the early 1980s, Peat and Bosworth were disappointed at their predictable fare.
"All video stores were run by people who didn't know anything about film and just wanted to make a quick buck," says Peat. "I tried to get my local video stores to order good films and they wouldn't, so Brian said, '"Why don't we do it ourselves?'"
They started with about 350 titles. "We just thought, 'Let's go with our own taste, so we had classic, foreign--independent didn't exist at the time."
Twenty years later, the store has about 25,000 video and DVD titles. While foreign-language and classics are still popular, they're now rivalled by independents, documentaries, British and old TV, gay and lesbian, animation and cult.
"The only good thing that will kill us is if good movies stop being made," says Peat.
He's also a supporter of Canadian film and the store is about to open a Vancouver section, featuring local filmmakers from Mina Shum to Phillip Borsos.
"I really think it's important to build," says Peat. "The two godfathers of Canadian filmmaking to me are Allan King and Larry Kent."
Kent rented videos at the shop last year when he was in town for a tribute to his work at Pacific Cinematheque.
Other customers include Goldie Hawn, who usually cycles over from her home in Shaughnessy.
"She comes in quite often with a bicycle helmet under her arm," says Walsh.
Terence Stamp came by when, while shooting in Vancouver, he heard that the store's annual alternative Oscars contest--voted by customers--had named him best actress for his drag role in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
"He came in one day and said, 'Tell me about this, is it true?' And we had a big laugh about it."
A few years later, the store named Stamp best actor for The Limey. "He's the only person in our awards who won best actor and actress and he thinks that's great."
Peat says the celebrity customers are almost always courteous--but there are exceptions.
"Courtney Love went back to L.A. with one of our DVDs," notes Walsh.
"Yeah, she was trouble," adds Peat. "She was the opposite of Jodie Foster, who wrote us a letter of apology for bringing her mother's video in late."
© The Vancouver Province 2004
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February 21st, 2004, The Vancouver Sun -- Mining the Video Niche by Katherine Monk
Vancouver film buffs celebrate the 20th anniversary of Videomatica, the independent video store for true collectors
Lorne Granofsky
Hollywood@HomeElsewhere in this magazine you will read how Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean has earned over $300 million in net video revenue since its December release date. And, in recognition, Graham Peat of Vancouver's popular 'alternative' video store Videomatica has decided to let Depp-who has been a loyal customer during his frequent movie shoots-off the hook for his $100 in unpaid late fees.
"It's okay, Johnny!" says Graham. "You can come back now. All is forgiven!"
Actually, Peat and his longtime business partner and friend Brian Bosworth, are marking Videomatica's 20th anniversary in business with a similar gesture to thousands of other customers as part of its Late Charge Amnesty, whereby the store has written off more than $200,000 in late fees on customer accounts.
"After 20 years, there is certainly reason to give something back to the customers and famous faces that have supported us along the way," says Graham. "even if they don't always return movies on time!"
Graham Peat
The Movie Lover's Store of Choice
Launched in 1983 as a specialty video store, Videomatica is now one of Canada's best sources for foreign films, cult classics, independent productions, silent movies and gay and lesbian cinema.
"Our history is defined by a series of firsts in the home entertainment industry," says Brian. "The amnesty will go down with our public search terminals and the chance to hobnob with our celebrity customers as reason why we have survived as an independent for this long. Even Big Blue couldn't compete with us!"
So how did these two self-confessed film buffs begin their business partnership? Well, Brian-who once ran the city's famous Rembrandt Cinema and who's passion is writing travel reference books for motorcyclists-was part of Peat's circle of movie friends who would gather and discuss films rented from one of the city's new Mom & Pop video stores. Graham-a freelance publicist and advertising copywriter who did work for Vancouver's brightest young star Michael J. Fox - couldn't understand why his neighbourhood storeowners weren't interested in his suggestions to expand their film libraries.
"I felt that there was a tremendous niche in the market, and I approached Brian to come along for the ride. I knew he appreciated a good adventure!"
So, the guys scraped up $60,000 in start-up capital-from a mixture of bank loans and draining their respective savings-and opened a 1,200 square foot location on West Fourth Avenue in the hip and happening Kitsilano district of Vancouver.
"We started with 400 movies-I remember Withnail and I becoming our first big renter," says Peat. "I guess we had an especially eclectic clientele, even in the beginning!"
After five successful years, Videomatica moved down the street into their current 3,000 square foot location. As part of their community activism, the store would organize an annual "World's Worst Movies Marathon," billed as a 24-hour torture test for participants who can endure the tackiest films ever made.
"We had four marathons, and raised a lot of money for the fledgling Lesbian and Gay Film Festival," said Peat. In an effort to recognize independent films and performances that slisp beneath the Hollywood radar, the store organizes the annual "Videomaticademy Awards," which gets them a lot of free publicity from the admiring Vancouver press.
Sell-Through Pioneers
In the early 1990s, Videomatica split in two, with one of the two neighbouring stores becoming the first video outlet in Western Canada to be exclusively for sales.
"We were paranoid at the beginning thinking that two movie fanatics wouldn't be able to run a business like this," says Peat. "But after a while, we realized that this special concept of ours-researching independent films and rare finds and going on buying missions throughout North America-was way too much work for anyone who didn't have a passion for this type of product! We're not exactly known for our copy depth on new releases," he laughs. "Although we're heavily into DVD, we still do half our business in VHS, and we even have some laserdiscs hanging around!"
The store showcases foreign films from 75 different countries, and features an in-store 'Walk through the Decades' wall, with films categorized by year, dating back to the Siletn Era.
"Jodie Foster told us that we have more foreign films than any store in New York or L.A.," says Graham.
A Successful Partnership
So, are the Videomatica guys still friends after 20 years in business together? "We don't socialize as often as we used to," laughs Bosworth. "But we know that our partnership works."
Graham is the concept guy-handling HR, buying and advertising-while Brian is the numbers guy who takes care of all the finances and tracks the revenue streams.
"Basically, I'm the front man and he's the 'noisy' silent partner!" says Peat. "But, it was Brian who forced the issue of investing heavily in website marketing, and it was one of the best ideas we ever had."
Currently, the rentals webiste acts as a virtual video store, allowing customers to view the front and back covers of rental titles and to make reservations online 24-hours a day. The sales website showcases over 20,00 titles and expands the company's sales customer base across the globe do customers as far away as Central America and Japan.
Hollywood faithful, such as Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Sharon Stone-and Vancouver native Bryan Adams- have certainly made Videomatica a known and admired city landmark for twenty years.
"Brian and I may not be able to agree on any one film," says Graham. "But we must be doing something right to have made it this far!"
© Hollywood@Home 2003