After a season that has so far been very very strange (not bad, but strange), we finally get a Venture Bros. that nails it. Not the least of what kept a constant smile on my face was this:
My friends, behold Ventronic! And yes, that's an ice cream cone he has for an arm (don't ask...watch the episode).
This episode focused entirely on Jonas Venture Jr., Rusty's vestigal twin brother. In fact, we didn't see Rusty or Hank or Dean at any point in this episode. Jonas Jr. is starting to spread his Protagonist wings more and more, leading to an epic showdown between him and The Monarch.
Too many hilarious things to mention from this episode, but the two OSI agents, Henchman #1, and Scarantula's laser cannon discussion have all moved into the Venture Bros. hall of fame.
While a lot of this season has been somewhat uneventful, they all paid off marvelously in this episode.
It took me about a dozen times seeing some variation of this headline over the last few days before I finally clicked on it. While the claim Mitchell makes is amazing and possibly historic (if it can be remotely authenticated as more than the rantings of a 77 year-old man who once went to the moon), I was more fascinated by the implications it posed for a specific segment of the public - the Conspiracy Theorists.
Bear with me, here.
For 60-something years, a passionate group of individuals has insisted that the government has been covering up alien visitations. We've all seen them on Larry King or heard them on late-night radio talk shows. For those 60-something years, there hasn't really been a credible person to step up to verify ANY of these claims.
Until now.
A respected astronaut. One of the few men who ever walked on the moon. Someone who was part of NASA from way back. Doesn't get much more credible than that. This must be a glorious day for all the Conspiracists. Their messiah has arrived.
So... what is a Conspiracist to do? What an amazing Catch-22! The greatest advocate for their Alien Visitation Cover-up conspiracy is a man renowned for something they don't acknowledge ever happened. Can they say that this astronaut was lying about one thing, but is now telling the truth about something else?
The mind swims with the contradictions this implies. One would almost think that THIS is a deliberate conspiracy by NASA to short-circuit the brains of as many Conspiracists as possible.
Dark Knight might be the comic book film that changes everything and allows comic books and comic book ideas to be taken seriously. Since the dawn of superhero movies, we've been given a steady diet of the same thing, time after time. Some sort of origin story (either the hero, or the villain if it's sequels) coupled with some sort of plot to destroy/conquer the city/world. For the origin movie, it's almost always where the villain and hero are created from the same source, or are otherwise tied together somehow. Insert incredible action sequences and give the hero some sort of dramatic crisis for the climax. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That's not to say that past comic book movies have been bad. Spider-man 2 was my favorite film of 2004, while Iron Man was easily one of the best films this year so far, superhero or otherwise. Batman Begins, while really good, left me a bit flat because it still followed all the required superhero beats (ultimately). But at least it was trying to do something different. Iron Man also injected a bit more effort into the story to make it 'about' something.
But all that was setup for The Dark Knight. I think we needed all of those adaptations to where we got to the point where the superhero movie is ingrained in the national (or even worldwide) psyche in a way where it isn't just viewed as a geeky genre, but just as a type of film every bit as valid and encoded into our DNA as westerns or war films or detective thrillers. Watchmen director Zach Snyder has been talking about this very thing as now being the exact right time to finally release a Watchmen film. Watchmen deconstructed comics for those that were familiar with its rhythms. Now the public is at a point where they are so familiar with superhero tropes that a similar film deconstruction of comic book movies can be accomplished.
However, while Snyder was expecting that cultural shift to occur with the relase of his film, I reallly think it's happened this weekend, with The Dark Knight.
Dark Knight wasn't telling a superhero story. It was telling a complex crime story, but completely grounded within the Batman universe, pulling the best elements of both, and ramping up the drama, the stakes, the themes to levels you can only achieve with something like a comic book story. This was a crime drama overlaid with a brilliant examination of the extremes of good vs evil, black and white, with every shade in between.
Hopefully, this will signal a sea-change in the types of stories that movie studios feel can be told within the framework of a superhero story. I fear that because of the budgets and the need to make these types of films EVENT films that we'll not be able to get the nuance and subtlety that you can get from a great comic book story told over the course of a dozen or more issues. How many times can characters be put through the wringer at these escalating stakes and it not become even more repetitive and dull?
The Watchmen film is telling a specific story that has been proven to be effective and multi-layered. Dark Knight, while not based on any paticular piece of comic literature, definitely was born from an IDEA, not simply the desire to make a sequel and feature the next villain out of Batman's Rogue's Gallery. But I don't know if other comic properties will be able to be about something more than being a sequel.
Iron Man has a good head start in that there is an established comic story arc where Tony Stark battles alcoholism. That, when layered into the next Iron Man sequel, will make for a compelling, 'on purpose' sort of story.
Spider-Man 4, on the other hand, is going to be just the next sequel. Some themes and ideas might be able to be tacked onto it, but we're already beyond that with this franchise. Incredible Hulk tried to sort of be about something, but I felt it ended up a bit flat. I can't imagine how a sequel will be any more compelling. However, with all of these Marvel films, they're all leading up to an eventual Avengers film, which could be something really amazing if done right.
A future comic book film that could definitely be 'about' something is Captain America. I think there's never been a better time to do a film that allows this country to reflect on what it once stood for, and contrast that to what it does now. How America interfaced with the world 60 years ago, and how much it's changed today. If they just make Captain America a fun, superhero film, I think they'll have missed a chance to do something special. They can and should reach for a cross between Dark Knight and Saving Private Ryan.
In any event, superhero films now have a chance to reach for epic concepts and themes, not just epic special effects. Let's see who chooses to take up that challenge.
After more than twenty years, we finally have some real live moving images of The Watchmen, the pinnacle (thus far) of the comic book/graphic novel form. I've lost count of the number of false starts this project has teased us with over the years, with Terry Gilliam and Darren Aronofsky the two biggest name directors attached. But it wasn't until the massive success of "300", directed by Zach Snyder, that movie studios finally decided to pull the trigger on this one and give Snyder a chance.
Over the past few months, we've been teased with character images and set visits, but nothing showing any of the action on the screen... until today. It's set to premiere before "The Dark Knight" (which I will be attending tonight at midnight), but Empire Magazine was given the early exclusive. Click here to see it in beautiful full resolution, but here it is (until it gets yanked) in a reasonable YouTube version
First thoughts? Unexpected. Epic. Taking no prisoners.
It doesn't look like a superhero film, and yet, it has all the elements you'd typically expect from such a film.
I'm most curious as to how those unfamiliar with Watchmen will react. The trailer doesn't give ANY inkling as to what the story is about. If anything, they'll think it's about Dr. Manhattan (the big blue guy, for you Watchmen neophytes), as the trailer does kind of show his origin, and he's easily the most prominent figure in the trailer. All the images are amazing. But what will it mean to newbies?
Moreso than any other comic adaptation (except for maybe "300"), the images from the trailer are all immediately recognizable directly from the comic. 200-ft tall Dr. Manhattan blasting the Viet Cong soldier, Ozymandias smacking the assassin with the ashtray, Rorschach's hairspray blowtorch, the Owlship rising out of the water, Dr. Manhattan creating the crystal palace on Mars, and of course, the Comedian being launched through a plate glass window. All these images are totally familiar and yet completely unlike what I was expecting.
This trailer was a crucial step in winning over me (and all the other diehard Watchmen loyalists). We've been holding our breaths for months awaiting this. And now that it's here, I'm more eager than ever to see if they can bring this thing all the way home.
If you're a Watchmen rookie, what do YOU think of this trailer? What does it make you think the film is going to be about? How similar or different than other comic book adaptations does it seem?
If you want to follow this film more closely as it develops, or just want more Watchmen info than you can cram into your brain, I highly recommend WatchmenComicMovie.com
I know the whole Cloverfield craze has come and gone already and this is way late in arriving on my radar, but it's too funny and well-made to pass up.
(mildly Not Safe For Work, as it uses one profanity from the original film)
Back in the early days of my previous company, MediaPost, we supplemented our income by doing wedding videos. Lots of them. I still do the occasional wedding for family and friends, but it's thankfully only once or twice a year now. The highlight of how we do the wedding videos is making a "music video" out of the couple's first dance. Check out here and here for some examples of wedding highlight videos I've done. (Writing this blog post reminds me I have to get around to finally editing my brother's wedding from 2007...)
But unless these weddings are done for family or friends, they are excruciating to attend and edit. They're all the same. Mind-numbing after the first half-dozen or so. Everyone chooses the same five songs as their First Dance song.
That's why this video shows what would have been the greatest First Dance EVER. Oh, to have had something like THIS to break the monotony of the same wedding over and over. Enjoy.
In an epic battle, Joey Chestnut defeated Kobayashi for the title of Hot Dog Eating Champion. In OVERTIME!
It was amazing. After ten minutes of ramming hot dogs down their throats, Chestnut and Kobayashi were tied at 59 dogs apiece. The tiny chunks of dog and bun plastered over all over their faces were a testament to their dedication to eating more hot dogs in ten minutes than most of us will eat this year.
But it went to a dog-off. Two men. Five dogs. First one to shove all of them in their mouth and swallow them, without gagging, would be the 2008 champ.
And amazingly, Joey Chestnut retained the championship he wrested from Kobayashi last year. Kobayashi had won the previous six years and had taken the sport of competitive eating from little known 4th of July event to a year round industry where people compete to shove all sorts of things down their throats in short spans of time. Clams, ice cream, hamburgers, entire breakfasts, mini-burgers, you name it. There's apparently nothing we're unwilling to eat dozens of in less than five minutes.
Looks like this week's theme is going to be music. I kept on thinking about how I was 'blindsided" by Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" song and became immediately obsessed with it. It made me try to recall those songs from my musical history that also came out of nowhere. There have been plenth of songs that I connected with on first listen, but I guess for the purposes of this classification, I'm trying to remember songs that upon hearing for the first time made me stop in my tracks and say "What the heck was THAT??" Also, I had to not know who it was upon first hearing.
So far, the list is made up of only one other song: "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince. I remember clearly the first time I heard this song. I had no idea it was Prince and I remember spending the next hour or so trying to get through to the radio station to find out who it was. I was stunned to discover it was Prince. At that point, I was not a Prince fan at all. His most recent song at the time was "When Doves Cry", and I kinda hated that song. So I was almost disappointed to discover it was Prince. But if it was Prince that sang that amazing song, then so be it. I had my parents take me to a record store (the old Bookworm's Apple) and in short order, that tape was the only thing I listened to for the next few weeks. Ah, memories...
I'm sure there are others that came out of nowhere, but I can't think of them right now.
Are there any songs that absolutely blindsided you and went from unknown to your all-time top ten from the very first time you heard it?
Being that I'm now old, and a musical fuddy-duddy that complains about today's crappy music and longs for the wonderful old days of the 80's, it's a rare occurrence when some actual NEW music comes along and catches my fancy. It's rarer still when I get a little bit of that wonderful teenage ability to obsess over new music.
So a couple of weeks ago, I catch this commercial for the first time.
I'm not a big Coldplay fan (I can NAME two of their songs, and that's it). But something about it connected with me right away and not ten seconds later I was logging into iTunes to see if the song was available. It was, and (I love modern technology), within three minutes of seeing the commercial and hearing that sample for the first time, I was listening to the full version of the song.
The CD came out about a week later and I made a special trip to Wal-mart to get it. It was early enough that they didn't even have it out on the floor yet and had to go dig it out of the warehouse in the back.
And then I eagerly listened to the CD... and kind of shrugged. None of the other songs were as immediately fantastic as "Viva La Vida". But I gave it a couple of more listens in the background while I was doing other things and a couple of songs started planting roots in my brain.
But it wasn't until my son, who also was entranced by the Ipod commercial, started listening to the CD over and over and kind of listening to it through his ears and hearing which ones were his favorites helped me to listen in a different light.
So flash-forward to this past week when we went to Louisiana for work, and we listened to the CD all the way to and from Houston, and now, this is easily my favorite CD of the 2000's. And that first song that caught my attention, "Viva La Vida", has now been running on almost a constant loop today while I work, and I'm not only not tired of it, I can't get enough of it.
It's neat when you discover that something special like connecting with a song can still happen to you, years after you thought you were done with that sort of thing.
And watching that iPod commercial again after not having seen it since that first time, I marvel at how much the look and feel of that commercial totally captures and expresses the way the song feels. Excellent job. It has nothing to do with the song itself (the POV of the singer is that of a deposed king, likely Louis XVI or Charles X), but that commercial is the song. When they release this song as a single, they need to do the whole music video like this.
So I'm driving home from my mother's house last night and suddenly my car starts sputtering. I'm out of gas. I haven't run out of gas in twenty years. My excuse is that I'm currently driving a rental car (thanks to a fun rear-ending accident I caused a couple of weeks ago), and while the gauge says I have a partial notch of gas left in the tank, apparently there's not actually any gas left in the tank.
However, this is one of those stories that has a fun ending. So my car starts sputtering, and I realize I'm out of gas. The power steering loses its power. It's 11:30pm. A recipe for disaster, usually, or at least a recipe for extreme inconvenience. But not tonight!
I was only a couple of blocks from my house, so I just let the car coast. Thankfully there was no traffic on the road. I coasted and slowly lost steam. Right at the corner of my street, it was really struggling. I had to really force the steering wheel to make the turn, but I managed it. I finally lost all momentum right in front of my house. The car came to a dead stop and I just got out and went in my house.
In spite of the stupidity of running out of gas, I'm actually quite amused how this turned out.
That's all. Nothing more interesting than I ran out of gas and coasted home. Move along, everyone... move along.
Here we are, close to midway through the summer movie season. Time to check in on how the movies are doing.
It's just about time for the Summer Blockbuster Season to roll around, so I'm starting to plan what I actually want to see. Usually I INTEND to see most of them, but wind up only seeing half or less. Unlike many recent summers, I'm actually really looking forward to quite a few films.
So without further ado, here's the list (and not necessarily in order of looking-forward-to-ness)
1) The Dark Knight - Doesn't come out for another month or so. Getting more excited about it, though.
2) Iron Man - 9/10 This movie was lots of fun. Perfect sort of superhero movie. He's not as well-established as most other superheroes that have had movies made of them, so it was easier for them to play around with the history and not have it come across as false. For 99% of the world, this will be THE Iron Man. Sequels galore are already in the works.
3) Narnia: Prince Caspian - 6.5/10 This movie left me a bit whelmed. It was good, but nothing really memorable. However, that said, I wish the first film had had this look and tone to it. Narnia is more like a real place this go-round, whereas the first movie was more like a fairy land.
4) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 4/10 I was RIGHT to dread this film. What a mess. What a miscalculation. It reeks of George Lucas's myopic vision. For a really good list of what's wrong with this film, check this out.
5) Speed Racer - 0/10 Well, that's not a totally fair rating, because I didn't see it. But the closer it got, the less interested I was in seeing it. However, while waiting for Indy IV to restart (glitch in framing of the film), I wandered over to Speed Racer to catch a couple of minutes of it, just to see. The five minutes I watched were excruciating. I don't know who this film was made for. What a wreck...
6) The Happening - n/a This also looked more and more like a disaster the closer it got, and reviews have been universally bad. As I was only kinda interested in seeing it, this made my decision easier. I'll catch it on cable one day... maybe.
7) The Incredible Hulk - 7.5/10 The closer this one came to release, the more optimistic the reviews became. While the Hulk's CGI never got any better over the course of the previews, the reports were that the story and presentation were right in line with the precedent that Iron Man set earlier in the summer. And those reports were right. This was a mostly fun film, firmly set in the Iron Man version of the Marvel universe. I look forward to the next Marvel Studios film.
8) Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Still waiting for this one to come out. Recent previews make this look really epic.
9) Wall*E - This comes out next week. Latest previews are even stronger. Hard to imagine this not being a great Pixar film.
10) Tropic Thunder - Still the film I have the highest hopes for. Should be fun.
Update!
10.5) Hancock - I'm still on the fence about this one...
11) Honorable mentions - The rest of these films I'm going to keep my eye on, but they all seem like DVD rentals at best.
Get Smart - It opened this weekend, but I'm less than interested in seeing it... Love Guru - It also opened this weekend, and it looks like total dreck. Wanted - Growing more meh about this by the day. Kung Fu Panda - This got great reviews and is a huge hit, but I just can't bring myself to see it yet. Looks like a DVD rental for sure. Meet Dave - Whatever interest I had in seeing this has evaporated.
And as always, there's going to be at least one film that comes out of nowhere to become a surprise hit. What will be this year's Knocked Up?
Okay... it's been a week since we turned in our film nine minutes late. I wish I could say I feel better about the whole experience, but I don't. And it doesn't have anything to do with turning the film in nine minutes late. I think if we'd have gotten it in on time I'd actually feel worse.
While our film is 'okay', by no means is it a good film. We did the best we could with the time we had. The fact that we even wound up with something that had a semi-coherent narrative was a miracle in itself. On THAT level, this year was a resounding success.
Here's a slightly altered version of the film (I'll post the official version that we turned into the festival in the next day or so.)
I'm still intending on doing the Director's Cut, and it will be a massively different take. I played around with it a bit last Friday and there are some entire scenes I've already removed. I think it might be able to be turned into a film I feel better about...eventually.
There were a variety of reasons why we didn't get the film in on time, notably audio problems and lack of a dedicated editor, but neither of those were reasons why the film didn't live up to my expectations.
For starters, unless all elements line up perfectly, producing a GOOD 48 Hour Film is a losing proposition. The weekend is filled with nothing but compromises and cutting corners and having to settle for whatever you happen to have at that moment. Not one of the decisions we made this year were good, outside of the selection of our acting talent. We were blessed with that this year, and if not for them, our film would have been much less successful.
While I feel like I'm done with this contest (and other time-limited filmmaking contests), there's still a hint of a groundswell among other team members that we give this one more try. While I'm not going to push for it, if someone else steps up and takes on most of the back end stuff, I'm not opposed to participating again, with some major changes in how we operate.
For one, the need for a dedicated editor is a top priority. We need someone capturing footage and piecing together scenes BEFORE Sunday morning rolls around. Not just for getting the film in on time, but for really putting together the best film we can, with the least amount of scrambling as possible. We had a dedicated editor this year, but he bailed out at the last moment, leaving us in a bind that we never really recovered from. If we can't get a dedicated editor next year, and if we can't get a real commitment from him/her, then I won't even consider participating.
Secondly, the creative team/writing team has to be limited to two, maybe three people, including me. For three years now, we've had a writing team of five or six or more, and while everyone on that team is very creative and had great ideas, they all ultimately didn't mesh. Too many disparate ideas and visions that had no chance of coming together in one whole. The first two years we managed to work through it, mostly because the initial idea we came up with had fewer directions it could go, but this year, the idea we had was so cerebral and so open-ended that all the various ideas we had pulled this film in too many directions. At the first call, we didn't even have a full script, just a couple of scenes that kind of could be turned into something later (we were assuming we'd come up with a script for the rest of the film throughout the day, which we kind of did... kind of).
It's a testament to everyone there that we actually managed to salvage it this year, as we had almost nothing as late as noon on Saturday.
But back to the scripting- For good or ill, the writing team has to be no more than three people. The problem is, there are way more than three people that want to be on the creative team. How do you pick? Who do you tell, "Thanks, but we won't need your help on the writing team this year" ? I have to be on it, because one, for a project like this, I trust my own instincts, and two, I know what I can shoot and edit in a two day span.
Something else that probably won't sill well with some people is that I have no interest in attempting a 'serious' film again, or one with a 'message'. Not for this contest, anyway. It just doesn't work. People want to laugh. People want the film to be straightforward and to make clear sense every step of the way. Message films are great, and I'm totally in favor of making them, but to do them right, they need to be really massaged and refined every step of the way. Slamming together a message film just creates a mess.
In all honesty, the person I feel would be most helpful in the writing room on Friday night would be my brother, Guy. He's not a filmmaker or a writer, but he and I bounce ideas off of each other better than anyone else I know. Collaboration is such a delicate, fragile thing, especially when time is of the essence. With some people, on commercials and other projects, I work fantastically with them, but when it comes to something like a film, it's a total clash of sensibilities. I can't put a value on collaborating with someone that shares your mindset. I've been fortunate enough to work with many people over the years who fit that description, but only a couple where the collaboration turns into something magical or inspired.
It's not an easy thing to balance.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've joked with some people that the 48 Hour Film needs to be run like a benevolent dictatorship, not a democracy. These things need one singular vision to work right. That singular vision can come from one or two or three people, but it has to be rock solid. We didn't have that this year by ANY stretch of the imagination. Everyone, myself included, had a different vision of what this film was going to be.
This becomes more pronounced when I compare our films (this year's, and the previous two) to the one I think is the best this year. In fact, I think it's the most successful 48 Hour Film I've seen, period, any city, any year. It's called "Rushin'" and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Take a gander here.
This film had a very clear vision, and everything in the film contributed to that vision. As far as I'm concerned, this film didn't make one false step.
What's interesting (to me) is the conversations I had with them after the film, and the answers they gave during the post-screening Q&A. They talked a lot about problems they faced previous years, such as too many cooks/writers, attempting to do something serious, attempting to deliver a message, attempting too many locations, etc. In fact, based on their previous films, I wouldn't have thought they had this film in them. Having spoken with them, I see that their previous films had failed for the same reasons I think our films have failed. But this year, they went into it with a totally different plan. Everything they talked about is exactly what I wanted to do this year, but let it get away from me again, and their success only underscores how the 'Reduce and Simplify' plan is the best one.
And while my ideas may very well turn out to be crap, at least the failure will be one that I can own. It really just doesn't sit well with me that this film I directed has no connection to something I would have wanted to do if I had done this entirely on my own. I know it sounds arrogant, but I know that if I had done it all by myself (writing and directing, that is), the film would have had a beginning, middle and ending, and would have had a cohesive and filmable story.
I guess we'll see if I'm right when I attempt to produce "Zombie Wrangler" later this summer. That will be a script I write and direct entirely on my own. If I have any idea what I'm doing, I guess we'll find out then.
So I apologize if you're still reading all the way to here. I know I've drifted over into ranting, but I kind of have to in order to put this experience to bed. It's just been a very frustrating and enlightening experience. Creative democracies just don't work on films. One vision, and everyone else can help round out that vision as much as the visioneer allows them. But in the end, it has to be one person's vision. That's how it has to work.
Okay... I'm still a bit burned out, but I think I'm about ready to get back to full creative steam.
Turns out this was all part of an NBC promo guy's marketing plan. One that he came up with on his own. Check out this interview.
Anyway, great job. We close out the week with an audition video for Zeroes. It's not as funny as the other videos, but it allows you to have gotten the FULL Zeroes experience.
They put together a little trailer for the first four episodes of Zeroes. Some funny stuff still to be mined from this concept. Especially the guy that can do the stomach thing.
I should be sleeping right now. In fact, I was. I got to bed at about 2:30, after finally arriving home after a long long long day marked by TV commercial production, 48 Hour Film preparation, trips to Louisiana and back, and a session with a friend on how to use the Firestore with the HVX 200 (that's 100% video geekspeak...don't attempt to figure out what that means unless you KNOW what it means.) Oh yeah, I even managed to squeeze a funeral in.
But today's going to be a long day, too. So why am I not sleeping???
Because I woke up about thirty minutes ago with something I ate last night not setting well with me. I'm not nauseous. It's more like a stomach cramp. I took some Pepto, and while I wait for it to work its magic, I'm sitting here typing.
This year is shaping up to be both more organized and prepared AND more chaotic. I think we have our best team yet, both in front of and behind the camera. For once, I won't be the only editing option, as we have a skilled, dedicated editor assigned. He should be able to start editing while we are still shooting. That should make Sunday's final edit session a thousand times easier. Plus, there will be at least two others of us (me and Chris) who will be able to either spell him, or work on segments or special effects on separate computers. We also have a dedicated composer for our film's music (but we still have Digital Juice on hand as backup).
The more chaotic part comes in the form that we aren't nearly as set on good locations as we were in previous years. We've got my office secured, a few outdoor areas, and I've got paperwork in for using our office building's interior (which has some cool elevators and a wide open atrium). Also this year, we don't have ONE perfect staging area. We'll be meeting at one location for the giant group gathering, a different location for the script-writing session, and a third location for editing. If not for the fact that my office building turns off the A/C on weekends, we could do everything there. As it is, we can probably meet for SOME of the time on Saturday (especially if we are doing any shooting there). But for Sunday, if we want to use my edit systems, we'll have to suffer through horrible stuffy heat (or else bring a couple of dozen fans. Our other option is to set up the edit system at someone's house. We WERE going to set up at the dedicated editor's house, but within the past week or so, he has moved, so all of his stuff is in boxes. We still haven't got this one figured out yet.
But I'm most excited about our cast. We have a rather large pool of talent this year, just about all of which have prior acting experience (either in REAL films, or else have been on our team in years past). My only concern is our coming up with a concept and a script that manages to give everyone a solid part. Because of the talent level this year, I'm more confident about our writing a looser script and allowing the actors to improvise more. This will make it easier at the script stage, but a bit tougher during the edit. We'll see.
As we do every year, we try to anticipate potential story ideas based on the potential genres we might pull. If our film ends up with a zoo murder in it, or a jury deliberation room, or a kidnapped newscaster, or extensive funny subtitles, then you'll know we managed to use one of those ideas. However, as also happens every year, we will almost certainly come up with something brand new that really integrates the required elements. I'm confident in our ability to come up with something really good, either way.
It's always an incredibly fun weekend, but amazingly exhausting. The last two years, our goal was to WIN this event, which we didn't do (although we did win bunches of individual awards/smiley face stickers). THIS year, our goal isn't to win, but to produce an amazing short film. Winning would be a nice byproduct obviously, but at the end of the day, we're more concerned with ending up with something we're very proud of.
It's too bad this one just sort of ends. Except for an audition video (coming Saturday!) it doesn't appear they've produced any more videos in this series, which is a shame. I've laughed out loud consistently at these videos.
Good job!
Coming tomorrow, the Trailer for this show that has some additional Zeroes in it that haven't been featured in the show yet.
