Category: making movies

Waiting For Halo

Microsoft has commissioned Alex Garland (28 Days Later, um, The Beach, but we don’t talk about that) to write a script for Halo–a v1.0, if you will–which will be offered to producers along with with the game’s film rights as a “turnkey” package.
This is a brilliant, precedent-setting move for a multitude of reasons:

  • As any software veteran knows, v1.0 is always the best.
  • Producers love nothing more than buying a script that’s ready to shoot–and for only $1mm!
  • The script could be customized, possibly through the use of a set-up wizard or an animated paperclip [note to self: that guy doesn’t have much backstory either; are his rights available?]
  • If some rewrites are needed, Microsoft is really good at being corrected and taking advice.
  • I don’t know what they think they know about “buying rights” and “doing deals” up in Seattle, but I’m pretty sure when Hollywood’s through with’em, those pencil-protectin’ geeks’ll be lucky if they still own the IP to the shirts on their backs.
  • Seriously, can you name just one movie based on a video game that sucked? Just one? I didn’t think so.
    But seriously, folks, I hope they call it Red vs Blue.
    Halo, Hollywood [variety.com, via TMN]
    Ridley Scott to direct Halo movie? [11/04, ign.com: “because Halo’s like Alien, and Halo 2’s so much like Aliens“–directed by James Cameron, yo.]
    more games-to-film news at filmforce [ign.com]

    • Bunnies Multiplying Like Rabbits

    What is it about bunnies and short films? First, the NY Times has a hi-larious, yet thoughtfully insightful interview with Jennifer Shiman, the creator of 30-Second Bunny Theatre. Then Chris Harding’s 50’s instructional film-style short for Hallmark features a hutchful of retro bunnies flogging greeting cards.
    Spielbunny [NYT, oh wait, I wrote that. Not that that taints my judgment or anything…]
    Classic films, re-enacted in 30 seconds by bunnies [angryalien.com]
    Make Mine Shoebox corporate video [chrisharding.net]

    Czech Republic, $@#! Yeah!

    North Korea’s ambassador in Prague has demanded that Team America World Police be banned from the Czech Republic; it depicts Kim Jong Il consorting with Alec Baldwin, which, he says, would totally NEVER happen.
    Replies Foreign Ministry spokesman Vit Kolar, “We told them it’s an unrealistic wish. Obviously, it’s absurd to demand that in a democratic country. And anyway, Alec Baldwin is still better than Vin Diesel.”
    N. Korea Wants Czech Ban of Team America [guardian]

    On Not Writing Alone In The Dark

    Blair Erickson writes about his experience working with director Uwe Boll on an early treatment and script for the Tara Reid vehicle [sic] Alone In The Dark.
    Even if it IS the Worst Movie Ever Of The Century Of The Week, it sure has generated a lot of ancillary entertainment opportunities.
    Blair Erickson – Behind the Scenes: Uwe Boll and Uwe Boll’s “Alone In the Dark” [somethingawful.com]
    Bad Review Revue: Alone in the Dark, funny funny funny [defectiveyeti.com]

    Golden Gate Bridge Meets Its (Suicide Docu) Maker

    After all, Eric Steel didn’t say he wasn’t going to film the jumpers off the Golden Gate Bridge when he applied for a permit to shoot the bridge all day, every day, for a year. According to the federal officials who issued him the permit, he described his project as, variously, “a day in the life” of the bridge or “a powerful and spectacular interaction between the monument and nature.”
    Steel captured 19 jumpers on film, plus “hundreds” of unsuccessful attempts, including some that were thwarted by his crew’s alerts to authorities. Then he went to interview people affected.
    If Tad Friend’s excellent, disturbing 2003 New Yorker piece is to be believed, bridge officials and politicians are rather warily pre-occupied with its reputation as a suicide spot. Which makes their protestations that they were shocked, shocked at the director’s “true intentions” ring a little hollow. Friend’s article is pretty damning of the bridge’s managing board, which adamantly opposes installing suicide-preventing fences.
    When you tire of reading self-righteous condemnations from implicated public figures, there are plenty of snap judgments from utterly uninvolved people on Metafilter.
    Film captures suicides on Golden Gate Bridge; Angry officials say moviemaker misled them [sfgate.com]
    Suicide Documentary Angers Golden Gate Bridge Officials [ktvu.com]
    LETTER FROM CALIFORNIA/ Tad Friend/ Jumpers/ The fatal grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge/ Issue of 2003-10-13 [newyorker.com]
    The GGB Suicide Documentary [mefi]
    Related: Bureau of Inverse Technology’s conceptual(-only) art project, “Suicide Box,” which was shown at the Whitney Biennial [bureauit.org]

    We’re Going To The Pan Pacifics, Fran!

    “‘We’ve been given the mandate to compete on a more aggressive level,’ says [Paramount Classics co-pres David] Dinerstein, who also helped orchestrate the reported $2 million purchase of Mad Hot Ballroom, a Slamdance documentary widely described as Spellbound meets Strictly Ballroom.”
    1) One of the odd, still-annoys-me things was that Strictly Ballroom was vaguely a documentary, too. The early scenes were all “talking-head-and-captions,” and then it just disappeared. Weird, edgy, or sloppy, whatever, it got him to Romeo+Juliet.
    2) Every group with more than five adolescent dorks in it should get an agent, or at least look up “life rights” on Google before the cameras descend. Drill teamers, pep clubbers, band members, chess clubbers, debaters, science fair entrants, video gamers, D&D/RPG players, and incessant IM’ers, this means you.

    Strictly Business     [Village Voice]

    On Jem Cohen’s ‘Chain’

    Chain, was directed by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Jem Cohen. The movie tells the story of a pair of women seemingly stranded in an instantly familiar, parking lot-filled landscape of big box retail stores, fast food restaurants and malls. It looks like it could have been made in one pass through AnySuburbanTown, USA, but it was actually shot in 11 states and seven countries over seven years.
    Don’t miss the unintentional National Security subplot.
    Chain, dir. by Jem Cohen, is screening at the Curzon Soho in London on Feb. 8. It showed at MoMA Gramercy in a 3-screen format last year.
    All the world’s a car park [Guardian, via archinect]
    Wendy Mitchell on Jem Cohen’s Chain Times Three at MoMA [IndieWIRE]

    Section 8: We Make Movies, Not Money

    There’s a long profile in the NYT of Section Eight, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s Warner Bros-based production company, whose deal is set to run out in a couple of years. I’m not quite sure what the takeaway is:

  • George and Stephen were so focused on creating an environment where filmmakers could work free of studio meddling, that Soderbergh buddy and first-time director Ted Griffin got sacked during the first week of shooting from Untitled Ted Griffin Project and was replaced by Warner chief’s old pal, Rob “Meathead” Reiner. Fittingly, the project’s now called Rumor Has It.
  • Section 8 works well as a farm team. Seriously, do you think Chris Nolan could’ve gotten the Batman gig without making Insomnia. I mean, tell me what he had EVER done before that?
  • Even in a discussion of disappointing performance, literally, no one wants to talk about K Street.
  • The duo set out to make movies, not money, and they’ve succeeded spectacularly.
    Trying to Combine Art and Box Office in Hollywood [NYT]
    Previously: Speaking of Losers, We Found A Bag Of Mail [greg.org]
    No one except me: greg.org posts regarding K Street

    • Someone Hasn’t Heard of ‘Napoleon Dynamite’.,.

    In this week’s Arts & Leisure section, Adam Leipzig entertainingly/depressingly lays out the beyond-improbable odds of 1) having a successful independent film, and 2) getting your script made into a big studio hit.
    Not that I would EVER question the brilliance of the editors who this week afforded me the opportunity to speak with Pamela Anderson, but I worry that if Leipzig’s arguments go unchallenged, too many doctors, dentists, and uncles will be dissuaded from investing in surefire hit films, and then where would our culture be? We’d only have 2,000 features trying to get into Sundance.
    That said, while I could dig up data on indie films and indie scripts and indie budgets and indie returns on investment, I’m kinda wiped out right now. Leipzig’s numbers are empirically correct, but don’t reflect even the basic risk-mitigating, probability-enhancing factors that should accompany a deserving film.
    What are the odds for films that were developed in the Sundance Institute writer’s workshop? How about for movies featuring a recognizable actor? Or the distribution pickup rate of films shown at IFC Market? Or of films by former IFC volunteers, even? How many $5 million films make back their investment? How many $100,000 films? How many films were self-distributed, and at what budget level does self-distribution start (or stop) looking viable?
    The Sundance Odds Get Even Longer [NYT]

    Regarding greg.org at Regarding Clementine

    Demonstrating a curatorial wisdom so vast it puts the [sic] in Sicha, Choire has put me in his show at the Clementine Gallery.
    I’ll be screening and editing a new/old short, footage we shot in the summer of 2001 that I haven’t been able to look at since, tomorrow (Friday) from 11-6.
    Stop by and say hi if you like, and ask me what the hell I’m doing. Not that I’ll have an answer, mind you, but you’re welcome to ask.
    The Show: Regarding Clementine
    Clementine Gallery, 526 West 26 Street, Suite 211, New York.

    Your Dream Project, Our Nightmare

    Caryn James barely scratches the surface with her article-cum-warning about directors’ dream projects: “Here is a basic rule of moviegoing,” she starts, “when you hear about someone’s dream project, run from the box office fast.”
    On the list of dreamers and their flops: Oliver Stone (Alexander), Kevin Spacey (Beyond The Sea), Scorsese (Gangs of New York, AND Last Temptation of Christ), John Travolta (Battlefield Earth)… seriously, there’s a year’s worth of articles to write on this. I’ll leave the comments open for a while, so feel free to add your own favorites.
    The Making of The Megaflop: Curse of The Pet Project [NYT]

    Your Dream Project, Our Nightmare

    Caryn James barely scratches the surface with her article-cum-warning about directors’ dream projects: “Here is a basic rule of moviegoing,” she starts, “when you hear about someone’s dream project, run from the box office fast.”
    On the list of dreamers and their flops: Oliver Stone (Alexander), Kevin Spacey (Beyond The Sea), Scorsese (Gangs of New York, AND Last Temptation of Christ), John Travolta (Battlefield Earth)… seriously, there’s a year’s worth of articles to write on this. I’ll leave the comments open for a while, so feel free to add your own favorites.
    The Making of The Megaflop: Curse of The Pet Project [NYT]

    Hey, It Worked For Kinsey

    The must-have vanity project for 2005: your own biopic.
    Andy Towle reports that the NY Post reports that W Magazine reports that Bill Condon’s developing a script based on a 2001 Vanity Fair article for Tribeca Films. The subject: Pepe and Alfie Fanjul, the socialite sugar overlords.
    Which makes sense, because that NYT article a few weeks ago about Castro stealing Pepe’s painting seemed like such a brazen movie pitch.

    A-Clips: Anti-Sponsored Shorts

    This just in, in time to seal 2004 as The Year Of The Sponsored Short, is A-Clips, a series of aggressively unsponsored shorts:

    A-Clip plays with the aesthetics of cinema commercials, which are reproduced, satirized or subverted. Each of them has a length of approximately 50 seconds and will be shown on 35mm film among the commercials at movie theatres, with the illicit co-operation of the projectionists and management of individual cinemas.
    Among the advertisements for lifestyles products cinemagoers are surprised by short movies that contain critical messages and disrupts the linear narratives of the commercials that surround them. Each film comments on aspects of urban life from its own thought-provoking and subjective perspective.

    Good luck finding them. Of course, if you’re a subversion-minded projectionist or theater manager, why not drop A-Clip a line from your Gmail account?
    A-Clips [via coudal]
    Previously: Amazon Theater, GettyImages, Interpol Shorts, Nike’s Art of Speed, or Commission A Short Film Portrait by Jeff Scher