Food For Thought for movie graphic designers, concerning the Trajan Font.



Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Funny, Hollywood, Movie News, Videos

...Nor did I meet her at the now infamous hangout, which I won't mention here, or people will start asking me to give tours.

I am tired of people asking though.

A: "Hey Conrad, I hear Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay for Juno at [undisclosed location near my house]! That's right near your house, right?"

Me: Sigh. "Yeah."

A: (Excitedly) "Did you ever see her?"

Me: (Not Excitedly At All) "Oh, all the time."

A: (Really Excitedly) "Really?

Me: "Yeah, at The Skyway Lounge..."


What bothers me is that people aren't able to separate "Diablo Cody, The Screenwriter" from "Diablo Cody, The Former Stripper From Minnesota Who Hung Out At [undisclosed location near my house]".

It's like people are having a hard time realizing that any talent could come from Minnesota. It's like saying she's from Atlantis or something. She's originally from Chicago anyways, not that it matters. I hope for her sake that she's able to break away from her own history, and the rest of the world can realize that there are talented people in every state, in every occupation. I suppose this *would* be news to Hollywood.

I also can't help but to think that the media coverage of Diablo Cody is designed to get a bunch of Would-Be Screenwriters down to Hollywood to flush out all those Whining Screenwriters who dared to go on strike. Nothing against Diablo Cody, she's talented and deserves credit, but it does seem strange, the timing of it.

It's like Hollywood saying, "Who needs You! We can pick a Former Stripper From....(looks at map of U.S.)... Minnesota who can writer better than you! So there!"

For the record; if Minneapolis becomes the new Hollywood, I'm moving to Atlantis.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Hollywood

Did you know that Hollywood screenwriters are on strike?

I did.

Did you know that they came Off the strike that happened in 1989 (around the time that the first reality show COPS started up)?

I didn't.

Now I will have to come up with a new theory about why Network Television Programming is so bad.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Culture, Hollywood

Ooooh, Ouch. Swing-and-a-Miss.

Spider Man 3 had a lot going for it before anyone set foot in the theatre. Cool villains picked out, lots of money for CG, perfect casting, and best of all, it had the coattails of Spider Man 1 and 2 to ride on. All that Sam Raimi had to do was have some lame thread tying the action scenes together, and it would be a big hit.

It is with a deep sadness that I report to you that he couldn't pull it off. Spider Man 3 is a soap opera rarely interrupted with action scenes, when it should have been the other way around. What really made the first two Spider Man movies great was the pacing; there was plenty of 'day-in-the-life-drama' in 1 and 2, but it was well balanced out with plenty of action, while Spider Man 3 drowns in its own sappiness. Spider Man cries more often than he fights anyone, and every character in the movie bursts into tears at least a dozen times. I almost cried myself, because the movie should have been much better.

At this point, I would like to shatter to a paradigm in Movies-Based-On-Comic-Books:

NEW VILLAINS DO NOT NEED TO HAVE THEIR GENESIS DURING THE MOVIE.

The creation of villains is often so contrived that it would make the movie better if they just left it out. The Batman movies should have taught us this, and the makers of the X-men movies prove that it works, but the Sam Raimi hasn't figured this one out yet. The genesis' of Sandman and the symbiotic suit known later as Venom, are so silly that you will wish they left them out and made the movie shorter.

That brings me to another paradigm-shattering point that I've brought up before, but since no one reads my blog, it never gets implemented:


MOVIES RARELY NEED TO BE OVER TWO HOURS LONG!

How about you make a movie that is one hour long, and charge half the price? This goes for all movies, but especially Spider Man 3, which forgot where the hell it came from: A Comic Book, not a Danielle Steele Novel.

While I'm at it, I will add this one:


ALL WOMEN ARE NOT HELPLESS!


I would appreciate it if we saw the 'woman dangling from a high place as bait for the superhero' LESS OFTEN. In fact, a female Super Hero (Like Dazzler? Ha! LOL! or maybe Dagger from 'Cloak and Dagger') or perhaps a female Super Villain (Belladonna? Plastique?) would be much appreciated.

By the way, my guess for one of the villains for Spider Man 4 will be The Lizard, since the character of Dr Curt Connors was introduced in 3. But, I think next time, I will wait for the reviews of 4 to come out before I go see it. If Spider Man 4 turns out to be another 3, I'll just wait for the DVD, it so I can scan past the boring parts, and cut the movie length down to a reasonable time.

I can tell you funniest part of the movie is that as Peter Parker wears the symbiotic suit for a longer period of time, it makes him look more and more like the lead singer for Panic at the Disco. Hysterical.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, movie reviews

I saw Ghost Rider on Friday. I've been a long-time fan of the comic, and still have much of the first and second series(es?). I see the movie brought around enough interest to revive the comic for a third series, start up another limited-issue series (Trail of Tears) and got them funding to release the Finale of the second series, which got pulled when Marvel hit hard times in the 90's.

I had low expectations for the movie, (as those who read my previous blog posts would attest) and I would say that helped a lot, because I thought the movie was great. I hear it is doing well at the box office, so I might have been wrong to rail on them for refusing to let critics review the movie before it's release date. That is usually the Kiss of Death for movies, but it sounds like it might have been a good strategy, because the bad reviews from the critics could have had a huge effect on ticket sales.

As it was, the review-seeking public was pushed more towards bloggers and word-of-mouth, which (arguably) would give a more-favorable-than-average review, and almost certainly a more-favorable-than-a-real-movie-critic review. I mean come on, it's a comic book movie, not Cinema. Do you really think that Donald Logue will get Best Supporting Actor? People tell me he kind of looks like me. Or maybe it's that I kind of look like him...

I didn't mind that the movie took liberties with the original story, because what movies-remade-from-comix don't? And I didn't mind Nicholas Cage as Johnny Blaze, although I thought I would. Cage has a goofy-cool about him which is hard to explain. I know he doesn't really act much, he's just that-a-way, but I'm not sure anyone else could have done this movie with the proper level of 'goofiness'. Johnny Depp maybe? Val Kilmer? (BTW, Where IS Val Kilmer?) Maybe Edward Norton? Certainly NOT Brad Pitt, and shame on you for even thinking such a thing.

John Cusack, that's it. He would have been a great Johnny Blaze. But Cage was fine.

The bad guys were cool, but Way too wimpy. I suppose they sacrificed quality for volume. Effects were typical Hollywood-Overdone, but hey, in Hollywood they say, "You want CG with that?" like it was French Fries or something. I would expect no less than to see Ghost Rider drive up one side of a skyscraper and down the other.

The story was just right. As a matter of fact, fighting off the elements of Air, Earth, Fire and Water is a great idea! Maybe I should write a book like that!

Oops, too late. I already did. Oh well, I guess there's plenty of room in the genre for interpretation. Besides, I think a sexy, dark, Asian female assassin who uses throwing knives and short swords is Way cooler than a biker with a flaming skull.

Way.

Sam Elliott did a tremendous job, reprising the voice and role of The Stranger from The Big Lebowski.

All in all a reasonable value for your entertainment dollar, er, eight-and-a-half dollars.

For those looking for a solid standalone Ghost Rider comic, Ghost Rider: The Road to Damnation 6-issue series is top-notch, both with art and story.


Flame on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, movie reviews

Marilyn Manson has been working on quite a few things: Fashion Shows, Art Galleries, New Album, New Religion (Celebritarian), Marriage, Lawsuits, a new line of Perfume...

...and a horror movie called Phantasmagoria.


I want to bring back the experiments in terror, which is actually a DVD that documents the attempts of 1944 filmmakers to insert subliminal elements. Whether in sound or in frames of the film, to enhance whatever tense or fear they're looking to create at that moment in the film. I think technology allows me to go much further than that. I'm going to do a lot of things that may end up being illegal. Until they are, I will do them. I think it will change people's opinion about horror films and they will realize they're not all about slasher.

No insult to Rob Zombie; People might predict that to be the type of film I would make. That's absolutely the opposite of what I want to do. That's not an interest of mine, anyway. If I had to pick, stylistically, people that I admire – it would be Ingmar Bergman, Roman Polanski, and modern filmmakers; Takashi Miike, who made the film Audition, and Gasper Noe who made I Stand Alone and Irreversible. It's kind of a return to Hitchcock-style psychological horror about letting your mind do the damage and sometimes what you don't see is scarier.


From http://www.mansonusa.com/celebritarian/?page=3

Do you SEE now why I love Marilyn Manson? This guy GETS IT! He fucking GETS IT! I'm bored to tears with Hollywood Horror movies like The Boogyman, Jeepers Creepers and all the I-Scream-While-You-Got-Stabbed-Last-Summer clones. Rob Zombie's movies top the list - they aren't worth a wad of used toilet paper, and are almost as horrific, which is to say; not at all.

Now whether M.M. can Follow Through on this big talk, or whether it turns out to be a pile of pretentious crap like Doppelhertz... I guess only time will tell. In the meantime, I would very much like to see him succeed.


Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, Movie News, Ubercool

The mega-block-busting Spider Man and X-Men movies have opened the floodgates on the Comic-Book-To-Movie business, and for the last few years Hollywood has been tripping over itself to get them pumped out fast enough. Punisher, Daredevil, Elektra, The Hulk, Superman and The Fantastic Four are only the first wave; there are more to come. Spider Man 3 is on the way. Iron Man as well. Silver Surfer? Power Pack? I hear a Doctor Strange movie is in production. I am already in line.

Of all the upcoming comic-book movies, I've really been looking forward to the Ghost Rider, despite Nicholas Cage. I am still a huge Ghost Rider fan, and have almost the entire collection of the original series comics. As dreary as this article is, what it is Not telling you is that Ghost Rider was supposed to be released over a year ago, around Xmas 2005. It got bumped to Jan06, and then to summer 06, and then...well, I guess they couldn't hide the movie any longer. The foreknowledge that the producers don't want the movie reviewed by critics until After its release should help lower my expectations to a more reasonable level.

I will be seeing Ghost Rider, but you don't have to follow my example. It's too late for me, but for you there is still hope.


Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, movie reviews

I attended the Fearless Filmmakers last night. If you didn't go, here is a summary of what you missed:

The preview for Darkon got some MAJOR laughs. I can't wait for this to come out.

The Sleepy Eye crew were there with their latest work called 'Buzzkill'. The production was good, but it could easily have been cut in half (literally turn it off right in the middle), and made better. The movie hits the punchline, but drags that dead dog of a joke for another 4-5 min. Too long of a short? I guess you could say my attention span is that of an A.D.D. teen after a 6-pack of Red Bull.

Smokin Yogi Films showed the trailers for the pilot episode of 'Abnormally Normal'. I hated it about fifteen seconds in, and it went on for another ten minutes, the longest damn trailer I've ever seen. Makes me wonder how long the movie is. Maybe it just felt like ten minutes. I wanted to say that people with emotional problems shouldn't make movies, but then we wouldn't have movies. I also don't want to say that people shouldn't work out their emotional bullshit on film and pan it off as art, because we have got great films that were motivated by suffering and loss. I think Spoon nailed the problem; 'Abnormally Normal' is a drama. I don't think dramas work well as internet shorts, and at the very least, they can't compete with comedy in this market.

Uncle Forehead Filmworks showed "Suspension" which I thought was awesome and artsy, but a little laggy. Tension was built up pretty well, but the length could have been cut back on this one too. Good effects and mood music.

Kevin Meyers showed "Intermural Glory" a really funny thirty second spot...that went on for ten minutes. I guess this one has done really well on the net. If you like mockumentaries then you will most likely like this. What tends to make or break these is the character personalities, and whether the actors can pull them off. If they can, then you have a hit, and that seems to be the case with Intramural Glory. I am amazed at the level of work that goes into this production, they are an actual intramural basketball team, that tours and is looking for a sponsor. Clever marketing.

SER International Corp was the sleeper hit of the night, Jesus Christ Action Figure (With Water Walking Action). It actually got him death threats. It also got him the biggest laughs with the audience. SER also showed a series of commercials for Butterfinger candy bars Excellent, although you cannot credit SER with these, they simply picked the best from those who sent in homemade commercials. Cheating, if you ask me, but they were really funny.

Melody Gilbert showed some spots for Best Buy which were made for the companies internal website. Strange I thought, and she agreed during the panel discussion, as she isn't an Independent Filmmaker by any means. The spots were auditions of Best Buy Employees trying out to be in Best Buy commercials. (Sorry, they weren't Employees, we call them Blue Shirts...) It is pretty easy to make fun of people put on the spot in front of a camera, but she is getting paid to do it...

Of course, the real reason to go to this Fearless was to see the premier of Ryan Wood's Fear of Girls 2. The first installment was a work of genius and a web cult phenomenon, which attracted the attention of networks and landed Wood the funding for Fear of Girls 2 as well as the launch of a comedy website later this year. Finally, a real success story about a great moviemaker who makes entertaining movies. From the Midwest. Wow.

After the films, the moviemakers held a panel discussion about the 'viral market'.
The discussion was disappointing for me. The pitch was that these people had a grasp on the viral market, and were manipulating it to make money off internet short films. When asked about how they did it, they said, "...Um, we just put it on the interweb, and uh...got lots of hits...then Hollywood called, and we partied with Kevin Spacey. It was cool..."

Thanks. I suppose that was helpful if you don't know what viral marketing is. It occurred to me later that they never did define or explain how viral marketing works. Since I already knew, it didn't bother me.

Not one mention of SEO, Technorati, or Digg. If you're trying to schlepp your .mov on the internet, then you better be a master of all three. As far as online distribution, they mentioned Revver, YouTube, and Google Video. That's it. But that is not all that there is.

All in all a good time, a few pits to spit out, but the fruit was worth it. I think what really set apart the good from the bad here was pacing, and Ryan Wood even mentioned it. Someone asked what the 'standard' length of a 'short' was, he said it doesn't matter so much if the pacing is correct. Amen. Online video shorts are new territory, and you can tell the moviemakers are having a hard time trimming their projects down. I think they need to have the mentality of advertisement commercial makers, but make sure they are boiling down a good plot into a short with good pacing, and leaves the viewer wanting more, instead of fluffing up a funny idea into a short that is way too long.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, indie movies, movie reviews

Looks like someone is trying to make a movie that's worse than Bloodrayne.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: anti, Hollywood, Movie News, movie reviews, new release

Hopefully, you have all seen Fear of Girls I

Fear of Girls 2 should be kicking about soon, and I just got to see it last weekend. Way, way funny. The talent behind this project is amazing, the writing, the acting, the direction, sound and lighting... but the best part is the timing. No, I take that back. The best part is that it is an indie film made here in Minnesota. Sadly, if you don't know what 'Hit Points' or 'Alignment' are, you might miss out on some of the humor.

Alright, so making fun of people who play D&D is easy (like cow-tipping), but after hearing multiple reviews of what a horseshit movie Eragonwas, I wish more indie films like Fear Of Girls 1 and 2 would rise up and tip the cow that is Hollywood right into the ocean of obscurity.

[Potential reality, years from now]

"Daddy, what is a Hollywood?"

"Well, you know how when we go to the zoo, and see all the wierd and interesting animals?"

"Sure, so Hollywood was like going to the zoo?"

"Kind of, except it was really expensive, and not as interesting; just wierd."

"Did they throw their own poo? (giggle)"

"They certainly did! They threw it all over the world, and they even named it; Star Wars - The Phantom Menace, Bloodrayne, King Kong, Eragon..."


Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, indie movies, Movie News, movie reviews

If this is the new trend in Horror movies,

http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/primeval/

http://www.tribute.ca/player/enhancePlayer.asp?isWM=1&isQT=1&filePath=Trailers&fileName=blackchristmas

Then somebody stop the fucking planet and let me off. Thanks to movies like The Grudge and The Ring and The [Fill in the blank] we now have to sift this crap off the shelf to get to the good horror movies.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, movie reviews

Sam Raimi is a good director. I really liked his TV work (Xena, Cleopatra 2525, Hercules, Jack of all Trades, were all fair shows, (let's skip right by M.A.N.T.I.S., shall we?) But those were TV *action* shows.

Sam Raimi has no concept of Horror. NONE. The little naked kid dipped in flour and wearing mascara and dark contact lenses (typically played back with dropped frames) was pretty spooky...back when I first saw it in The Ring. But then it was done. And like any fad, that one got beat to death. I don't think there is a single video from Asia Tartan Extreme at Hollywood Video that Doesn't have a pic of the spooky kid on the cover. I've seen it so much now, that if I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the spooky kid hanging from my bedroom wall, I would tell him to piss off, roll over and go back to sleep. Sam still thinks it's scary, and bases entire movies around his No-Trick-Pony.

However, Sam has learned about the Sting. Sam knows that there is an instinctual thing that makes you jump, or gasp or scream in reaction to sudden visual or audio cues (Stings). This will always work, but it is NOT HORROR. It is a tool used in Horror Movies, but by itself it is no more Horror than a cup of flour is a pancake. (For example, The Forgotten, relied on Stings throughout the movie to keep the audience from falling asleep). No matter how many times I pretend to punch you in the face, and stop an inch from your eyes, you will blink. You can't not blink. Like I said, it is instinctual. Sam knows this, and he thinks this is Horror.

But it is not.

Because it ain't scary no more. That's right Sam. Not scary Sam. Like Crazins. Not Scary. Like Aspartame. Not Horror.

Of course Sam Raimi will probably never realize this, since he doesn't read my blog, and since he made about a bazillion dollars off the most unhorrifying horror movies ever made. The Boogyman and The Grudge. Yes, I saw them both. I even gave The Grudge the proper environment, watching it late at night with the lights off. Not Horror. Annoying perhaps, like being on hold with Comcast Tech Support, but not Horror.

Using stings as a crutch to make your unscary Flour-Boy seem scary is not Horror. It is Startling. It is Jarring. It is going to cause even normal people to launch into an epileptic seizure. Of course it is also going to make him another bazillion dollars when he does it again in Grudge 2. Check out the trailer here. Warning: May induce epileptic seizures.

We need to come up with a different genre for this dogshit. When I go to the Horror section to rent a Horror movie, I want to see something Horrific. Startling alone is not Horror, and does not count. Put it in the Jumpy section.

Hey Sam, here is an idea for Grudge 3, just run a black slate for 90 min, and randomly drop in a couple still pix with a giant audio hit. Watch the crowd jump! Best part is the pictures can be of anything at all, and the crowd will still jump!

"Oh my God, an Ostrich!"

"AAA! Crazins!"

"Holy Shit! A little boy dipped in flour! Did you see that?"

"Oh! I think I'm having a seizure!"

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, Movie News, movie reviews, Ubersuck

[Ed Note: This movie review is dedicated to pattonjr5. See? I don't just watch blockbuster movies...]

Xtina and I were walking through our local Hollywood Video, and the cover of this DVD caught her eye.

"Oh my Gawd," she said, "Would you *Look* at this!"

"Ewww," I said, and made the face I usually reserve for people who put vinegar on their French Fries.

It was pretty bad. Scratch that - it was Mega-Bad. In a bad way. The cover was something I would never have even picked up off the shelf, a screaming blue face with poorly CG-ed hooks pulling on the skin. Whatever picture you have in your head right now, this was worse.

Not wanting to judge a DVD only by its cover, I immediately read the back. Turning the DVD over revealed a much Much MUCH better graphic, Tanya Dempsey (whom we All remember from The Coven, right? Um, Right?) holding a wicked looking shiv, in a total hero pose. I read the blurb on the back - a group of cultists unwittingly release a demon into LA, and two demon-hunters have to track it down.

Hmm, sounds familiar, since that's the basic premise of the book I'm currently writing, with the exception that my story is set in Minneapolis. I'm certain that there are plenty of demons walking around LA right now, but that town is so fucked up that no one notices. If a demon popped up here in flyoverland, we would be rolling out that giant semi truck with the big lightning-beam-gun-thing, and those trucks with the fifty or so rockets on it, that you see in the Godzilla movies (Yes, we have those.)

But I digress.

The plot outline alone was worth the three dollar rental; call it 'research' if you like, but honestly I'm always game for quality indie horror, although I know that sounds as much of a oxymoron as Jumbo Shrimp or Reality TV. But, I assure you it is out there, you just need to be brave, and take chances, and not be afraid to slog through a lot of shit to find the good ones. (They aren't even Crap, they are Shit, plain and simple).

So J-manand Spooncame over, and bravely volunteered to give 'Guardian of the Realm' a right proper MST3K viewing with the obligatory 2-drink minimum.

Wow. I was more than just pleasantly surprised. The movie refused to accept indie-mediocrity, and strove for a standard movie formula. They refused to let their own shortcomings hold them back, as so many B-grade horror films do. (By adding in Laughably Bad Effects or dialog, preposterous plot jumps, breaking the fourth wall, etc...) This is the movie I think a lot of indie horror filmsters wish they could make, and I wish more of them would try. Not that all indie filmers should take themselves seriously, but rather, the specific genre of B-Horror films could do better with their budgets, and remember that fake blood and bad jokes are no substitute for good writing.

This isn't to say that the movie was not funny. I mean, come on; when the demon-slayer is yelled at by his boss for wearing too much black leather? When the slain demons dissolve into Styrofoam packing peanuts? Spoon had a good point, "why didn't they use kitty litter?" Good question.

The acting varied, but the main characters were solid, likeable and even more-or-less believable. I was able to hold the dialog in check with a small suspension of disbelief.

The plot was really good, and well thought out. Maybe a touch contrived, but then again, if the plot involves supernatural beings, you gotta contrive a bit.

The music throughout the movie was bad. Not really bad, but just plain, lower-case-b bad. The music over the end credits was phenomenal, and made me want to bust out all my Enigma and Delirium CDs... Sound as a whole was OK, a little quiet overall, and when the demons talked it sounded like someone used every single audio effect plug-in at once.

The makeup job for the demons is better than I expected. I have always preferred monster-type monsters (Aliens, The Thing, etc...) to humans wearing masks, but I realize how difficult this is to pull off without blowing the HokeyMeter off the charts, and I have come to accept the contacts/mask/fangs/makeup as a reasonable 'monster' facsimile in lower budget films. I am not as forgiving for bigger budgets (you heard me, Star Trek...)

The CG deserves special mention, because the movie has plenty of After Effects in it. Mostly the FX were OK, but the elevator scene was unnecessary and overdone, and the ending turns a little 'ghostbuster-ish' with the sky and all.

The fight scenes were top notch. Tasteful wire-work, and short, solid bursts of fighting, which accentuated the story without becoming the story, like in many martial arts flicks. (...which is what makes them "martial arts" flicks, I suppose.)

...And what of the cover? The screaming blue face with the hooks through it? It had NOTHING to do with the movie whatsoever. (Although it looks the way I imagine Hollywood would look if I told it that 'Guardian of the Realm' was a better movie than 'King Kong'...) So the lesson of this sermon is not to judge movies solely based on the cover art.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Hollywood, indie movies, movie reviews

The Solstice Film Festival begins today, and continues through the 25th. I think it is way overdue that Minnesota has it's own celebration of film, for the following reasons

1-There are many talented local people here in 'flyoverland'. Actors, filmmakers, musicians, audio producers... And there are even a few without issues and egos who can put together a decent film.

2-The world should be made aware that Minnesota is NOT LIKE ICELAND. In Iceland, all there is to do is drink, fish, and write progressive rock music. In Minnesota, we drink, fish, write progressive rock music AND make independent films. If you ever get confused, just remember Iceland has Bjork, Minnesota has Anna Lee (and that purple symbol guy, but we don't really talk about him anymore...)

3-Network television is a pitiful abomination. Watching it should make you either angry or depressed. Except maybe Public Television Channel 2.

I know Devin Halden and Bobby Marsden (ringleader of the local Fearless Filmmakers showings) have worked their tails off to help bring the Solstice Film Fest together.
I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in independent film check it out, and pretty soon the rest of the world will be calling Minneapolis "MinneWood" (wait a minute, that isn't such a great name after all.) OK, maybe Minnesota can be known as "New Hollywood" or "WinterWood" or something. Fine, maybe it should just stay Minnesota, but at least we can be known for having some talent other than tolerating temperatures of -1 degree Kelvin.

Blog on,
-C

Labels: Hollywood, indie movies, Minneapolis Event

I just finished Michael W Dean's $30 Film School. The subtitle is "Write, Finance, Direct, Produce, Shoot, Edit, Distribute, Tour With, and Sell Your Own No-Budget DIGITAL Movie." The target market is absolute newbies, (like myself) who don't know the difference between a producer and a director.

The Bad:
If you cut out every "I" in this book and taped them together they would circle the Earth. Twice. I wish authors would get their damn credentials, near-death-drug-rehab-and-how-it-changed-their-life-forever experience, and the worthless name-dropping out of the way in Chapter One so I can skip it and get to the 'how to' stuff I picked up the book to read about.

I didn't like the way Michael would beg people to work for him for free, and then piss and moan when they didn't come thru for him. Publishing the pissed off letter to someone who let you down is Childish, especially when the person was working for free (or not working for free, which makes as much sense).

Later in the book, he says "Film is built on relationships..." and "...it's all about people". Right. I have a feeling this man is good at making movies by himself, because no one will work with him.

The Good:
If you can sift thru the self-important bullshit, the rest is surprisingly good and chock-full of useful information. It has lots of useful tips on creating a movie yourself, everything from camera angles to format conversions, to duplication and distribution, clever methods for getting your film 'out there' and a good intro to contracts, copyrights and such.

I thought the best part of this book was the motivation. Michael W. Dean is clearly about the art, and wants you to be as well. Not quite Anti-Hollywood, but more Un-Hollywood. He doesn't mind living meagerly as long as he can make his art and get it out to people. He is one of the few people whose marketing practices I agree with: start by making talented art, and with a little legwork and some flyers, the world will bring an audience to you. Film it, and they will come...

The very very very best advice of all: Don't do art for the money. While Michael might be an arrogant flake, I must admit he is an arrogant flake with artistic integrity.

The last chapter of his book made me want to make an independant movie. (Wait a minute, I just did. Almost forgot) OK, it made me want to make another.

I give the book an 8 of 10. It could have been a 9 if he had taken out all references to himself (then it could have been shorter and named "$25 Film School"). It could have been a 9.5 if he didn't live in California, thriving in the center of the very industry and people he makes fun of.

Blog on,
-CZ

Labels: Book Review, Hollywood, indie movies