Cool News
MONSTERS Are Coming!!
Merrick here...
A film called MONSTERS has been making the film festival rounds (MIFF, SXSW, the forthcoming Fright Fest) and causing a bit of a stir amongst those who've seen it. Seems it's pretty well done - can't wait to get a look at it myself. And soon, we'll all be able to do just that.
You can now find the American trailer for MONSTERS' impending issuance in all kinds of Glorious QuickTime HERE. Although, frankly, I much prefer this International promo - which I find more atmospheric and illustrative:
It's feasible MONSTERS won't be opening in an actual theater near you Stateside, although it'll also be hitting PPV a tad earlier than its bigscreen release - so you should be able to find it if you look hard enough. I hear it's worth it.
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It seems like a few years ago there was tons of ghost movies now it seems to be aliens.
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It was supposedly made for $10,000 with something like a five person crew. And the director did all the special effects himself with his computer. It's a little bit if a bigger story than you think.
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Maybe?
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Interesting, but Cloverfield was also a letdown...
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nicely done trailer. Gives you the premise without giving away the boo in the closet.
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im tired of watching aliens kick our arse. Been done.
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and for only $10,000 dollars?
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The movie - at least from the trailer - has great atmosphere, some pretty amazing looking design elements, and whatnot. Then factor in the pricetag? Holy hell.
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That this film was made for $10-15K like the press says. No way in hell. Even if everyone involved was working for free, it was shot in 6 countries as they traveled around. The cost of food and travel alone would be more than $15K. They shot on the Sony EX3 with a massive lens adapter, which may have been donated for the shoot, but if purchased will run you about $17K including all batteries, SXS cards and the adapter. All the VFX could have been done for free and donated, but we're still talking hundreds of man-hours donated.... and the VFX people would need to live, pay rent and eat during that time = more money. Then, in order to put a film out you need to do a pro-sound mix ($10K-100K depending), buy E&O insurance ($8K for 5 years), make deliverables ($1K - 5K), do a name/title search ($500-$750). Plus, if you're going to shoot a feature on an EX3 it's all card media, which means you need a mobile editing suite and travel harddrives ($2K - $10K worth). So... don't buy into the $10K BS. Even if everything was donated it still cost them at least $100K.
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Nobody cares about that shit-hole country anyway.
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looking forward to this...more than any huge budget, overpaid actor filled, GCI snoozefest foisted upon us...and done for the price of one or two of the ads for the rerelease of Avatar.
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In Total Film and Empire. I get the impression from the director's interviews that despite the name, and what the trailers are showing us, the alien creatures are merely a backdrop. Apparently the film is about the man and woman we see making their way to safety and the monsters are hardly seen at all - but the evidence of their presence is everywhere.
Nothing like Cloverfield, where that one huge monster spent its' time following our 'hero' group of hipsters around New York making sure they had lots of interesting set pieces to fight through.
Apparently, the titular monsters are giant squid-type creatures that walk a bit like the WotW Tripods, and after an early reveal, are not exactly hidden, but just in the background a lot.
But the trailer IS making it look a LOT like Cloverfield, I'll grant you. -
Directing, screenwriting, D.P., Sfx. Is there anything he can't do..? And the sound recordist is 'Ian MacLagan'. Is that THE Ian MacLagan from the legendary 'Small Faces' (the band, not the excellent 90s movie)..? The only downer is that Nick Love is involved. Promising. And British.
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There's a really good interview on youtube with the film's editor (Monsters Q&A) describing the director's process. It just shows what can be done with talent and determination. The CGI in the film does not halt on the expected elements, but even on objects they needed in the background. The director created them all. Filmmakers like this need to be supported.
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Filmmakers like this do need to be supported. I'd rather spend my money watching this than the next bloody Twilight movie.
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The editor DID have a mobile edit suite and he cut in the hotel while they shot. But I agree, I doubt it was just 10k.
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Tentacles from the shadows... claws reaching up from the water... quick-flashes of massive shapes seen in the bursts of gun fire... lot's of shaky-cam closeups of the actor's faces... Been there, seen that already. *SIGH*...
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No, of course you haven't. Otherwise you wouldn't have said such a stupid thing like 'Another Don't-Actually-See-The-Monsters Movie'. Watch the movie, then see the monster, then come back here and say 'I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. I saw the monster.' *sigh*
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I agree it couldn't have been made for anything close to 10K. I made a small film for 27K and didn't pay the cast or crew. But equipment, insurance, props/costumes/make-up, craft services all adds up. Unless no one was paid a dime, everything was donated from props to services to locations, no food was provided, equipment and software use was 100% donated, and they managed to suck dick in return for free travel arrangements... then I suppose it could be done for 10K.
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Aug 17, 2010 9:49:18 AM CDT
28 weeks later the war of the worlds invades jurassic park
by thurston_one
Hope he put some good dialogue and characters together to underpin what we've seen approximately 2 billion times already.
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http://preview.tinyurl.com/32w86pe
Although I have a friend who worked on the animation, it wasn't like the director was up all night at home with a cracked copy of FinalCut on a Macbook. -
. . . from someone who supposedly saw it. Said it is definitely a slow burn, Jaws-like build up to finally seeing stuff near the end. Count me in.
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The only equipment he carried was the camera, a few lenses, and somthing like 2 small lights. The sound guy was small and mobile. This wasn't a big production. There's bts footage on the net and you'll see it's just the director with the camera on a corner shooting his actors in the sun with a boom pole hanging around. That's it.
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but it does look like a better film
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Scoot McNairy is a really great actor and a great guy. This movie looks like a lot of fun!
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Cloverfield with the budget and feel of District 9. I love snap judgments.
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The air fare to Mexico would have cost more than that.
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The trailer looked promising...it should be a good flick and fun (not in a brainless way, just fun to wait to build up for the aliens). Alhough, two things set my "people making this are idiots" sense off. Pardon me, but I take trailers very seriously as a predictor of how good the movie will be.
1. It says right in the goddamned trailer its aliens! Whats with this monster crap, I was all excited to see a cyclops or godzilla. Leave the alien part out of the trailer! Or change the title.
2. Theres also no explanation of why the probe came back, since they never do, but oh well, maybe the aliens sent it. All it would have to say is "amazingly, the probe was sent back, crash landing in..." -
Since this is just "another" don't see the monster film, name five movie where you don't see the monster. Heres one to give a head start: The Blair Witch Project.
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Where? I didn't see them. That's like showing a porn trailer without any chicks.
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A truly fantastic achievement in low-budget indie filmmaking, and an absolute must-see.
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which was an alien invasion film, with creature way too smart for horror. Any lifeform that adaptable would either be bio-engineered, or created in a far complex environment than you can find on Earth. Hell, we can't control kudzu! But..back to Monsters..I predict the twist will be that alien DNA combines with ours, and created new, deadly lifeforms.
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... meets "28 Days Later". No thanks.
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Aug 17, 2010 11:17:15 AM CDT
the aliens obviously have the power to
by the_hills_are_stuffed_with_swedish_girls
infect talkbacks and cause multiple outbreaks of blatant PLANT growth.
Kudos to the director and his pals for getting so many usernames sorted, though. -
but it was a cast and crew of 4 people. Director was the camera man and effects guy. There was a sound guy and two actors!Just goes to show how Hollywood has really convoluted it's own business when a single person can make something as remarkable as this!
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in June but they never used it :o(
However, I saw it at the Edinburgh Film Festival and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The chat was that it was £15,000 so thats about $24,000. Director was a top block and he edited it in his house with his own equipment and the camera was borrowed (I think) but honestly the costs not important other than it does not reflect what you see on screen. The extras were random people they met who worked for nothing. Fair enough the "monsters" are a little like current tv syfy movies but they are good enough to not distract.
My worry with the film is that the "sell" is on the Monsters and they are part of the backdrop and culture of the movies universe and it is really the main characters story and their journey.
I can honestly say it was my favourite film of the Festival that I attended (including Get Low and Toy Story 3) but maybe that is just my taste. However, I hope this is a success and would recommend seeing it as a good night out........unless you expect some major monster gore-fest since it isn't one. -
It's pretty damn good if taken as a road movie romance with apocalyptic undertones and the constant threat of death from giant alien squid things. The two leads actually got married after meeting on this film, so the chemistry must have been real. Regardless what it actually cost, it's an astonishing movie that should motivate people that are thinking of making a film but don't want to take the risk. Canon 7D, 5D, etc for picture, Zoom H4n and $500 boom mic for audio and a laptop and few hard drives for editing. There is no excuse from a technical aspect to not make something now. I also liked how they resolved the alien aspect, well, they don't play it out like you think. Real nice. Gareth Edwards is a filmmaker that really knows what he is doing, possibly Robert Rodriguez but with more interest in ideas than spectacle.
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Or so Wikipedia tells me. That's a reliable source, right???
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Aug 17, 2010 12:06:35 PM CDT
Is the NASA probe called "Project Scoop", by any chance?
by royston lodge
If yes, it's a good thing Michael Crichton is dead. He might be pissed off.
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it was budgeted at $15,000.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8JpdND--g8
Regardless, it's nice to see indie films getting coverage again. -
...has been raging ever since Clerks. Lots of people dispute the stated $27,000 budget for Clerks since it doesn't include donations-in-kind, the final sound mix, the blow-up to 35mm, the cost of striking distribution prints, etc.
Every time someone comes out with a micro-budget movie this debate starts up all over again.
Personally, I'm happy to accept a "production budget" that doesn't include donations-in-kind and doesn't include marketing or distribution costs.
That being said, your point about the cost of travel does seem to make sense. I do wonder if they include travel expenses in that $10,000 figure. -
Saw an early trailer yonks ago, got excited, forgot about it, this renewed interest big time. Can't wait.
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because they either don't show enough, or they give away the whole movie. You can never win here in bizarro AICN-talkback world, you're bound to piss off half the population. I am somewhat drawn by this trailer myself and will be checking for the ppv release.
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"Well, there's a movie already called that" "Okay, big deal. What's this movie about anyway?" "You know, space creatures... monsters" "Okay, lets call it MONSTERS!" "Sounds great!"
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Why is it called Monsters when its involving aliens?
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Certainly belies the paucity in budget, looking forward to this bigtime.
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At last, a ROMMBU movie! You know, the monster whose very name makes mankind tremble
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They should have waited until this is released and then mentioned the low budget aspects. No point in unduely need to influence the audience before they actually see the movie.
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Premature e-type-ulation. That's never happened to me before. Sigh..
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It's great. Not really a horror/sci-fi dealie - although those elements are really well done. It's more of a quasi-apocalyptic road movie. The performances are excellent. And yeah, he made it for nothing, pretty ingenious the way they did it - he explained their process and sched in the Q&A after the screening.
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.... i reckon this'll put me to sleep. What do you reckon Harry?
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I kid. This looks awesome. I'm in.
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It looks promising, I'm anxious about the monsters themselves. Hope they're not a let down..
Also hope this will make it to theaters in NL.. -
And it certainly helps with a cast of 4, and digitally creating a lot of the various things they run into. But still, costumes, props like all those candles I saw in the BTS someone here posted a link to, man does that stuff add up. I had a scene with half the candles they used. Even buying them from the dollar store cost $50 alone.
I am very impressed though what he was able to do with such little cast and crew. I wish I had effects knowledge, I'm jealous there. I'm looking forward to seeing it. -
"MONSTERS ARE COMING...!"
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This truly shows how unnecessarily inflated Hollywood film budgets have become. You can do a lot these days with just a little money and a lot of talent.
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of spending a small amount of money for a big old bang for buck return, would they be able to take more risks? For example: give this Monsters dude something like 20 million, and would he be able to make something that looked like 100 million? Or would those massive marketing costs still get in the way in the end?Monsters looks awesome though. I can't wait to see this one. Who cares is it has a few similarities to District 9 and Cloverfield? It's not the exact same movie. As TELF posted above, its more of a post apocalyptic road movie, while Cloverfield and District 9 were not.
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Aug 17, 2010 3:33:02 PM CDT
Cause it seems like once you even go near "traditional" filmmaki
by lv_426
the budget just balloons out of proportion.
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"Regardless what it actually cost, it's an astonishing movie that should motivate people that are thinking of making a film but don't want to take the risk. Canon 7D, 5D, etc for picture, Zoom H4n and $500 boom mic for audio and a laptop and few hard drives for editing. There is no excuse from a technical aspect to not make something now."That's something I'm getting from this trailer... it is damn inspiring and why I asked the question a post above.I think we're getting close to the day when someone secures independent financing for a 20-30 million dollar epic sci-fi or fantasy spectacle that ends up looking like it cost 150 million, thus changing the budgetary landscape and "myth" of filmmaking forever.Of course, another thing is that it seems the lower the budget, the more the writer/director is forced to actually tell a really damn good story. Maybe a mega budget makes it too tempting to cover up the rough spots in a story with eye candy and spectacle? Not always, but sometimes it's bound to happen, while having a lower budget is gonna force out better movies in the long run.Also, to get started you don't even need something as expensive as a Canon 5D (although it is an awesome camera). I've recently picked up a Canon Rebel T2i (550D), and it can shoot some stunning cinematic-like images in 1080/24p. It costs less than a grand.
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...ever downloaded movies available through vodo.net?
I'm wary of investing too much time in movies that are given away freely by the creators. Reasoning being, if the movies were any good the creators would be able to charge people money to watch 'em!
Anybody have any experience with the films at this site? -
But will it top REC 1 & 2?
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Looks like nothing to write home about...I hate to sound like one of you other random fat fuck naysayers, but "meh."
I'll give it a viewing, but I won't go out of my way to see it. -
Mostly just two people walking and monsters not really seen or doing anything cool.
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Even if the monster/alien invader story has been told 1000 times, I always like to see new angles and it looks like this film will deliver.
The low-budget aspect is irrelevant for me as part of the film watching experience, but I'm glad to see that people with good ideas can still make thought-provoking films outside the Hollywood machine. Two other recent examples were Primer and The Call of Cthulhu, very different appraoches to filmmaking but very rewarding for the viewer. -
Aug 17, 2010 6:22:43 PM CDT
Her hipster-ness is distracting...and they look like WOW aliens
by quantize
immediately obvious problems...but hey if it was made for 10k or even twice or 3 times that, it's still really nicely shot
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nothing like a mockumentary that loses cred in less than 30 seconds with one of those awful moments when characters stop behaving or talking like real people and start talking and behaving like comic book people. any time you hear a character in a movie like this saying "there has been an event of some kind" or "what are the passcodes" or in this case "they're taking us into the Infected Zone."
Do you know what people call places like "The Infected Zone" in real life? At best they call them hot spots or trouble spots or things like that. Think of the number of times you have used the world "zone" in your regular life. It just doesn't happen, nor do people call attention to these kinds of things with names like "Forbidden Zone" or "Infected Zone" in real life. Hell people don't even use the world "quarantine" they just say "that's been closed" or "closed off" or "can't get there."
Nobody talks like that, nobody talks like making up names for things to make them sound authentic it is an instant way to know its not real. -
pass. if i want to look at nothing pretending to be something ill do that trick when you get a guy pointing at something and everybody on he road stops to see what it is looking at when nothing is there. thats this movie and also lost.
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looks really cool. Could care less about the budget. Also don't care about the slow burn of the movie after I somehow made it through the movie Gerry.
And gun will travel, Primer was great but Call sucked haaaaaaaaard. -
What an original title.
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I will see the shit out of this movie
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Totally get what you mean. Working in the industry though, where people are paid poorly in a lot of roles that are 'specialist' in their craft, with most of the big money going to heads of department, I hope things don't change too much. It's an industry where people need to be paid, and making films on the cheap will only benefit writers/directors and producers (possibly DoPs, Editors, Sound Editors/Designers too, and composers). The model of the film industry is to make a great first feature, and then go onto making commercial films. It doesn't help that films such as Avatar (which is ok/average film, technically brilliant but then it cost a ridiculous amount of money so it should be) make shitloads of money, and 3D is cleaning up. There are of course prosumer 3D cameras coming out soon, but since I reckon 90% of large budget 3D is shite, I'm guessing cheapo 3D will be worse. I was thinking of getting a 550D too, awesome little camera, basically get same video quality as the 7D (5D has larger sensor). I don't get a lot of time to shoot much these days and I work in post-production so more likely to be dealing with the files that come out these cameras than shooting on them haha.
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looks good to frank; what else matters?
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So, which one of you guys has seen this that thinks its awesome? Care to shed a little bit of light on the story without spoilers? Or was it 'AWESOME' as in "I saw the trailer and it looks AWESOME - Aint It Cool News" and nobody here has seen it?
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Correct me if i'm wrong but have they not been making movies about aliens since the 60's?
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THIS is the fuckin' movie i've been waiting for... I have waited forever to see this. It better be fuckin' coming to Denver lol Hope this does well. Would encourage more original ideas to be produced... not all this Hollywood tripe like SCOTT PILGRIM and Vampires Suck, etc.
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Rubber, Catfish, The Social Network, Tron: Legacy, and Black Swan... should be a good next few months for film.
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Enter the Void, and a perfectly acceptable "guilty pleasure" Jackass: 3D. That should be a fuckin' blast. I'm holding out hope for "Legend of the Guardians" as well. Looks like Zach Snyder trying to do his own "The Secret of Nimh"...
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Deny the budget all you want. When your in the visual effects buisness and your a nice chap, you have freinds in high places who can help you. They cut this film on a dman laptop using prgams they either borrowed or previously owned. It was a two man crew and he did it with a prosumer camera. The cgi additions were all him, he is a vis effect grad. Just like Neill Blomp. You see the pallet is changing now. You dont need the big bucks, just the drive to do it and the education to use it along with the programs and tools. I love that this isn't a fable. One dude and his friend with a group of actors who did it for point shares, got in a van and a plane and bumped around from place to place jumped out of the van and shot with out any rights to shootm they asked people around them if they wanted to be in it, and then later that night at the hotel or where ever they laid down for the nightp they wipped out the lap top and took that days worth of footage and edited it. and thats how they cleared the damn drives to shoot the next day. He used maya lightwave 2d max zbrush whatever to add the cgi along with video editing software. Stuff he either keep from school under a student licesence or stuff his vis fx buddies from school let him use. The game is changing, we are finally at point were someone can do this and go really fucking huge if they are willing to learn and do the leg work. And lots of CGI artists will change job titles and become directors. This fucking rules. If this guy had to depend on real world props he never could have afforded it enough to make the same sized film. What a sucess story.
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Sorta looks cheesy when a trailer has quotes from the likes of AICN and IGN.
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Mcdonalds dollar menu. $4 x 4 x45 days. 720 bucks. I'm loving it
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I don't care if it was $10K or £15K - it still looks as though like a couple million bucks was spent on it - amazing!
To me this looks less like Cloverfield and more like Signs - where the the movie is more about the interaction between the characters and less about the actual aliens/monsters/whatever.
(I must be the only person on Earth that didn't think Signs was all that bad - much better than people give it credit for ... and I'm NOT an M. Night bumboy)
These are the types of filmmakers organizations should be giving out grants to and I for one hopes it's wildly successful. -
... maybe the equipment was already owned BEFORE this movie was put together; so the spin doctors cleverly didn't include those prices in the "only made for ..." blurb.
Also, maybe the editing software was, you know, "torrented" (yeah, I just made word up; feel free) -
"28 Months After Cloverfield Carrying The Book of Eli"
do it ... DO IT ... -
Do they kill the "Monsters" by squirting shampoo up their asses?
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If there is ever some sort of global catastrophe, don't make a wayline to the nearest Incan temple. Bad shit goes down there, brah.
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Fuck off. How can that be possible?The production values looked great. My first reaction to the smoke at the start was, "Okay, looks a little cheap", but then the rest looked relatively great.If they did that on a budget of 10k, studios should be roping this guy in to make them some easy, easy cash.
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bears absolutely zero resemblance to this film
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Our lord sayeth it is nicely done, and so it is...
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Let me guess: Got a cousin whose friend knows the barber that cuts the hair of the dog-walker of the sound-technician's evening assistant on the film or something??? Otherwise, you sensitive sallies wouldn't react in such a knee-jerk sort of manner for a film you haven't even seen yet! *...SIGH...*
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Fuck me - you actually read comments on this talkback? if you'd have done that in the first instance instead of making a 'I'm too cool for this shit' dismissive first post, then you may have noticed some of the earlier posts - like mine - explaining how this film is NOTHING like Cloverfield.
And that's from people who have actually SEEN it as well, retard. -
that Teddy Artery posted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8JpdND--g8) he makes a VERY big point of stating how important the sound is on any decent feature and how "you an forgive a bad image if you can realy hear the sound well". As a sound recordist myself it's nice to see a dirctor who recognises this (rarer than you think!). With that in mind the soundy on this shoot is using more expensive gear than the camera - both actors are clearly wired up with personal mics (as well as the boom), a decent multitracking recorder is being used - seperate to camera - and a wireless feed and timecode lockit box for sync (no clapper board!) are quite obviously on show in the clips. That's easily $20,000 of equipment at bare minimum. This is were you need to realise that for all the glory of the 5D you still need to have a decent array of sound gear (and someone who knows how to use it) to produce anything of quality, unless you are going to spend a lot of time and money fixing things later on (a la Clerks, El Mariachi etc etc). Not quite the 'Zoom H4n and $500 boom mic' that you mentioned LV_426.
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Of course. I wasn't saying that there hasn't been a movie about aliens made before. I was just noting that there are a lot them on the way. It was just an observation.
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Hadn't really thought of it that way before.
If you look at it that way then you could say Jim Cameron made Avatar with a budget of 35,000 dollars, it just happens that they went over-budget by a margin of 249,965,000. -
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don't believe everything you read.
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They should call it Alie-- oh.
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...but will it be better than 'Cleavagefield'? I think NOT!
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...but it's a good film that I rather enjoyed. Just don't be expecting a big finish.
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Geddit.? [groan]
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