Project Dimbulb
Do any of you watch Project Greenlight on Bravo (Thursday, 10pm e/p) ?
Here’s the premise: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon sponsor an Internet contest in which writers submit screenplays and directors submit sample reels. Affleck, Damon, producer Chris Moore, and, this season, horror director Wes Craven pick one from Column A and one from Column B. The lucky director and writer get to make a movie for a studio. The TV series documents the making of the film.
But is the real objective to make a movie…or to stage a “reality” show?
For the second year in a row, they’ve matched up a script and a director who should never have been allowed in the same room with each other. This time around, they’ve gone one step further and chosen a script that couldn’t possibly be filmed for the alloted budget.
Okay, I know Hollywood executives can be that stupid. I’ve even seen it close up. But two years in a row? On national television? And they’re not even a *little* embarrassed?
No. And I think I know why.
Also for the second year in a row, the documentary series is devoted to making the novice director look like a hapless, indecisive dork. The poor schlub and his moviemaking dreams are reduced to objects of ridicule, while the sharp, savvy producers struggle mightily to keep him from “self-destructing” and taking the film with him.
And that, I think, is the real purpose of this series: to glorify the sage, efficient, highly professional, highly polished producers at the expense of the contest winners.
It’s the ultimate Hollywood concept. We’re supposed to stand in awe of these commanding, visonary yet hard-nosed, pragmatic figures who make the movies and entertain the world. We’re supposed to understand that they’re a different breed from those of us outside the biz — smarter, quicker, hipper, worthy of adulation.
We’re *not* supposed to think about which dipwad *hired* the director.
April 7th, 2005 at 7:16 AM
The rumors I’ve heard said that the script portion of the show was more or less fixed – Dimension had a script that they liked and forced it on Affleck, Damon, and Craven. So Affleck and Damon optioned the script that they liked, Craven optioned the script that he liked, and they picked the worst director they could find to direct the script Dimension liked…
April 7th, 2005 at 8:49 AM
I definitely agree with you on Greenlight. I saw only a few minutes of the current incarnation, but I saw about a half-dozen installments of the first season.
The director really was made to look like a pathetic schmo. In particular, I remember the director saying something along the lines of, “Do they think I won’t cry? Because I will! I will cry!” Even then, despite the fact that the film wasn’t an FX-heavy horror flick, I think one of the first scenes included Affleck on the phone with a Miramax exec demanding the budget of the film be increased from one million to ten million.
I think trying to launch any kind of career in a creative medium through a reality TV show is a bad idea. It hasn’t worked for any of the various musicians and singers who starred in The Real World, and as far as I know it hasn’t worked for any Greenlight alumni. I just don’t think it’s possible, after doing a show like that, for people considering your work on its own merits without thinking of you as the “Real World girl” or “Greenlight guy.”
April 7th, 2005 at 9:25 AM
My last comments would not post. You security code did not like waht I had to say….probably infiltrated by upstanding church goers..
April 7th, 2005 at 3:46 PM
Being on Real World seemed to work out okay for Judd Winick. But for the most part, yeah, people seem to be chosen for reality shows so that they can make spectacles of themselves, not launch careers. Because the audience is laughing at them, not with them. Generally I avoid reality shows like the plague, but Project Greenlight comes across as more of a documentary on how screwed up the movie studio process is (explaining why so much crap makes it to the multiplex), and I can’t deny the train-wreck quality of it all.
April 7th, 2005 at 9:45 PM
Being on The Real World has also worked out okay for actress Jacinda Barrett, who has carved out a pretty respectable career (she was recently seen as Joaquin Phoenix’s wife in Ladder 49) and writer Kevin Powell, who is a respected music journalist. And Survivor alum Elizabeth Hasselback is one of the co-hosts of The View. I think the trick is to not be such a memorable “character” on your show, and to allow a little time to pass before attempting to launch your career.
April 8th, 2005 at 12:50 PM
Here in Australia they’re doing their first Project Greenlight. A friend of mine has been short-listed and they’re making her, a first-time screenwriter, direct her own script (and she’s never done that before either). The first question mark that came up for me on the project was when I heard they had to write a script that had a budget of $1,000,000. Now I and other friends have been writing for years and we’d have no idea how to budget a film. The more I hear about it the more it seems to be an exercise in setting you up to fail. Apparently, that’s entertainment. My friend is, however, a very experienced actor so understands the process and I know think that will go against her. The last thing they want is someone who knows what they’re doing. I just can’t watch any of these “reality” shows.
April 17th, 2005 at 12:15 PM
I rather like the new Project Greenlight… Sure enough, our director isn’t as competent as your usual Hollywood type, but you do have to give him credit for a childlike lovability.
True: the script does sound like a pretty wretched affair. The last thing the world needs is two more dorks trying to replicate Evil Dead II. And the casting director seems to be an evil bitch.
I will credit them for, in the face of a bad script that they were strongarmed into taking part in my Dimension, picking the director that they thought had the best vision, even if he was a huge gamble. Because what that movie didn’t need was another horror nerd who thinks slapstick splatter is “totally awesome” or a visionless marketing drone. Sure, they’re backing the David Lynch horse, but he might very well turn some of that crap into gold. Unlikely, but I do want to see it nonetheless.
Sure, the cast is a strange bunch, many of them who I never want to see in film again. Though I do like Henry Rollin’s involvement, I would have almost preferred his whole family’s involvement.
But, for a bunch that’s trying to keep him in line and constantly complaining about his work, the production crew seems to do very little to actually help our director. A script bears SOME rehearsing. And it’s not the kind of movie that relies upon shooting in various sets or locales, so they should have done themselves the favor of shooting the movie in order. It can add length and problems, but you’d think that it would at least give the actors some direction to work from.
Regardless, it isn’t really helpful to a first-time director to take them, throw them into a already well-defined situation that everyone else understands and expect them to perform like a prefessional up to their standards. Sure, it makes for an interesting fish-out-of-water story and is a good look into the moviemaking process, but it’s no way to make a proper movie, amidst all the other budget dysfunctions and general crap being handed over to the director by the producers.