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Quantum Project
Percible writes: "BBC News is reporting that John Cleese, star of Monty Python's Flying Circus, is starring alongside Stephen Dorff in the first major film produced exclusively for downloading over the Internet. The film cost $3 million to make, and lasts 32 minutes. Cost to you: $3.95 to purchase the file for download from sightsound.com." There have been quite a few films produced for Internet distribution, but this looks like the first professional approach with known actors.
Now where the hell am I supposed to get popcorn from?
That's why TacoBell has signs saying "If you don't get a receipt, we'll pay for your meal." It's not so you wait for that reciept in eager anticipation. It's so the employee has to actually enter it into the register, even if you pay in exact change.
If you run an "EVERYTHINGS A DOLLAR!" store, there's no way to tell the difference between employees pocketing exact change and customers shoplifting.
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Who's stupid idea was it to letterbox a movie designed solely for digital distribution? The only reason that letterboxing exists is because the aspect ratio of the TV is different than the aspect ratio of film typically used to shoot on. So it stands to reason that if they are going to make this revolutionary break from standard formats, maybe they'd shoot it in an aspect ratio commonly used in that format.
--GnrcMan--
Cleese is great, as usual, though I would have liked to see a little more of him.
I got the distinct impression that he was cast simply for the name. He certainly didn't have a major part in it.
Incidentally, the aliasing bothered me much more than you seem to have been bothered. I paid for the hi-res version, and expected it to look a bit better. The thing that really pissed me off, though, (see my other post on the subject) is that they letterboxed a film intended for non-cinema distribution. That's just plain stupid.
--GnrcMan--
That was the biggest pile of crap movie I've ever seen, absolutely no plot, it was horribly lame. I kept thinking "isn't it over yet?"... I'm GLAD it was 30minutes and not 3 hours.. But where do I go to get my money back? And as for the $3million, I could think of alot better things to spend $3million on.. And I REALLY didn't like what they did to the VW Bugs.
try www.kernel.org!
I'm not a journalist, but I play one on slashdot
It's all about going down in history. The Buggles were the first group to have their music video broadcast on MTV with "Video Killed the Radio Star". Now a few fans might disagree, but the Buggles are not the greatest group of all time or anything, but they certainly do have an entry in the music history books. This movie is going to go down in movie history as THE first major film released on the internet. (Unless it also inherets the concept of "vaporware" from the internet.)
It doesn't look like anyone here has acutally viewed the movie yet, so here's my take on whether it's worth your $3.95 (or $5.95 for high-res ver).
/.'er has done something similar. While it starts off seeming way too pat, like we can see the next 25 minutes coming from miles away, it gets more interesting after the setup. I won't give away the rest, but the development of the movie is more or less will they get together. Formulaic, yes, but love is always a worthy subject...
Disclaimer: I hate the prorietary Microsoft formats, but I multi-boot 98/NT/2000/Linux/BeOS so I can experience as much as humanly possible until the world comes to its senses...
The premise of this 32-minute movie stems from the Heisenberg cliche that reality is shaped by observation...which in the film and in popular consciousness has become conflated with shaping by desire. Protagonist Paul (Stephen Dorff) is an ersatz quantum physicist, and pulls it off pretty well. In fact, the acting throughout is superb. Most of us know what it's like to be in your own head too much of the time, and Paul definitely has this bug/feature. His maybe-girlfriend Mia (Fay Masterson) is a perfect foil, totally grounded and unconvinced by his strained analogies between physics and life. It's a little hard to hear him try to compare their relationship to charmed particles because I'll bet every
The CG effects are unusual and effective in advancing the atmosphere of uncertainty. The soundtrack likewise engages you without being "insert techno tune here". Where The Matrix sound design kicked, this is a little more subtle, with quite solid audio quality. The visual quality isn't bad, but can't compare to DVD (watched on my Tecra 8000 LCD). The aliasing bugged me at the beginning, but I soon stopped noticing it.
For those of you who caught "Welcome to Paradox" on the Sci-Fi Channel a while back, this will remind you a lot of the better episodes, both in style and content. Being 32 minutes it feels compressed (no pun), but forgivably so.
My favorite parts of the film:
John Cleese as Paul's father, with his line "I was Ob/Gyn at the birth of the Internet" implying that he's maybe Bob Metcalfe's alter ego or something. Cleese is great, as usual, though I would have liked to see a little more of him.
Paul flies into L.A. and as they're landing, the stewardess says "Welcome to Los Angeles. The temperature on the ground is, as always, a balmy 73 degrees."
The ending is, well, pure Hollywood, with all that implies. Sort of predictable, but not completely. Sort of clever, but not really.
The bottom line? I'll watch it again and enjoy the ride. I'll freeze-frame some of the CG, crank the audio, and maybe take it into the office and watch it projected on the wall to get the whole experience. Hey, the Metafilmics people are right, this is the dawn of something completely different (pun intended), and this is a really decent opening salvo at big bad tradition.
Thanks for reading...
Why do you think that just because it's 32 minutes it can't be deep or good? The short story and novella written form has been around for a long time, and they are every bit as good as "full length" novels in many cases.
The "short" in the movie industry is making a big comeback now (and actually, 30 minutes is probably at the high end of a short).
Now that I think of it, there are quite a few 2 hour movies that could have had 3/4 lopped off them without losing much if anything!
MediaTrip.com has a great collection of short films, feature films (downloadable in multiple parts) and trailers for films in theaters and on DVD. For the more avant-garde, there are the entries in the Slamdance online film festival. See the films, and if you register, you're a judge.
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Rugular VHS movie at a video store: ~12$
Cut 2/3 of movie.
Ditch physical media.
.. Packaging.
.. Distibution.
.. Promotion (get CNN et al to do it *for* us! brilliant!)
Add cost of servers.
And somehow they come up with 3.95? Is there a clue around here that failed to fall on me?
Am I the only person that thinks this is way before it's time? Given the relatively low penetration of broadband services at the moment, how many people are going to be able to watch this movie? And the specifications for watching it are extremely narrow, so anyone without an MS "standard" setup is out of luck as far as this is concerned.
Given the $3million price tag and the asking price of $3.95, in order to cover the cost they're going to need three-quarters of a million people to pay it. Is this even vaugely feasible? It certainly doesn't seem so to me. As a publicity stunt I'm sure it's got some value, but this is never going to be worth what it cost.
The idea of online movies is a great one, and we'll see more of it, but until broadband becomes far more popular it's probably a little early for this sort of thing.
LAUNCELOT: Look, my liege!
ARTHUR: Camelot!
GALAHAD: Camelot!
LAUNCELOT: Camelot!
PATSY: It's only a model.
so what you're saying is that those videos that pamela anderson and tommy lee did werent professional?
i'm shocked.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Because the register's keep track of how much money is suppost to be in the till.
Really, dear coward, that won't be a problem if it costs $0.50 to download it now. Don't get me wrong, I watch every John Cleese movie and I'll watch this one too, and pay for it. The thing is, it's easy to see the higher price as revenue maximizing, but that's exactly wrong. The way to sell a whole lot of burgers is to sell them for $2, not $20.
This may be possible in some years, but not now!
It's possible now if (1) you have a high bandwidth/low cost connection (many already do) and (2) a payment method is available that required essentially no effort on the part of the consumer, no harder than reaching into one's wallet, and (3) that payment method costs a fraction of a cent per transaction. I repeat: this is possible now, it's just that certain interests are standing in the way of having it actually happen. But someone with the drawing power of John Cleese can make it happen now if it matters to them to be seen as a visionary and not just another mouth feeding at the internet trough.
Note that if the price is too high for downloaded movies, and $5 is too high, we'll just have a nasty repeat of the RIAA fiasco where people are being turned into criminals because they refuse to continue to pay monopoly-inflated prices for artistic content that costs almost nothing to distribute, returning only a tiny fraction of the take to artists.
If you had made the movie you wouldn't be thinking this way. hypocrite.
If you had a spine you wouldn't be posting as an anonymous coward
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
"If you enjoyed this progam half as much as we enjoyed making it, we've enjoyed it twice as much as you."
A lot more of a viewing audience?
I don't think so.
The Windows/MediaPlayer set-up will probably account for about 99% of people interested in downloading the movie.
And this is before the fact that you have to *PAY* for it. How will the Open Source advocates cope with that? Oh well, I'm sure it will get stuck on Gnutella and pirated about, and then everyone will flame Monty Python when they have the sheer *audacity* to complain in any way.
The reason things are priced at say 3.99 rather than 4.00 is that is meant that people working in shops actually had to ring the sale up and get the change out of the till. This way they couldn't just pocket the money.
As a lawyer for the MPAA, I can explain this. You see, in our world, people should not just be allowed to view movies willy-nilly. That would severely impact the entire industry, resulting in plauges, earthquakes, and general deformities among our young. And if there are any actors out there considering making a movie themselves and putting it on the Internet, let me just say this. "You are under my control. You will wash my BMW at 11:00am tomorrow."
Now, since Linux is only used by criminals and Republicans, obviously we cannot support it. Macs, you ask? Hippies and sickos. These are not standards we can support for the sake of our children. Should our precious youth grow up in a world where these sort of people are role models? Obviously not. Finally, we chose Windows as the platform to distribute this film because of generous donations, trips, and bikini girls offered to us by Mr. Balmer. Go in peace and conform now. Thank you.
Don't just stand there. Review it!