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Fan Group Creates Full-Length Discworld Movie
greenrd writes "'Almost No Budget Films,' a group of Terry Pratchett fans from Germany, recently finished a 9-month filming stint on a full-length dramatisation of pterry's novel 'Lords and Ladies.' A grand total of 300 euros were spent on this production, and all profits from this fan movie will go to the Orangutan Foundation. Check out the new English trailer for some grin-inducing special effects!"
Screw Pratchett. We need a Robert Rankin movie. I vote for The Book of Ultimate Truths.
Since so many others have commented along similar lines, here's my tuppenceworth.
Neal Stephenson's SnowCrash would be an Awesome film.
When a passenger of the foot, hooves in sight, tootel the horn trumpet melodiously
If done right (from your perspective) yes.
The problem with movies is that they leave very little to the imagination. Filter a good written story through a film and all you are left with is the movie
Films which I wish I had never seen include Millennium (from a fantastic short story by John Varley) and (Gibson)
http://michaelsmith.id.au
i can't wait to see this after someone mirrors it or something. but i wish these kind folk had done one of the starter books, lords and ladies is definitely kind of into the series a little bit, although it pretty much doesn't matter with the discworld stuff.
pratchett's about due for a new one seems like - going postal's been out a while now. been reading the bromeliad triology last few days, it's fun.
what ever happened to gilliams good omens efforts?
....eh shoulda used 16 mm film. But hey who cares if it looks like crap?
A really good sci-fi movie shot for a very low budget ($7000) I recommend is Primer.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I noticed on LSpace that there's also a short of "Troll Bridge" being filmed by a bunch of Aussies.
They even got a quickie script rewrite from PTerry himself.
And then of course there's Sweden, where everyone can go to university for free...including foreigners! Sure, they pay a lot of tax, but the end result is that they have a lot less crime, a very high percentage of literacy and education and free healthcare...resulting in the fact that the money they have left is nearly all discretionary (after food and rent).
I really respect a system like that.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I saw an interesting insert on TV a while back documenting the efforts of film-makers in Africa.
What these guys do is write a "quick-hack" script, get some actors, a couple of (their own) cars, camera's, some lights, etc. And go make a movie.
1. Shoot footage you need in about 3 days. 2. Edit 3. Make lots of VHS tapes. 4. Sell to street vendors. 5. Profit! Notice there's no ???, and that's because it's actually a booming business. Their clients don't want to see Americans blowing up aliens. They want to see people like them, in situations they can relate to.
They also create jobs for a lot of people down the food chain: From Cameramen, actors, editors, right down to the guy that sells you the tape on the street.
You don't need big budgets, millionnaire actors, and 4000 people to make an engaging film.
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
I'm not sure whether you are directly addressing the GP post on general filmmaking on a low budget (with the advent of digital video, editing on computer, etc.) or particularly the Discworld project. I'll assume you're discussing general filmmaking (with a lean toward science fiction/fantasy).
1. Scenery/Models. Unless it is set in contemporary earth, this is one of the really hard ones. By models I mean models of castles, spaceships etc., which tend to look like they were made of Lego.
Depends on who you know. I know people entirely capable of constructing extremely impressive models (he has another job, but could easily do model work professionally). Then again, if you are a good enough writer you ought to be able to limit what you need to depict without it seeming forced.
2. Getting enough angles.
That is still pretty tough. Digital video cameras are getting cheaper and cheaper however, so in a few years this will be the result of laziness rather than inability.
3. Acting of B-class characters.
Again, very hard, but it also hangs heavily on what you're doing. The biggest problems involve the filmmakers not bothering to understand their constraints before they start, then working within them. People can act surprisingly well when they have to play (essentially) themselves and they have halfway competent direction. Of course, I am not a film director. Then again, I do know some.
4. Cheesy CG/special effects.
This one really does come down to a lack of proper forethought and design by the filmmakers. Write something you are capable of filming with the resources you have. This is not as constraining as you might think. Some great science fiction films have been shot with minimal special effects (see Pi, or The Sticky Fingers of Time). If the filmmakers don't know how to go about constructing a good film within their means, is it any surprise it sucks?
5. Audio effects.
Are just plain hard if you have anything much to do in the way of real foley work. This is one area that remains relatively inaccessible to everyday people as it just requires a lot of skill (and imagination). On the other hand, the trick is to stay away from things that are going to require such foley work.
So in the end the main issue is having the core team of writer/director/producer actually having a decent idea of what can be done, and working within those constraints. You can make surprisingly good material providing you are creative within those restrictions, and have a few clues as to what you are doing.
No, random people are not going to be making great films, but a small group of people with a real interest in film (the sort that actually read books on shot framing, directing etc.) can produce remarkably impressive material. I would suggest that there are enough people with such interests in the world that we will see more and more quality amateur productions showing up over the next 10 years.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
The main difference between Pratchet and Asprin is that Asprin is just funny; Pratchet on the other hand is deeply funny. By that I mean that to fully appreciate Pratchet you need to know certain things: like Latin, or heraldry or quantum physics, to get the full efect of some of his jokes and puns (actually most of his humor works that way; one good example is Unseen University...it's only after reading Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver did I realise Pratchet was riffing on the Invisible College, the precursor to the Royal Society).
Plus there's some mayor commentary going on on modernday life on an anecdotal level. Asprin just does not have that; hell Aprin doesn't even have a simple theme (in the literary sense) going on in any of his MYTH books. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the MYTH series...it's just that it's like penny romance novels against Pratchet's more mature, 'real' literature.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Why are the old people, like the witches, played by young people ?
In the books, the witches are old.
Couldn't they have found some grannies ?
I can't tell from the website. Is the film in English or German?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I think that one of the most enjoyable moments I've had regarding a pratchet book, was after reading, I think it was "Reaper Man," where there was a description of the magic detector that consisted of an urn with several elephants around the rim. When magic was detected, a pebble would drop (well, shoot)out of the elephant which was pointing towards the source of the magic.(pib)
a couple of years after reading this, I was leafing through a catalog of ancient pottery, ( I believe it was chinese,) and there was a photograph of an ancient siesmometer. an urn with a bunch of elephants around the rim with a pebble balanced on the trunk. if there was an earthquake, the elephants in line with the direction of the source of the earthquake would drop their pebbles.
this was the point at which I really came to appreciate the depth of Pratchett's satire and observations. He doesn't just make them up, he references things which already are. I think that his insight into the mental condition is as great as his sense of historical trivia.
While I enjoyed Asprin's books (I tend to prefer the phule series to the M.Y.T.H series), the characters and stories he uses seem to be much more earnestly childish (childish is not a bad thing) and far less applicable as examples of humanity. They are definitely funny, but not, as the parent here says, deep. It's kind of like the difference between wit and humor. One definition of which Pratchett gave in an interview, (I can't remember where,) and another you can find in the movie "Ridicule" (french movie, VERY funny)
the other thing about Pratchett, is that his grammar isn't as condescending as Asprin (or for that matter, most children's book authors) "Hat full of Sky" and "Wee Free Men" , books that Pratchett deliberately aimed at the younger reader do NOT make any attempt to 'dumb down' the writing style because he is writing for children. he just chooses a topic that is of more direct interest to a child. i.e. the life of a pre-teen character.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)