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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
....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.
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.
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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?