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!"

Comments

Bandwidth Cost

[Monx]

And another 300 euros will be spent thanks to the direct video link on Slashdot.

Re:Bandwidth Cost

[Wirr]

And another 300 euros will be spent thanks to the direct video link on Slashdot.

Unlikely, those links point to a university.
If you see a link with uni-*.de it's always a university.

Re:Bandwidth Cost

[-brazil-]

Actually, it's hosted on a university webserver, which means it's taxpayers' money...

I've always considered "Lords and Ladies" to be the best of the discworld novels. If only Hollywood would get its act together and do a movie that does Pratchett's genious justice. I do have the British animated features, but to be honest, those look like only negligibly more than 300 EUR were spent...

Re:Bandwidth Cost

[BjornVDM]

You wrote:

Furthermore (with reference to a previous post) a large part of uni fees in europe (Germnay too) are paid by foreign (mostly oriental) students.

Clearly you have no knowledge of the german university system. Foreign students pay the exact same fees as german students - up until now only "administrative" fees of only a few hundred euros per semester (real tuition is only being phased in at the moment). Germany has thus for many years been probably the most affordable first world country for foreigners to study in. (Though their numbers have been kept comparably low as a result of german language requirements).
I thus really resent your uninformed statement - especially after a recent experience of a friend being in a masters program in England with 80% chinese that paid high tuition, and even though they very much depressed the level of academic discourse of course all got their degrees. Talk about "mostly oriental" cash cows.

Greetings, B.

References: German academic exchange service: Lack of Tuition Fees in Germany a Big Draw for Foreign Students (04/04/2002)

Until

[Kjella]

A grand total of 300 euros were spent on this production

Until they were hit with multiple times that in bandwidth costs after a slashdotting. Mohahahaha >:->

No

[Omkar]

Keep them away from money. This is a labor of love; do you want an exec fucking it up?

Slashdotting a full-length movie?!

[SamSim]

I could hear their server exploding from England!

Re:Slashdotting a full-length movie?!

[el-spectre]

Shoulda hosted it on Hex...

ook

[flumps]

Oook ook OOOk ook ook ook OOk ook ook ook ook.

[trans. I for one welcome our oragutan overlords]

Re:ook

[Scrab]

I thought they were monkeys

Oh wait....

*starts running*

Under-blues.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Check out the new English trailer for some grin-inducing special effects!""

Wearing too tight underwear can produce the same effect.

Bittorent copy

[Faram001]

http://trackerwww.prq.to/download.php/3294903/lnlu ksm.avi.torrent

Site is nuked so get it from here.

Re:Bittorent copy

[tcdk]

It's horribly low quality, with some really bad mpeg artefact's. I tidied up a frame, with a wizard talking on his cellphone ... where you go:

_M_
@O
/|\
/ \

Link slashdotted

[shyampandit]

Well, looks like their university hosting wasnt up to a good /.'ng :D

Google cache of the webpage at - http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:QuFjhiYyVvQJ: www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~jknoblo2/LnL/Downloa ds/downloads.html+&hl=en

dv editing and Gutenburgs press

[Fox_1]

With so much power on the desktop it's becoming easier and easier to produce polished video products at home. There's even software to correct for shaky camera work, it's possible to redesign shots in the editing programs and digital effects are becoming very easy to setup now. (remember Lightsabre boy)
I love the idea of more and more content being produced by hobbyists, enthusists and other non-studio persons. We are at that point where knowledge passes from a few to many - much like the printing press took the books away from the scholars and gave them to the people. Screw the RIAA & DMCA, we are gonna start producing our own copyrighted materials and they'll lose out.

Re:dv editing and Gutenburgs press

[zalas]

Overall, I think it looked pretty nicely done. The way the scenes are stitched together was really nice. Some effects looked really nice (the glowing eyes), but some looked really distracting (the starburst type effect, not sure what to call it). I liked the use of the miniature sized people. However, it seemed like sometimes the people look too "normal" in a sense, while at other times, they really fit in with the scene. Perhaps some better lighting/atmosphere could make up for it?

Great stuff... here's where to find more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonderfully entertaining, kitschy trailer.

For more stuff quite like this, check out Channel 101 and its New York sister site, Channel 102.

For an example of how brilliant zero-budget filmmaking can be, check out their winner for this month's contest: House of Cosbys.

If you don't laugh at this, you're probably Bill Cosby. And even then.... well, just click.

Rankin

[leenoble_uk]

Screw Pratchett. We need a Robert Rankin movie. I vote for The Book of Ultimate Truths.

The turtle moves!

[tchernobog]

Cool!

But I just hope in Terry Gilliam to find the budget to start Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens"!

Wouldn't that be great?

---

Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisement said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighbourhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser's own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches.

-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)

Adding the "books that should be movies" subthread

[arpoodle]

Since so many others have commented along similar lines, here's my tuppenceworth.

Neal Stephenson's SnowCrash would be an Awesome film.

bittorrent for god's sake!

[lkcl]

somebody bittorrent it - next time _before_ announcing it on slashdot, please.

The footage isn't usually the problem...

[Kjella]

Some of the really major stumbling blocks I see:

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.

2. Getting enough angles. Particularly an issue in action movies, where my impression is the shot lacks angles (i.e. it was filmed once from one angle, instead of a commercial movie often mixing and matching between overview shots, action "highlights", close-ups of key people, pans etc.

All of that is used to form a good scene. It takes time, requires a good editor and provides very little screen time, but it really sets them apart. In particular, notice that you never see a "pan-up" scene done with rails/crane in an amateur movie. Same with aerial shots.

3. Acting of B-class characters. The leads usually have some acting skill. But the fringe characters (i.e. not the extras) suck donkey balls.

4. Cheesy CG/special effects. Yes, I know many of the effects are easy to make today. But more often than not, the program doesn't support (or it is too damn hard to figure out how) the effect you really want, but you settle for what you can. They tend to look plastered on top like a sticker from a Donald Duck magazine on top of your photo.

5. Audio effects. The music is usually decent, but the timing might be off. But more often than not, the audio effects sound "unmatched" or simply fake. No, changing the pitch and streching/compressing it still makes it sound like a horse/pig/dog/bird/animal of the day, and that was just you screaming.

Kjella

Re:The footage isn't usually the problem...

[Coryoth]

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.

Re:Adding the "books that should be movies" subthr

[bhima]

I am still traumatized by the SciFi Channel's adaptation of the Earthsea cycle to want a book to become a movie (or a mini-series).

Gavin Scott, the Butcher of Earthsea, should not be allowed to read or write ever again.

But you are right on the SnowCrash thing or A Diamond Age which I also enjoyed.

Trailer mirror

[maswan]

Here is a mirror of the english trailer:

http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/temp/lnluksm.avi

Re:lords and ladies

[Denyer]

it pretty much doesn't matter with the discworld stuff.

Well, Lords and Ladies is the first book where the author thought it worth including a note in the front to the effect that it helps to have read them in some kind of order. (And gave a short summary of events so far.)

Usually...

[GNUThomson]

unless it is uni-form-hot-chicks.de or something. But that kind of sites have their educational goals, anyway.

Watched the trailer!

[Stalyn]

....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.

Another Pratchett Film

[Ray Radlein]

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.

Considered

[Mark_MF-WN]

Do these people ever consider the idea that maybe... just maybe... books don't translate well into movies? It's not exactly a strange idea. Look at how badly music translates into movies, or how poorly a sculpture translates into a song. I say let books stay books. Just come up with new ideas for movies.

Hmmm. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm going to start a project to convert Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" into a television series.

Re:I have a torrent...

[Dogtanian]

...up my ass.

ROFL... this is the most incompetent troll I've seen for a long time; everyone knows that the goatse.cx account has been suspended for *months*! (BTW, looks like its replacement, goat.cx has met a similarly tragic fate)

Good account name though...

Re:flamebait, sure

[Mac Degger]

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.