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Sci-Fi on the Cheap
lowbudgetfun writes "NYTimes.com is reporting on the Sci-Fi channel's huge investment (28 films for $21 million) for original B movies. Includes quotes from B Movie hero, Bruce Campbell." I especially liked this line from the article: "Shot on budgets ranging from $1 million to $2 million, Sci Fi's movies are made in money-saving locales like Bulgaria, Romania and Missouri."
It's the perfect place to shoot a remake of, "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
July 10, 2005
B Movies Invade Your TV!
By LEWIS BEALE
"ATTACK OF THE SABRETOOTH." "Bloodsuckers." "The Man With the Screaming Brain." And, most indelible of all, "Mansquito."
A combination of outrageous genre concepts, low-budget filmmaking and sensationalized titles like the roll call above are all part of the Sci Fi Channel's attempt to establish a presence on Saturday nights, when a good number of potential viewers are out, asleep or watching reruns. The programming strategy has been a major success, with numbers that far exceed anyone's expectations.
"Alien Apocalypse," Sci Fi's biggest Saturday hit, attracted 2.7 million viewers in March. That may be a pittance for CBS or NBC, but it constitutes a major audience for a niche network. And besides, said Steve Sternberg, a television analyst at MagnaGlobal USA, "Friday and Saturday have become very weak nights for the broadcast networks," which, he explained, "have not been able to draw enough viewers with original entertainment series. Cable networks can flourish with much smaller audiences. Original horror and sci-fi movies seem like the perfect programming for Saturday night."
"They're good at the 'D' word, demographics," said Bruce Campbell, a star of B movies who also wrote, directed and starred in the "Screaming Brain" film, to be shown in September. "I think they're micromarketing," he said, "which in this fragmented world makes sense. They're saying, 'Who's at home on Saturday night?' "
The answer might be surprising. Nearly half of Sci Fi's audience is female, and in the highly sought-after 25-to-54-year-old demographic category, Sci Fi is the No. 4 basic cable network on Saturdays, behind TNT, USA and TBS.
Sci Fi's foray into Saturday night mayhem began in 2002, when network executives realized that cheap, independently made genre pictures, an important element of their programming mix, were hardly being produced any more. So, said Tom Vitale, the Sci Fi Channel's senior vice president for original movies "We had a choice of recycling older movies or going out and trying to create original movies ourselves. We went back to these producers who made genre movies, and asked them if they wanted to make them with us."
People like Ken Badish jumped at the chance. Mr. Badish's company, Active Entertainment, will have produced nine Sci Fi movies by the end of 2005, high-concept features like "Mansquito" (experiment gone awry creates man-mosquito hybrid!), and "Alien Lockdown" (government science produces horrific slime thing!).
The most important element of a Sci Fi film, Mr. Badish said, "is a topical film that has relevance to our audience."
"In a film coming up," he added, "stem cells are key to the plot; in another, it's mad cow disease. Secondly, there's a good story. Like we're shooting a 'Jaws'-kind of movie featuring a giant squid. We make a reasonable use of C.G.I., because the audience wants that escapist thing. And we add emotional content, so the audience can feel for the characters."
Often that amounts to borrowing shamelessly from works like "Alien," "The Fly" and "The Thing" and then adding ideas gleaned from Scientific American or Wired.
Shot on budgets ranging from $1 million to $2 million, Sci Fi's movies are made in money-saving locales like Bulgaria, Romania and Missouri. They're cast with B-list celebrities like Luke Perry and Stephen Baldwin, with the occasional big-picture actors - Sean Astin and John Rhys-Davies of "Lord of the Rings" - making an appearance. The network pays $750,000 for domestic TV rights, and the producers make their money back through international and DVD sales.
But are the films any good? Critics have not found much to praise, though some seem to have tried pretty hard. Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times said "Chupacabra: Dark Seas" (monster runs amok on a cruise liner!) was "founded on broad clichés, overacted and clumsily blocked." But she added that the casting of serious actors like Mr. Rhys-Davies and Gianc
Hello lowbudget ... although the article matybe is interesting (as for the news is) i kinda don't like attitude. What is the funny thing about bulgaria. I LIVE here and i am proud. I have net and probably win more money compared to our standards than you. What makes you think you are better than me.
I don't intend this to be flame ... but i feel outraged
In fire we trust http://www.getoto.net
I wish they would focus on producing more original series to replace the ones they dropped. I also think they should pick up popular sci-fi shows dropped by other networks. Farscape was one of the best Scifi shows on TV. While I didn't really care for Firefly, it has a proven audience. Scifi should be all over this property once the movie is released.
I also wish that they would throw some of that money at JMS, and let him make "The Memory of Shadows" for TV.
They should also focus less on topic such as ghosts and horror movies. IMHO these do not qualify as real scifi.
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
Here you have one very good reason why SciFi as a genre, is not taken seriously by most people over the age of 12.
I enjoy a good number of B-Movies (and even a few C and D-list films), but I get worried when the predominant type of movie being produced is deliberately low-brow and sets the bar so low in fact, a first year film student could trip over it.
The idea that SciFi can be well-written and produced with some care is hard for many people to accept these days, as all they see is schlock put together on the cheap as fast as humanly possible to give the channel in question a quick cash infusion
In a day when even comic books and fantasy novels are taken seriously by the masses due to the amount of effort put into adapting them to the screen, it nearly brings a tear to my eye to consider that the bargain-bin product coming from The SciFi Channel is pretty much the cream of the crop these days.
I really don't know what I would do if a studio announced they were hiring an extremely adept filmmaker and screenwriter to put The Foundation series into theatres.
Probably cry.
Every time I see a commercial for one of these cinematic disasters (and I don't just mean the actual disaster films) I cringe, and ask myself why are they wasting money on this crap. To this say I miss 'The Invisible Man' the series. I donno if they ran out of money or budget, but it was clever deep and well written, instead we get another snake of the week movie.
On top of this, SciFi is cutting out the Stargate opening credits to get more advert time. I know *I* want sci fi to stay 'on air' so i can keep watching Stargate and BSG, but I feel like I'm getting the poo from a 1 million Genetically modified monkeys on typewriters thrown at me with these movies.
PS. Dear SciFi. the idea of mutant screenwriting monkeys is available for a modest sum.
Bulgaria and Romania is joining the European Union in a couple of years. We might consider to accept Missouri as well if you will behave and make some progress...
And some might say that comparing Bulgaria to Missouri is harsh.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.