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$300 Sci-Fi YouTube Video Lands $30m Movie Deal
krou writes "A producer from Uruguay who made a short science fiction film and uploaded it to YouTube has landed a film deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House worth $300 million. The film, which shows spaceships and giant robots attacking Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, was made by Fede Alvarez for around $30. 'I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,' he said. Alvarez is to develop and direct a film based on one of his ideas, but there is no word yet on the writer."
As awesome as that video is - and it is pretty damn awesome, let there be no mistake about that - I suspect that it only cost $300 if he's considering the time of himself and his friends to be worth zero. (I'm assuming the group scenes were the result of getting a bunch of buddies together.)
I'd be interested to know how many hours of his own time were spent on that.
However, it is pretty awesome and the mere fact that he can do stuff like that with his limited resources is a sign that he may well deserve that money.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
The guy did a great job with the special effects, but story wise - meh.
So... what's your point?
It has no story. Aliens or robots kill humans is not a story and it's been done to death.
It's a very pretty video of a special effects demo.
I'm impressed by the special effects and not impressed by his story telling ability.
I can't think of any other way to put it.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Otherwise, point taken.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
That price clearly does not include the value of his time or any number of other things
The value of your time is whatever someone is paying you for it. If nobody is paying you for it, then that time is worth $0. It almost certainly has a non-monetary worth, but you don't add that to your budget tally.
For a direct comparison, when the contractor working on my house bills me for 20 hours at $30, and tells me that he donated 3 hours to fix a mistake he made or because he was being anal retentive about getting something perfect, my bill is $600. Those extra three hours, hypothetically worth $30 each, actually cost $0.
Just call it a hobby project or something, but don't claim it only cost $300.
It certainly was a hobby project, yet I don't see why that means it couldn't have been made for $300. My contractor isn't doing it as a hobby, it's his livelihood, yet the same rules apply.
The enemies of Democracy are
The project is budgeted at 30M.
This is Alvarez's first project, probably no agent, definitely no actors attached to it, so they will probably give him an 'advance' and then lots of interdependent if-then conditionals. He won't get any on-screen credits. (That sets off a bunch of payouts the producer normally keeps) Then one of two things happen to a first-time writer/creator.
1. The conditionals are never met. Alvarez keeps his pittance of an advance and makes a little beer money. This is normally how it works for a project off the street.
2. The producer reinterprets the contract or has some sort of magical contractual difficulty with Alvarez if the project is successful. Alvarez then might see his five figures after a few rounds in court and 6-figure legal bills.
Check out the legal wrangling on 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' as an example. According to the producer, that was an 'unprofitable' film. Welcome to business deals in Hollywood.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Being able to make movies much cheaper is a good thing. Means making a movie is much less financially risky, so people are more likely to back something new and unknown. Consumer grade equipment is getting better all the time, perhaps holywood won't be needed. This plus file sharing must have holywood filling their pants, not sure drawing such attention with such large sums of money was wise for them.....
What? Other than FX, which hollywood is pretty good at, what exactly does this film show?
That at least one of the barriers to market entry (the cost of producing good FX) is much lower than many people expect. Lower barriers to market entry mean more competition, potentially, which could be good for us lazy consumers either through lowering the cost of our entertainment or, preferably, increasing the variety of it.
Why might it improve variety? Good FX this cheap means there is one less thing standing between some impoverished writer/directer with good ideas and opportunities for him/her to see those ideas brought to fruition without having to involve the big money people who will panel beat the ideas into a lifeless mush designed not to put off any of the lowest common denominator audience by asking them to think and/or feel something they haven't thought/felt many times before from watching the homogenised output the industry is often lambasted for. The FX don't need to be giant robots - if things keep moving this way (and I don't see why they shouldn't) in the near future anyone with the right ideas+talent+time could create a full CGI production (removing set and sound studio expenses and reducing casting issues) of any type, not just SciFi/fantasy.
In short, this guy has achieved something impressive on a very low budget. Given his achievement, even while accepting it isn't perfect by any means, don't you wonder what he and/or other people could do in future with more time+budget?
movie? Shows it is better to post in youtube than to pimp your movie project in slashdot.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
This guy did a great job! 300 bucks, uploaded to Youtube, and he gets a Hollywood gig out it!! It's the Cherished Daydream of half the digital video hacks on this board -- maybe the whole 'Net. And you're going to hate on him because you think it's merely "a very pretty video of a special effects demo."
God bless this sonuvabitch. Let's see you do better.