Discworld Fan Film Possibly the Largest Scale Fan Film Ever
An anonymous reader writes "After clocking in at $82,000 on their Kickstarter campaign, two Troll Bridge trailers have been released online showing helicopter shots in New Zealand (video) and a large scale bridge set that was built and shot on (video). A Behind the Scenes (video) has also been released demonstrating what fans are now actually capable of, given decent crowd-funding. The film has finished shooting and is expected to be released next year. Sir Terry Pratchett has been apparently thrilled with the progress."
But can it beat Star Wreck for best production award?
Lest you auteurs out there get too exciting, thinking you're going to film your Michael Bay ripoff dream project for a song, keep in mind that the entire cast and crew *volunteered* on the project (some for years). If you were to factor that cost in, it wouldn't surprise me if the actual cost of this project was well north of $1 million.
I just wanted to mention that, because these kinds of fan films often advertise incredibly low budgets that mislead a lot of people to think that real filmmaking is easy and cheap, and anyone can do it. It reality it takes a team of pros to produce a decent effort (not just some shitty student film or Youtube novelty). It's just that very low-budget efforts often get those pros to *donate* their services. They're not going to do that for your average Michael Bay ripoff.
My personal favorite professional-grade fan film is Broken Allegiance, easily the best Star Wars fan film ever made (IMHO). It was shot in Australia with a volunteer cast and crew made up of film professionals for about $10,000. It's one of the few fan films I've seen with professional lighting, actors who aren't horrific, and a halfway decent script. And it's one of the few Star Wars fan films that plays it straight instead of doing the 10-millionth stupid parody of a franchise that's almost become a parody of *itself*.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I still don't think that it'll beat the "Sex Trek" series...
Interpret "beat" however you will...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Hell, it doesn't translate out of any of the books whatsoever.
Discworld plays, board games, video games (yes, Discworld I and II were NOT "Discworld", just Simon-the-Sorceror style cash-ins), etc. 99% of the Discworld merchandise is absolute tat. Hell, even the endless calendars, "science books", and everything else are a waste of space.
I don't blame Pratchett and/or his agent for cashing in - far from it, I'd do the same. But it remains true that every adaptation outside of the books just can't do them justice.
Hell, I cringed through the first 10 minutes of the TV adaptations we had over in the UK "starring" David Jason, etc. Ick. I had to switch it off.
Some series you can do justice too (whether they have or not is another matter) - Lord of The Rings you can do quite well (though I don't like the current versions, there's sure to be a remake in 10 years time with even more "extra footage"), most sci-fi authors you can do quite well. But comedy literature is a tough one to crack and it won't translate to the screen properly at all.
All it *will* do is put people off trying to read the books because they've seen the (crappy) TV/movie versions.
In one book, Death has a scythe that's so sharp it slices his sentences in half when he speaks. Vimes is an ugly, fat, old alcoholic copper that kicks arse (okay, they NEARLY managed that in a lot of 80's cop shows). Unseen University is technically invisible (or not, depending on which part of which book you read). There are pages of explanations spread across 20+ books about how some of the elements of the world came about (e.g. klacks, other dimensions, Angua, Dibbler, etc.). How the hell do you translate that to a movie or even a play?
They should stop trying. At best you can attempt an amateur play or an audiobook reading. At worst, everything else you put out ruins the books even more.
Death has a scythe that's so sharp it slices his sentences in half when he speaks.
"The ticking of the clock stitched the blanket of time."
Drop the unfilmable metaphors and you lose half of the best stuff.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I see where you're coming from but it doesn't change the fact that the budget is $82,000. Yes, plenty of people are donating time and resources and yes, not everyone can produce a similar film for that money, but regardless of how, they are producing this film on a $82,000 budget. That's very impressive.
Why do you have to be a professional film maker to make something that isn't ridiculous? I know two different film makers who aren't "professionals" who make films with excellent production values for virtually nothing. One makes short comedies and the other makes many variations of film.
If you watch the trailers you'll see good locations, costuming, and decent editing. You'll also see ridiculous acting and, apparently, ridiculous direction.
Don't conflate 'amateurish' with 'ridiculous.'
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I think for a fan film made on a shoestring budget they looked very professional and well-done. Better than movies like The Gamers, which I hold up as pretty well done.
Do you know what goes into making a movie? I don't think you're being realistic at all. You want TV-show closed-set professionalism for $82,000?
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Do you know what goes into making a movie?
I do actually, and I know that is is INCREDIBLY hard work. That being said, it is certainly achievable.
$82,000 is a lot more money than many films are ever made with and I don't recall seeing too many that were laughably bad like the trailers were.
Making a decent film is tough, making a decent trailer is much easier. If the trailer(s) are hokey, the movie is going to be an order of magnitude worse. As Clint likes to say - "A man's got to know his limitations..."
I hope I'm wrong because I've loved lots of other fan films.
Do you remember the Star Wars 'Cops' parody 'Troops'? It was Rubio and friends with a LOT of ILM/Lucasfilm guys helping out, made for nothing.
I remember laughing my a** off while working at SoftImage when some of the DigitalStudio guys made cuts and trailers out of it.
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Different books give the reader different levels of "imagining" - the Harry Potter series, to pick an example that's similar to Pratchett in setting if not writing, doesn't give you a lot of leeway in imagining the settings and characters, it's firmly placed in our world with a few standard fantasy additions.
Pratchett, on the other hand, allows much more free reign for the imagination. I've not found any of the TV mini-series to match the images running through my head, it all seems a lot more cartoon-like and sanitised. I suspect they've used the Kirby/Kidby images as inspiration, because those never really matched my reading of it either. Personally I read Pratchett as much more deadpan and gritty than any interpretation I've seen - it's possibly a result of a strong American influence in recreating what is very British humour at its heart.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
I guess Clerks was shot for like ~$23,000 and it was pretty professional cinematography. They had to shoot in B&W and most of the actors volunteered as well, though.
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Should all fan fiction be NYT Bestseller List worthy?
All fan art worthy of the Louvre, instead of something that looks like it belongs on my fridge?
I cringe to think of what you say about your kid's macaroni art family portrait.....
So why do amatuers making a fan film have to display a professional hollywood level of expertise?
The whole point is its a labor of love from people who love the topic, regardless of their expertise. It had meaning to them, as well as to (hopefully) other fans who can also appreciate it for what it is. I'm not conflating anything. You are however very confused.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Is impossible to translate fully a Discworld book, just too much of them is not visual. Instead, try to do a different film that catches the spirit of it.
I'm a tv producer. When producing a short, feature, tv series, etc. and you're looking for money you need to have very clear your budget. Maybe you can count with donations like this project, but any contribution should count as part of the budget.
It's very common when you're producing that your investors and partners don't want to pay for the whole development or pre-production, they think the same as you do that some work doesn't has a cost. But everything has a cost, from the original story (are they paying something to Mr. Pratchett or the editors?), to the guy doing the screen writing (hey, adapting a short story to a movie film takes time and talent, most of the time only the former), and all the rest of the stuff to finish a project.
What you do when the investors don't want to pay for the development? you include these figures in the production budget. But wait! the investor don't want to pay for the post-production, what you do? you include the cost in the development or start looking for more investors. They think your movie costs X, but in rality costs more, a lot more.
It's a trap to think you don't need to count donations as part of the budget, it's a trap investors use in their favor.
It's amazing what some people can accomplish. I play that movie as background noise when I'm coding all the time, lol - "In a row?"
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The discussion about contractors working on the 2nd death star blew my mind.
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Should all fan fiction be NYT Bestseller List worthy?
Building yourself a strawman here? LOL. I didn't say it need be 'oscar worthy', I simply asked if anyone else thought the trailers were amateurish to the point of being ridiculous. If don't agree, great, but stop trying to make it sound like I'm disappointed it's not 'Avatar' in chainmail.
All fan art worthy of the Louvre, instead of something that looks like it belongs on my fridge?
I cringe to think of what you say about your kid's macaroni art family portrait.....
Sanctimonious much? :)
So why do amatuers making a fan film have to display a professional hollywood level of expertise?
Again, the only person making this stipulation is you. I, as is clear to someone less hotheaded and looking to argue as yourself, simply found the trailers to be shockingly amateurish.
If you had an OP that stated you thought the trailers looked great and wondered what other people thought - I would hope nobody who disliked the trailers would attack you for stating that you think fan films must be hokey pieces of crap...
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http://www.whysanity.net/monos/clerks5.html
Vintage!
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Dude. Do NOT go there (again, because you already did). Please.
Going Postal was not great but it was a decent effort and quite watchable. And I'm really picky about that kind of thing.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
I'd quite like Gilliam to have a stab at it.
Should all fan fiction be NYT Bestseller List worthy?
It should aspire to be a lot better. Kevin J Adamson's.... material.... regularly features on that list. The bar really isn't that high.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
D'oh. Kevin J Anderson. I deeply apologise to all the hardworking Kevin J Adamsons in fanfic whose life I have inadvertently ruined by comparing to the perpetrator of Jedi Academy and Prelude to Dune.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Gilliam has been trying to get funding for his completed script of Good Omens for over a decade. (But it looks like it's going to be done as a TV movie instead.)
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Interestingly, both Hogfather and Going Postal matched the characters I had in my head almost exactly. Especially Susan and Moist respectively.
(The Colour of Magic is best forgotten, though. In my head of, Rincewind is played by Rhys Ifans.)
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The early animated adaptions are excellent - "Soul Music" was very well done, close to the book and I felt captured the spirit. Same people did "Wyrd Sisters", but I haven't seen that.
Yes, but this scene in Hogfather is FANTASTIC. The movie as a whole had issues, but certain scenes were great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUt6sPXQQus&feature=my_liked_videos&list=LL5r1UH5HEr9gIxn7QyDhUrg
Just needs a good narrator and screenplay to go with it. Not impossible but the combo is hard to come by.
Spaceballs did it well. The Princess Bride did it well. Maybe Mel Brooks should do it? Is he still alive?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.