Slashdot Mirror
Indie Horror Film Shows What You Can Do (And Get) For Free
Wescotte writes "The Amateur Monster Movie is the first feature length film by King's Tower Productions and writer/director Kyle Richards, all filmed within an hour of Milwaukee, WI over the course of 57 days during the summers of 2009 and 2010. It was shot as a 'no-budget' film and the entire cast and crew worked for free on owned or borrowed equipment. After a few film festival appearances, highlighted by the Wisconsin Film Festival, and — a cast and crew favorite — the Oshkosh Horror Film Festival, Richards decided to release the film for free online, a move intended to encourage more movies and media to do the same and allow free media access to everyone online. The film can be streamed from Vimeo and YouTube or downloaded via torrent at Pirate Bay, KAT, and magnet link. More information and production stills can be found at the Facebook Page, and IMDB." The acting is straightforwardly campy, but (promise or warning) the gory, zero-budget special effects start about four minutes in.
...but that would be straling the publisher's HARD WORK!
THINK OF THEIR CHILDREN!
oh, wait...
I'll leave this here: Vodo
Great stuff there
So the magnet link was broken, but tinyurl supports magnets , because slashdot mangles magnetlinks.
He posted a link to this movie in a piratebay article earlier.
I watched it then, I'd recommended it now.
...see Jiggly Baby 3 (http://youtu.be/PX92BOIkBs8 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2278686). And yes, it really is the third in the series.
Preferably one set in NYC. I hear there is a *huge* demand for that genre.
Maybe I should start advertising for it in my sig...
Death is cheap.
...that 99% of the time they are utter shit
It's ok for an indie zero budget movie, but for real quality, you need to spend at least 50 mil.
Sucks ass
Don't care what the reviews say about this one, it can't be any worse than Dorm of the Dead.
Hey everybody, I made this movie. I was the writer, director, producer, co-editor, and an actor, and I did a bunch of other shit too such as remove hiss from over 900 individual audio clips! It was awesome. If anyone is interested in knowing anything about this great film please ask me and I will be happy to try and answer. Thanks for giving the movie a watch, I'm happy to have your support!
Cheeseheads.
I don't know why "the haters"are coming out lock, stock, and fold. For one, this is an attempt at reclaiming the art of movie making from the big budget, mafiaa studios. Instead of judging the movie by comparison to these big budget studios, watch it for what it is and enjoy the fact that it was made by some everyday, above-average joes. I'm going to watch it now.
Ok, I managed to get through the first 30 minutes, laughed my head off and feel generally quite well entertained.
Remarkably well done for a zero budget movie.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Seems like the B moives you see on the syfy channel the that are so bad they are good.
Are best suited to low budget. Leave the shiny gore FX to the studio's
You can produce good low budget sci fi with simple props. Hell even have windows 8 tablets for touche screens. Cell phones for communicators.
Play acting is some what part of the art of suspending disbeliefs with simple props and its always done well at the Ren Faire, can be done well on youtube. Or others.
See Pioneer One.
One has to just learn to write the setting around the budget instead of writing the budget around the setting.
Drunken Gamers Radio, a group of people who run a gaming podcast, are also making an indie horror movie around Wisconsin as well. Can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll also check out this movie, looks good.
I'd like to just get my two-cents in about SAG-AFTRA, the main actors' union filmmakers have to deal with these days. I make films too, and while I submit them to film festivals, just like this film I prefer to release it free online when it's out of the film festival circuit. While SAG-AFTRA does have accommodations for no budget films, where you don't have to pay the actors professional rates (actors, both union and non-union, often will work for free or very low compensation, mainly for the experience), they have a seemingly arbitrary limitation on how you can distribute the film afterward. A SAG-AFTRA rep told me that I could show my films in film festivals, or online (new media), but not both. If I distributed the film on both, they require me to adhere to the laundry list of standards enforced on big budget productions, including compensating each actor at $100/day. So basically, if you recruit a SAG-AFTRA actor for a no budget production, your film will get swept under the carpet after it's out of the festivals. My advice to indie filmmakers... do not consider union actors. Hold longer auditions if necessary.
Sorry but it is tiresome, I constantly hear how much better fan movies are than Hollywood movies but they always have the same problems, lousy script and terrible acting. There have been a few exceptions but even Iron Sky had the problem of a brilliant concept that they didn't know what to do with and they had a substantial budget and lots of free labor. Also camp films are played straight not played for laughs. It's the ridiculous qualities that make them camp not over the top acting. Fan movies will only come into their own when people take them seriously enough to put the effort into making them professional. A few sneak through like Primer. All it really involved were a couple guys and a camera with generic locations. The story got too confusing but otherwise it was good. One of my favorite films in the last ten years was something called "The Man From Earth". It's on Netflix and highly recommended. The whole film involves a group of middle aged friends in a cabin talking. The actors were unknowns but the script was brilliant. Pure storytelling. It was the last thing Jerome Bixby ever wrote, one of my favorite writers. Can't write? Here's a thought, there's an ocean of classic novels and short stories that are public domain. Don't try to "fix" them just lift the dialogue directly and the story is all there. Most of the public domain works don't involve expensive production values like sets and special effects. Look at Lovecraft. He rarely shows anything in his stories they are often all sounds and mood and yet no one has tried to do a literal adaptation. There are hundreds of others he's just an example. I never understood people taking a brilliant story and trying to fix it. I saw one lately based on the Call of Cthulhu only they tried to do it as a silent film. The opening titles were excellent so I was excited. Sadly it was all in video and little was attempted to make it look silent. I fast forwarded to the end to see what they did for the big ending. Probably the best attempt in the movie. Big cheesy sets which weren't a problem but the goofy animation kind of stood out. It did get me thinking about doing a modern silent movie. Sadly it begs to be shot with an old hand crank camera. There are ways to mimic the degraded film look. I read something a while back of a guy who took some badly scratched up white leader and had it scanned and used it as an overlay which worked really well to get dust and scratches. Just find some one to scan a minute or two of damaged leader and just either comp it in After Effects or even try keying out the white in your editing software. A vignette mask is easy enough to make it's mimicing the speed changes and jumping, the oid stock had oddly sized sprocket holes making it unsteady. Just a thought but if you don't have money be inventive and creative and if you can't write borrow a classic. There are thousands of brilliant short stories and novels free for the taking just have the sense to leave them alone. If you can't write a script then it's unlikely you can improve a classic. One of my favorite film quotes is from Magnum Force, "A good man knows his limitations". There's nothing wrong with not being able to write but a good film makers knows his strengths and weaknesses. Even pros have used iPhones and Canon still cameras to shoot professional films so put the effort into learning how to do it right. Learn how to do "L" cuts in dialogue and to shoot coverage. Video is cheap. Actually shoot masters, twos and CUs. Always get a good take and a safety. Even a good take can have technical problems. Sound is the biggest thing that separates the men from the boys. Foley clips are like gold. I personally follow the rule that everything has a sound. Always add a room tone or ambient sound. If some one moves quickly add a sound for it. I'm not talking chop socky sounds I often take them down to where I can barely hear it then drop it one DB. Believe it or not even something that faint adds color to the sound. Creative is only half the battle you have to be able to master the technical if
Actually, I'd say much better than run-of-the-mill Most Dangerous Night on TV SyFy originals. This movie doesn't take itself seriously. Those do. Plus, this one is better lighted.
It's in the subject line, the comment is redundant but I had to type something ;)
while (true != false) process_more_stupid_code();
Hey everybody, I made this movie. I was the writer, director, producer, co-editor, and an actor, and I did a bunch of other shit too such as remove hiss from over 900 individual audio clips! It was awesome. If anyone is interested in knowing anything about this great film please ask me and I will be happy to try and answer.
Thanks for giving the movie a watch, I'm happy to have your support!
I would love to be as productive as you, and to make a film like you did even if its released for free. How did you schedule your time to do it all so quickly and how did you avoid costly mistakes?
We've slowly been working on a Cthulhu/Lovecraft style universe with erotic story aspects but thanks to the collapse of film making in Michigan it's slow going. Anyone interested check out http://www.hex.xxx/ we've got some short YouTube videos up and are looking for interested folks both here and online to participate. - HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
It's the single most important detail and omitted from the summary... way to go!
Star of "American Movie"... nice to see the midwest indie film scene represented...
Thank you. It's not easy to find time to do all of this that's for sure. The main thing is, as the director and/or producer, you need to make yourself available to shoot at nearly any time possible, then you can adapt to the ever-changing schedules of your peers. I was lucky enough to be working a part time job that only required me to work during lunch during the week, so I had weeknights and weekends free while we were shooting. I used weeknights to schedule with the cast and crew and weekends to shoot. During shooting months, I basically had no social life. It can be incredibly difficult to schedule that many people for free, I don't recommend that large of a cast to start with! :) But in the end, it was that, honestly, unless they've all been BSing me, everyone who was working on the project in any significant capacity really seemed to care about finishing and really seemed to like the material.
...and as you can see, that's often what happened :)
Costly mistakes did happen. I was 19 when we started production, 21 at the premiere, and 23 when the DVDs were finished (now). I originally thought it would take me less than a year haha! The worst setback was that we went through 2 lead actresses, the second of which filmed about 90% of her scenes before randomly deciding to never show up again, and it was tough getting everybody behind reshooting with a third actress, but it happened, and we're all happy it did as we have a much better movie because of it. If you are determined enough and give it the thought it requires, you can do almost anything. Make lemonade out of life's lemons and other such cliches.
It often came down to me saying "I will be damned if this doesn't get done, even if I have to do it myself!"
We've slowly been working on a Cthulhu/Lovecraft style universe with erotic story aspects but thanks to the collapse of film making in Michigan it's slow going. Anyone interested check out http://www.hex.xxx/ we've got some short YouTube videos up and are looking for interested folks both here and online to participate. - HEX
I really wouldn't encourage a whole bunch of slashdotters to "help out" because they think they're going to get a chance to see some boobies.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it