Slashdot Mirror
Filmmaker Forces Censors To Watch 10-Hour Movie of Paint Drying (ibtimes.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: A British filmmaker has forced the people who decide how to censor films to watch a 10-hour movie of paint drying on a wall following a protest fundraising campaign. Charlie Lyne launched a Kickstarter to help raise the money needed to send his 'documentary' of a single shot of paint drying on a wall for consideration as a protest against the 'stronghold' the organisation has on the British film industry. The BBFC charge an initial fee of $144.88 to view a film and decide what certificate to give it, and then and additional $10.15 for each minute that the film lasts. The idea was the more money Lyne could raise via his fundraiser, the longer his paint-drying film could last. The campaign eventually nearly £8,500, meaning he was able to send in a 607 minute video which the examiners had to watch in its entirety.
Pick a damn unit of currency and stick to it!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If they were filming as they were painting... as that first scene would have been the 'action' scene of the film.
It will probably sweep the Oscars... as long as it's white or beige paint.
Dark Reflection
No hard decisions, even if they had to 'watch' it they could just sit around chatting with coffee. It is a nice idea to DoS the censor's office but this method that involves horsing 8,500 quid straight into their pockets is not the way to do it
It should have been body paint on a side boob. Then at 606 minutes pan out to alllllllmost the nipple.
What rating did it receive?
They were watching the inverse Laplace Transform of subliminal porn.
Somebody at the BBFC thought it was funny, and responded with a joke of his own.
Tomorrow they go back to censoring.
Waste of money.
Does it really need to be watched in real time?
Was to give them 8,500 pounds to have them claim to watch the whole thing? Even if I didn't fast forward, that's still pretty good for 10 hours of work.
I wish someone would protest me that nicely. I'd really learn something. Feel free to repeatedly protest me.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
>which the examiners had to watch in its entirety.
Sure they did.
At semi-random intervals they should have inserted a couple frames of stuff that would actually need to be rated, to prevent the censors from just fast-forwarding or skipping large chunks, which i suspect is what actually happened.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I watched The Man Who Fell to Earth last weekend.
Torrent anyone?
I would imagine being able to encode this video with a ridiculously low bitrate and still achieve great pictures, albeit at low framerates. I would imagine most people would not be able to tell the difference however. 10 hour video, 1080p encoding for 10 MB?
Still a better love story than Twilight.
In the US, the MPAA is market-driven. As much as I don't like it, theaters stick with the MPAA guidelines. This is because theater owners hate getting calls from angry mothers about their 13-year-olds sneaking into particular movies.
No, I will not work for your startup
This was NOT helpful...
What a waste of money. If you don't like the rating system, distribute your material in other ways..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Is it on YouTube? I wanna watch it.
Charlie Lyne is an utter prick.
They should have put something to censor in the middle, for a few seconds. That way they could tell if the censors really did their job and watched it carefully.
A British filmmaker has forced the people who decide how to censor films to watch a 10-hour movie of paint drying on a wall following a protest fundraising campaign.
Does viewing the film imply viewing the whole of it in real time --- or that it can't be broken down into smaller, more manageable, pieces that can be screened independently?
The easiest way to put an end to stunts like this is to blandly give your grass-growing documentary an inoffensive rating without any further comment.
All he did was film paint drying. The censors did what they get paid to do, and went about their daily business.
Just put a web camera towards projection screen and set to detect and record motion movement.
If there are no changes, no exceptions, no hidden "frames", to this incredibly dull movie, motion movement recorder will have zero footage to review.
$600 per hour and 10 hour movie? Hell, I would be more than happy to take view the movie and sleep at the same time. Or clean the house.
When I worked as a lead video game tester, I was required to record a complete play through of the game on VHS tape. Normally, this would take eight hours. But the developers changed the next to last level prior to the final boss level that made it nearly impossible to go through without using any cheats. I flagged it. The developers didn't fixed it. I sent two video tapes to Sony with the eight hours of the complete play through and the eight hours of dying-and-reloading from save point for the next to last level. And then my boss yelled at me for not coming into work the next morning after working 40 hours straight to meet the code release deadline.
Please tell me he had someone walk behind the camera swearing profusely at around the 8 hour mark! The he could tell by the rating if they watched the whole thing...
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
I'm sure there are better ways to spend 10hrs, but I have to imagine that the censors have see movies that are FAR WORSE than simply paint drying.
Paint drying may be boring, but not bad. We all know a bad movie, bad even beyond funny. Just downright terrible. Those have to be far worse than watching paint dry. Imagine if we was able to stick a video camera on the main slaughter line at a slaughter house for 10 hours.
In an updated review, the film's rating was changed to "Mostly Harmless"
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
But did the BBFC really watch all 10 hours, or just use run it a high speed looking for a scene change. If it were me making this film I would definitely have put in some siliceous scenes of single or double frames (1/24s. 1/12s) with perhaps the occasional obscene word displayed subliminally (5% contrast) to see if they are on their toes.
If not, then HEY we just got smut past the censors, WIN!
As an art project someone should have filmed the film censors watching all the 607 minutes of the film. This could then be shown in galleries and museums.
This could turn into the start of a very nice recursion ...
I'm sure the BBFC has done worse and more mind-numbing things for funding than that. In the end, you simply gave the censors more money, dude. Easy money.
The campaign eventually nearly £8,500,
But then they accidentally the whole thing :-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They should stick a small section of hardcore pornography somewhere in the middle, to make sure that the censors actually watch the whole thing. If it comes out rated G, then you know they skipped it. Or better yet you can claim that they rated it G because they want kids to be exposed to hardcore pornography because they hate children.
From the web:
Surprising omissions from the actor race this year included Idris Elba for “Beasts of No Nation,” Will Smith for “Concussion,” Michael B. Jordan from “Creed” and the many young actors in “Compton.” link
Will Smith was fantastic in "Concussion." I didn't see Idris Elba in "Beasts of No Nation," but I'm going to rent it just to thumb my nose at the Academy. No interest in "Rocky VI" (ahem) "Creed," but I think Stallone got nominated for his performance in that one. It seems to me he's milked all the Oscars he should get out of "Rocky." Were the leads up to the same level? Don't know. "Straight Outta Compton" is another one I mean to hit in rental. No idea if it was any good, though.
Seems suspect. Insidious, isn't it? Definitely worth talking about. Quotas are probably the wrong way to go, though. Public shaming is fair game.
The filmmaker should have filmed them watching it, then submitted THAT film shortly afterwards.
I can't wait for this to come out on DVD.
I'd add 1 second of a swear word on screen somewhere inside the movie and if they didn't catch it, never let them hear the end of it.
DHI, this is not Amnesty international, nor is it yahoo news..
Please put your glasses on and see what your really putting out there??
and randomly insert single frame from pr0n film into that 10 hour paint job.
Let's see how many they can catch...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
They should have blasted out the Inception sound.
BWWWWOOONNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!
Then everyone shits their pants and has to sit there for the remaining 200 minutes.
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
If you pay me >$600/hr, I'll watch any damn thing you want. I'll watch your grandparents having sex. Hell, I'll watch my parents having sex, though I don't know what you're going to do for the other 58 minutes.
If I can rub one out while watching "The Biggest Loser", then I can rub one out to "Paint Drying".
The BBFC has reviewed hours of excrutiatingly boring content. Training videos, craptastic straight to video movies, soft porn, religious devotionals, videos of fireplaces and fish tanks. I bet 95% of the content they view is deadly dull. But they're paid by the hour to review it and I doubt it fazes them one bit. I doubt they especially care if they're paid to watch paint dry. Big deal. It gets a rating and then onto the next thing.
It's very easy to just fast forward paint-drying film and give it 'for everyone' rating. If they sent CCTV footage for 10 hours and have a naked person walk in front of the camera at one point, they would have to actually watch it.
...or "stranglehold"
Maybe it's one of those British-speak things, like boffins or wollygigs?
using John Cage – 4’33 as the soundtrack has so far gone unnoticed. With 10 hours of repeated looping of the song he could be in for a big civil settlement.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
At $10 a minute I expect the censor who had to watch the paint drying probably laughed through most of it.
VirtualDub can do it by fast forwarding. When enough of the image changes (say a hard cut) it automatically stops. Whoever watched it could fast forward through it.
Of course, they could have just dubbed over some offensive audio I suppose.
In the USA, film rating is voluntary
Yes, but the FCC is not, both the BBFC and FCC impose obscenity rules on broadcasters, both can levy large fines for non-compliance. Censorship exists in every nation, if you doubt that then try broadcasting kiddy porn from anywhere on earth. There are limits to freedom of speech around the world (even in the US), some are for common-sense, some for common decency, and far too many for political gain.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So, the film-maker was Dr. Forrester, and the censors were Joel, Tom, Crow, and Gypsy?
Wacky Delly did it 20 years ago!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b_polwFplI
If I can make $600/hour watching paint dry, sign me up!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
2001: the space odyssey was very similar to that.
The way the glistening film of paint gradually drys in patches and thins......gotta wank now...
He must have used some sort of old-school oil-based paint. Any water-based paint would be completely dry, at least visually, long before the ten hours were up, so there would really be nothing to see for the majority of the film.
If it was black paint it should get an Oscar nomination.
The paint is blue.
Kidding, of course I didn't click through to read before posting.