The Future

Via Tom Lee, a clip from what's apparently an even longer CGI-produced drama, made on an amateur basis by an Italian group called Cee-Gee.

I'm coming around to Tom's view that cinema can and will be made on an amateur peer-production basis and that at some point the sort of obviously competent techies who did this will hook up with some less-inept actor and writer types and produce something with more merit. One obstacle to hobbyist production of this sort, however, is that you need a confluence of interests to put it together. Commerical cinema is driven by the interaction of cost and consumer demand. Amateur cinema would be driven by producer interests. Your stereotypical techie interests -- Star Wars sequels, giant robots, etc. -- aren't the kind of projects that are likely to attract a ton of skilled actors sufficiently passionate about the endeavor to work for free.

4/20/07 12:08PM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Please explain hows thats different than most student films.

Posted by: Rob on April 20, 2007 12:43 PM

You have maybe forgotten that a similar dynamic to what you describe (with additional studio funding) brought us the classic of modern cinema known as "Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow."

A necessary part of coherent moviemaking, for better or worse, is having a director with a vision whose directions will be obeyed and whose deadlines will be met. Maybe an organized group capable of comparable vision can coalesce through the Internet and produce a great or even good feature-length film (or even a short), but I just haven't seen it happening.

Posted by: James Gary on April 20, 2007 12:47 PM

..or to put it more succinctly: cinema is an art form, and art is not made by committee.

Posted by: James Gary on April 20, 2007 12:53 PM

Hey, that was pretty cool... but, somehow, very boring. I'm not sure why (maybe the length? The battle scenes took forever. Music?).

Posted by: Korha on April 20, 2007 12:58 PM

Please explain hows thats different than most student films

Well, one distinction is that it's not made by students as a required step in their training, but rather by professionals who just decided to do it for fun.

This short isn't going to win any academy awards, and neither did Sky Captain. But the idea that user-generated content can't be as good as the professional stuff just seems silly to me. Have a brief look around the internet -- you'll find plenty of free, pro-quality content, from Matt's original blog to the Hillary 1984 ad.

Is the average quality of UGC lower than professional media? Of course, and it's likely to stay that way. But that gap is clearly closing, and I see no reason why a significant portion of hobbyist online endeavors can't eventually become competitive with for-profit ones. We're already seeing it happen with software, music, writing, design -- are you really so sure that movies are a special case?

Posted by: tom on April 20, 2007 01:13 PM

If thats the point, its already happened in Red vs Blue.

Posted by: Rob on April 20, 2007 01:17 PM

I've seen numerous shorts from animation students, and many (even most) of them are better than this. Have the producers even bothered to watch American war movies from the time? The pilots speak like present-day Americans (bringing up the question of why the robot swam to New Jersey - and only managed to destroy a bunch of trucks and get off three shots against the main target of battleships - when he should have been swimming to England), but people didn't generally speak like that in WWII.

Anyway, the Nazi robot concept got done to death in the Hellboy comics.

Posted by: burritoboy on April 20, 2007 01:27 PM

Well, in fairness I think the animation was top notch. Are there really a lot student shorts that are better quality than this (and if so, where are they avaliable)? Obviously the producers have some work to do with the script and premise, though.

Posted by: Korha on April 20, 2007 01:31 PM

The animation was okay, but it was boring. It doesn't matter who creates it, if there isn't a story and good acting it's going to blow. Until they create CGI characters with emotion (Gollum being the closest they've come imo) most computer generated content will just be ooh-ahh stuff.

The studios will never go away because they control distribution. Sure you can distribute something over the Internets but for *mass* consumption the Net is a long long ways off.

Posted by: Fred on April 20, 2007 01:37 PM

most computer generated content will just be ooh-ahh stuff.

it doesn't have anything to do with it being computer generated, most movies nowadays feature computer generated content in one form or another and most student and hobbyist films, computer generated or not, are a bit lacking in the story and acting department

Posted by: novakant on April 20, 2007 01:59 PM

Swimming to New Jersey (or even Virginia Beach, where the Atlantic fleet is based), so what's with all the palm trees? Also, World War II fighters used Single Side Band radios, the pilots' voices should have sounded distorted over the radio. Finally, this takes place in 1943, the P-51s only used the black stripes on the wing for D-Day (in 1944). On June 5, every Allied plane had the stripes painted on to provide a simple IFF (identify friend or foe) system.

Damn it, didn't anyone call Dale Dye before they shot this. :o)

Posted by: beowulf on April 20, 2007 03:03 PM

The studios will never go away because they control distribution. Sure you can distribute something over the Internets but for *mass* consumption the Net is a long long ways off.

Replace "studios" with "record labels" and see how believable it sounds. We've already got downloadable movies; it'd be naive to think that consumer devices will remain as tightly-coupled to proprietary services as they currently are. Consumers will get smarter about this stuff, and then they'll no longer need the simplicity of a media PC that limits their choices to iTunes.

Good point re: Red vs. Blue, Rob.

Posted by: tom on April 20, 2007 03:04 PM

I feel like it's been a while since we've had good robot movie.

Posted by: JP on April 20, 2007 03:07 PM

Matt's obviously never seen the Star Trek Original Series (TOS)fan films called "New Voyages." They're produced by a guy who was an Elvis impersonator out of upstate NY. They actually have people who worked on the series and the films help out with the episodes. They've even had actors from the original series work on the episodes.

And no, don't youd dare ask me why I know this.

Posted by: Sharon on April 20, 2007 04:15 PM

I agree that the story could have used some serious attention. That's true of a lot of Hollywood films as well, though. And I really do have to support anything that gets WWII nerds all up in arms about nosecone designs and so forth.

Posted by: tps12 on April 20, 2007 07:18 PM

What's with all the squeaking? If the Nazi scientists could invent a super armed automaton, surely they could have developed a decent grease sleeve for joints and bearings...

Posted by: Jimmmmm on April 20, 2007 08:33 PM

Ummm, you are all very harsh critics. Yeah, fine, the plot was uninspiring, but seriously, where are all of these amazing robot CGI movies? If there actually are a lot of them available, I need to know!

Posted by: new world order on April 20, 2007 08:48 PM

You guys are all missing the main point. The American robot took the Nazi robot's arm off and beat him with it.

Posted by: Jeff on April 20, 2007 08:59 PM

Jeff,

I was thinking that was a pretty innovative move. Disarticulating your enemy and then beating him to death with his own arm. That's taking it to the next level.

Posted by: beowulf on April 21, 2007 02:27 AM

So how long ago did Troops come out, anyway? Speaking of hobbyist short films, and all.

Posted by: Tom Scudder on April 21, 2007 02:49 AM

Just FYI, the current issue (#90) of 3D World Magazine has a long feature-- with pictures and graphs and interviews--on this very topic. The article doesn't seem to be available online, but I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who has more than a passing interest. The magazine's website is at:

http://www.3dworldmag.com

Posted by: James Gary on April 21, 2007 11:12 AM

I liked this! But then, I liked Sky Captain, so I guess that invalidates my tastes for the greater community. Sigh.

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