GoldenJCJ

Did anyone catch the first epsiode of this 12-part HBO series?

Miramax, with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are greenlighting a film for a filmaker who is just starting out.

This first episode took 10 finalists from the 50,000+ online participants, from there they chose the top 3 and from there picked the winner.

obvioulsy the movie they make will be low budget but I think it's a great way for wannabe filmmakers to break into the business without knowing anyone on the inside.

So far, I think this is a great program I was genuinly happy for the winner (although, I knew who was going to win thanks to all the promos on HBO). It'll be great to follow the enitire production of this movie.

MrGoat00

I did see it and I have been anxiously awaiting this program for more than a year. I was one of the thousands of people that submitted a script into this contest. Unfortunately I did not make it past the first round, but I was very happy for those who did and getting that much closer to their dream. I think this is an excellent idea by matt and ben and Miramax, and I hope that they do a Project Greenlight 2, which will only happen based on the success of this show and the eventual release of the film. Until then, I will be watching and supporting this effort every week and polish my new script for the next contest.

GOAT.

das Monkey

Like any "real" reality show, I'm enjoying this so far. For me, real life is always more interesting than fantasy, and the best television shows and movies in my mind are the ones that best showcase the inate wonder of humanity. Watching this show reminds me of "Tough Enough" which was an incredible documentary on these kids trying to become pro wrestlers. I was pissed that they couldn't make that show an hour in length, and I feel the same way with "Greenlight."

My initial reaction from the limited exposure to the scripts and people is that they pussed out. This is an experiment. They will likely recoup their investment on publicity alone and their contract with HBO. So why play it safe? Go for broke. Everyone was scared that Brendan's movie would be difficult to make. It was great to see Damon in there fighting tooth and nail for that kid. He wanted to take a chance and try something difficult. In the end, it appeared conservative heads prevailed, and they went with the safer choice. I'm sure Pete's speach at the end helped quite a bit.

One thing's for sure ... it's going to be great watching this poor guy get ripped apart for the next 10 weeks. And I love what those two guys said getting into the elevator: "We've been surrounded by smart people all our lives, and in all that time we couldn't learn what we just learned in 5 minutes from them (the Miramax people) about how to make this a better movie." (Or something like that).

das

bdshort

Anyone catch this show? The first episode was pretty good, and I think it should be a pretty frank behind the scenes look at a new director/writer trying to get his film made.

Brian

Jadzia

I found this episode totally engrossing. Will definitely keep watching it!

The only complaint I have is that I wish I didn't know who had already won from the the pre-show hype. It would have been that more exciting. It was weird since I knew who won, to hear that at first no one seemed that excited about his script or directing.

This must have been filmed before Ben Affleck checked himself into rehab. I noticed in just about every scene he had a drink in his hand!

Jadzia

There's two threads on this show for some reason.

I found this episode totally engrossing. Will definitely keep watching it!

The only complaint I have is that I wish I didn't know who had already won from the the pre-show hype. It would have been that more exciting. It was weird since I knew who won, to hear that at first no one seemed that excited about his script or directing.

This must have been filmed before Ben Affleck checked himself into rehab. I noticed in just about every scene he had a drink in his hand!

Iron Chef

Well, I'm hooked.

Geofferson

I caught the last few minutes of the show and it looked promising. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch a repeat to see the whole episode.

das Monkey

^

das

Timber

Am I the only one that thought Freeing Mr. Jingles(I think that was it) could have been a good movie? Stolen Summer just doesn't sound like something that I would be interested in. I don't remember what the third movie was about but I'm just not into the "After School Special" type of movie. Was it posible for the F-bomb to be dropped anymore within the span of an hour? I think I'm going to enjoy this for the next 11 weeks. It seems like HBO has and endless supply of shows to keep putting out there, one ends and right off the bat there is another one to take it's place.

Iron Chef

What did you expect from Affleck and Damon?

MrGoat00

If anyone is at all interested in reading the winning script or any of the runner-ups, they are readily available at www.projectgreenlight.com By reading them you can guess yourself which one was better.

BoatDrinks

I noticed that, too. The story out here (in LA) is that it was this project which caused Ben to end up in rehab. Apparently, he was pretty out of control during most of this (which I'm sure they'll cut around) and finally Matt did an intervention type of thing.

Iron Chef

Now that would be great TV!

Filmmaker

Riveting! Had me literally on the edge of my seat, with butterflies in my stomach (even knowing the winner in advance)--it was too easy, considering my film career aspirations, to put myself in any one of those contestants' shoes. It even hooked my wife, who usually gets grumpy when I want to watch "film industry"-related stuff. I didn't think I'd have much use for HBO (for the near future) after BAND OF BROTHERS ended, but it looks like they just hooked me into another show! And the best thing--going by everything I was able to see, hear and otherwise gleen about the competing film projects, I've got a bright future in the film industry ahead of me--I was astounded at how banal and uninspired all of the final projects looked and/or sounded, including the winning film. If those projects beat out 10,000 lesser projects, then my future in Hollywood stands to be rosy indeed...

Filmmaker

Riveting! Had me literally on the edge of my seat, with butterflies in my stomach (even knowing the winner in advance)--it was too easy, considering my film career aspirations, to put myself in any one of those contestants' shoes. It even hooked my wife, who usually gets grumpy when I want to watch "film industry"-related stuff. I didn't think I'd have much use for HBO (for the near future) after BAND OF BROTHERS ended, but it looks like they just hooked me into another show! And the best thing--going by everything I was able to see, hear and otherwise gleen about the competing film projects, I've got a bright future in the film industry ahead of me--I was astounded at how banal and uninspired all of the final projects looked and/or sounded, including the winning film. If those projects beat out 10,000 lesser projects, then my future in Hollywood stands to be rosy indeed...

das Monkey

You guys can just post in one thread. Since the other thread was created 3 hours after this one already had 3 posts in it, I think the other author won't mind.

das

Derrich

I entered Greenlight and didn't make it past the first round. Not to sound like a sore loser, but I didn't think the winning scripts were all that good. They either had story problems(no focus), plot problems(boring) or were just kinda off. There were a lot of other scripts in the contest that were a lot more polished.

Also, I wish they had shown the entire scenes the writers had sent in. Only 2 of them(Jiggs and Speakeasy) looked like they were done with any skill. The other snippets shown looked like highschool a/v projects.

It was cool seeing the final selection process. The back and forth between all the money people and the creative types gave a lot of insight on how movies get made.

Part 2 should be good. I wonder how long it'll be before the winner implodes from all the pressure. A million dollar film is not the ideal place to begin your directing career.

D

Jeraden

After seeing the comments in here I watched it the other night on a rerun and wasn't too impressed. You'd figure if that many people submitted a script then you'd have some top notch finalists. The one that won sounded stupid, and none of the other finalists sounded especially interesting either. The worst was those short screening pieces they showed - my god they were horrible!

The whole concept seemed extremely flawed. The most glaring example is that it appeared they picked the first round of candidates solely by viewing their video introductions. I got the impression they didn't actually start reading scripts until they chose that first wave. So the best script in the world would get ignored if the guy didn't make a flashy/schticky intro video? (and all the ones they showed did have some form of schtick to them).

The show did a very poor job of describing what the films were about. In the final three they gave a 20 word description of the basic film plot, but that was it aside from the 10 sec clip of their test scene. I never did understand what Speakeasy was supposed to be about. All I know about Stolen Summer is some kid is talking about god and cancer and it has something to do with heaven - so it sounds like some pretentious religious film. And Jiggs was some cliched comedy about Homosexuality (why does it seem like half of all independent films are about homosexuality?) - the scene from that one where she looks at the crab and says she has crabs was just the corniest scene in the world. In the interviews they shot so many holes through their scripts/concepts that I wondered how in the world they made it that far. Even the writers couldn't answer some of the questions because it seemed like they didn't even understand their own film - example: someone asked the Jiggs writers why the guy had a 1-month homosexual relationship if he wasn't gay - the guys said they never thought about it and had no explanation.

I was just totally underwhelmed by it. I have no interest or dreams of becoming a director/screenwriter, but all the show did was make me think I could have done better than those bozos.

das Monkey

If I understand correctly, the scripts went through several levels of weeding out by other script writers before getting to Miramax or Affleck or Damon. It was at that point that the video introductions came into play. And take note that this is not a screenwriting competition. It's a movie-making competition. It's "Here's a million dollars. Make a movie." And the screenings weren't professionally done. They had to find actors that they couldn't pay to help them do a scene.

Making a film isn't completely about specific talent. It's about a total package. A great screenwriter could be a crappy director. A great director could write as badly as Brannon Braga. And a great director AND screenwriter could be too sensitve and cave under the enormous pressure of making a movie. It takes a certain breed to be able to put all this together to make a film. Personality is a huge factor.

das

Derrich

The initial weeding out process was a huge clusterf-ck. The problem was that the works were'nt evaulated by other screen writers, they were evaluated by other -wannabe- screenwriters. And on top of that, the reviewers were also entered in the contest.
This led to a lot of good scripts getting panned because of simple jealousy. And even more got bad marks because of some strange form of writer elitism. Broad comedies usually got bad marks, no matter how funny. Action scripts didn't have a chance. Horror and Thrillers were tossed.

What this left was a bunch of Romantic Comedys and coming of age/life discovery type films. Add in a couple dozen of esoteric art films that no-one wanted to admit that they didn't understand.

If anyone has a few hours to kill, go to the project greenlight website and read through a few of the top 250. Some are good..most arent.

D

das Monkey

I just finished a project 2 days ahead of schedule, and I've got some time to kill. Perhaps I'll go take a look.

das

BoatDrinks

That is exactly why this thing was flawed from the beginning. Miramax's answer to why they did that was because they didn't have enough people to read all the entries.

As someone who used to be a "reader," the majority of folks doing the reading of scripts in this town are wanna-be writers and therefore have an inherent bias against someone who is going for the same thing they are.

It's sad but true: I knew two guys (readers) who would purposely only recommend bad scripts and anything they read that was good, they butchered it via the coverage.

G. Noel Gross

It sure didn't make me feel any better about the state of Hollywood filmmaking today. Regardless, my favorite part was with that yahoo Ben Affleck finally whined something along the lines of, "Let's hurry up and decide. I've got a date!" Seconded by his responding to a female colleague's point by telling her she's a "naughty teacher" and that he'd like to be spanked by her. That may when you giggles when you're stuffing animal crackers down the panties of Steven Tyler's little girl, but isn't appropriate in a business setting such as that.

Derrich

That female colleague(Meryl Poster) is one of the most powerful people in hollywood, female or otherwise. I doubt she felt uncomfortable by Affleck's jokes.

The 'lets hurry up and decide, i've got a date' comment was made close to midnight, 5 hours longer than they had originally planned on being there. That's not whining, thats the truth.


D