Synopsis: 12,000 films were submitted from which 50 directors were chosen to appear on the show. Based on their performance on a series of challenges these directors will be culled until one remains. This one gets a $1 million budget movie deal with Dreamworks.
I was hoping to actually see some of the movies these directors created, so I was a bit disappointed. Maybe once the 50-size crowed is winnowed to a more manageable size we’ll see the goods. They booted 14 last night; at this rate it shouldn’t take too long.
I like the judge panel: Carrie Fisher, Brett Ratner, Garry Marshall. No token “brutally honest” critic, no token “you’re all winners” and no bass player from Journey Each of the judges appear sincere, knowledgeable and honest.
The challenges, though - hoo boy! The first: randomly given one of five topic lines, develop and deliver a pitch. You’ve got 12 hours. Go! The second: Get into groups of three and in 24 hours write and direct a 2½ minute short. Go!
At first I thought the times given were unfairly short. Not having seen any work from these directors, I assume being the best 50 from 12,000 they’ve all got some skills. If, instead of 12 hours they had say 48 hours for the pitch, each could have had the chance to turn in something close to their best work. But therein, I guess, is the point: to create a cliff so some will fall off.
Again, I hope it won’t be long before we see some of the films. Imagine American Idol where all we saw was the preparations and none of the singing. Although I did find the pitch of the priest/mission-worker love story entertaining, I wanna see some film
I gave this show a shot last night and it seemed that it would be pretty straight forward and interesting. Of course the producers (Mark Burnett) couldn’t leave well enough alone and decided that any drama the show would have would come through forced personality clashes via manufactured conflicts so we end up with a Real World/Apprentice hybrid.
The premise was original but they immeidately switched the focus from competing talents to competing egos. Been there, done that, zzzzzzzzzz.
The show didn’t live up to my expectations but I expect it to get better as they narrow the pool. Then the contestents should have more time to do a quality project and the show will be able to focus more attention on the contestents themselves to get us more emotionally attached to them.
I couldn’t believe how bad some of the pitches were. I thought these were supposed to be creative and intelligent. “A rat-man with the size and strength of a human but the power of a rat?” The demon possession thing? I don’t think I heard a single idea that wasn’t idiotic except for the Priest-South America-love story thing and that just sounded boring.
Then, when they had to team up the show turned into the apprentice. A bunch of raging narcissists all competing for control. I didn’t really see anyone I felt like I wanted to root for, but it’s early. I like the judges, especially Gary Marshall and Princess Leia. Ratner’s kind of a tool, but that could work on a show like this.
By the way, what was with the brown nose who said that “Brett ratner makes the kind of films I want to make?” What 'kind" of films does Ratner make, exactly? he doesn’t have a forte or a personal style or any real voice or even a genre. He’s a non-descript director of disposable commercial movies. He’s a working director with a body of work (such as it is) and a knowledge of the business, so I think he’s a valid choice to be a judge, but he isn’t exactly someone that other filmmakers want to emulate.
Somebody on AICN who had submitted a film and got turned down said that you also had to turn in a personal video clip (of the applicants yakking about themselves to the camera, basically) and that these clips were weighted as much or more than the actual film submissions. In other words, they were “casting” for personalities as much or more than they were looking for actual talent.
When the demon-possession guy was making his pitch, I said to my husband, “Dude, someone out there is going to see this and hire him to make that movie. And it will star Rob Schneider.”
Honestly, movies worse than that do get made. I’m pretty interested to see where this goes, and what the hell the movie studios are thinking, so I may watch again.
the first 3 pitches seemed staged about the people not the product
I guess we want to see people humiliated
eh, not me
with 50+ contestant, I would have preferred the good pitches
don’t waste my time with the stage stutter
I liked
the paranoia pitch for the lost weapons packet in the US
but the judges just ragged on the pitcher instead of examining the idea
ya, the train grafitti yard conflicts was totally staged
suspending disbelief became suffocating
and the graffiti was just tags, no pictures, uninteresting
In complete and total agreement here. The fight between those two guys (the one with the hair and the one with the hair and glasses? I can’t even tell them apart!) left me switching between yawning and cringing.
But the activities were pretty cool–I may stick with this for a few more episodes, to see if it gets any better.
I’m with the prevailing opinion in the thread. The premise hooked me since I could see a lot of interesting challenges coming out of it. Even the idea tonight of giving them a generic log line and letting them pitch something was a good idea.
But those contestants were awful. I can kind of accept that some of the pitches would be weak, but part of being a director means you need at least basic communication skills. If you don’t have those you shouldn’t even bother. And I would hope that some of those people would be creative enough to present a story based on those lines in two minutes that didn’t make me want to stab myself in the head. Showing at least some of them in balance would make me feel better about the contestant pool.
I saw nothing last night that made me believe that any of those fifty people would show me anything worth watching. So I’m not bothering coming back next week…
After they whitle down to 18 the game becomes better. They will set up a task and one night you watch the usual Reality crap but then the next episode they show the films in full and the audience picks which they liked (A la Idol)
The film with the FX shots was pretty slick but I kind of wonder how much the other 2 directors benefited just from having a guy on their team who could pull off a trick like that. It kind of remined me of when Blake’s group sing team on AI got a huge advantage from his beatboxing ability.
I don’t know why there would be any surprise about casting for personalities. It’s a network TV show that makes money selling ads. I’d rather see PBS do this kind of show. And yes, I realize PBS sucks with all those historical recreation shows because of caving in to soften the hardness of pioneer life for a bunch of cry-babies. But with this show, there’s nothing to soften. They’re all bunking in LA and doing what they love.
It’s been kind of random. There was a 90 minute premiere on tuesday, then a half hour show last night and they promo’d the next show for monday. I have no idea what kind of regular time slot it’s ever going to settle into.
Yeah, it was 87 minutes, actually. And last night was 35. It’s supposed to air Monday and Tuesday nights at 8:00 ET, except for next Monday, when it will air at 7:00. I think they’re trying to kill it.
Each of the judges appear sincere, knowledgeable and honest.