Home Videos: Coming to a Theater Near You

I will almost certainly be seeing Cloverfield opening night. Apparently, the whole movie is done from the perspective of a home video camera, a la The Blair Witch Project. Really interesting move, especially when you're doing special effects on what isn't meant to look like professional photography. They've also launched an intense alternate reality online presence, with fake profiles of individuals and organizations, which is a lot of fun to explore (if you, like me, are excited for the movie). There are whole communities devoted to piecing together the clues. That's what I call effective advertising.

Click here for the full Trailer.

UPDATE JAN 10, 2007: A recently released television spot.

And here is some more footage from the beginning of the flick.

As for what the monster is, well, that's the big question, now isn't it? There is obviously the Godzilla speculation, and I imagine it will be something like Godzilla, but I don't think J.J. Abrams would disappoint us with something so canned as that. He is much too original. Maybe he'll pull a Jaws and wait till the end to show it, or not show it at all.

UPDATE DEC 28, 2007: It is definitively NOT Godzilla. Toho INC, the owner of the Godzilla franchise, has retired all Godzilla related productions till 2013.

However, the beast does show up for a few frames of the preview. Here is a stabilized version, indicating that it is in fact some large, probably reptilian monster.

UPDATE: It's directed by Matt Reeves? Who in the world is Matt Reeves? How do these guys get such a huge gigs, when most of your resume is Felicity? True, I'd never heard of Peter Jackson when LoTR was announced. He had previously done blood and guts flicks with his buddies on the weekends and an adults only muppets perversion. He somehow managed to be a decent director. But man, there must be some nepotism going on here. Methinks King J.J. is giving the big jobs to his friends.

As for the diegetic perspective, expect to see more of this kind of thing as our society becomes more multimedia inundated. Very cheap video cameras and common video sharing via YouTube and the like have made the perspective of an amateur videographer so familiar. Storytellers will take advantage of that.

And the alternate reality aspect of marketing will also become more and more commonplace in our increasingly ever wired world. It's already played a role in the success of a recent hit video game, and is about to play into the hit success of a major motion picture.

The upcoming addition to George Romero's Dead franchise, Diary of the Dead, makes a similar narrative point of view. The film is told largely from the perspective of some kids who were making a zombie movie, when an actual zombie invasion starts happening in front of them. I mentioned it briefly in an earlier post.



I know of one more example of this kind of thing happening. An old employer of mine will be making a movie this coming year, and he mentioned the ad campaign he plans on using. I don't want to give the story away, but I'll say that he plans on using similar alternate reality viral marketing to Cloverfield. However, instead of using one video camera, he plans on releasing several videos to the web that come from various perspectives. Think of all the cameras that surround us day by day. He plans on using webcams, department store security cameras, ATM cameras, traffic cameras, and of course, the home video camera. I thought it was a great idea, I'll explain more as the details become more available.

NOTE: After my recent raving about I Am Legend, and now Cloverfield, I thought the focus of this NY Times article was an interesting and accurate observation.

In No Particular Order

My family is tremendously talented. I'm glad to see that my entrepreneurial penchant isn't a complete anomaly.

I like having creative friends.

I want one of these, and a decent camera to match it. A Nikon, preferably.

I'm excited for the new Star Trek movie, and I'm not even in to Star Trek. It just looks like a ton of fun, and J.J. Abrams knows how to entertain.

I love lists, and should start making one like this.

Reviews and More: Coraline (in 3D), Star Trek, Terminator Salvation

I haven't done reviews in a while. Been busy. So I'll speed through these.

Coraline was fun, if a little awkward at times. Not entirely sure I'd want young kids to see it, and older kids would probably boycott, thinking it too juvenile. Henry Selick delivers an eerie atmosphere on par with the Nightmare Before Christmas. The visual appeal is great. It's colorful, dynamic, and geometric. If you're excited for a dark but playful nightmare world, check it out. The 3D even helps the film, instead of distracting.

Star Trek is a blast. It is. It's just plain, simple, action fun. J.J. Abrams knows what he is doing, as I've mentioned before. You don't have to know a thing about the Star Trek back-story or mythology. You don't even have to like sci-fi, because while this uses the tropes of a sci-fi, at it's heart it's an action flick (even action-comedy). It's good-looking people doing really cool stuff, with chase scenes, fights, explosions, kissing, and jokes. It's the bread and butter of a Hollywood film, and in this case, that isn't a bad thing.

Terminator Salvation was entertaining, but ultimately a letdown. Next time I won't get my hopes up when the director calls himself McG and has an ouvre consisting mainly of Charlie's Angels. There seemed to be no consideration for the style and feel of the previous films, especially the well-loved first two.

I will say this. While it lacked any pacing, buildup, or subtlety, it was a very impressive wrecked world. The effects were seamless, the sound was immersive, and the actors did an effective job with what they were given. I guess that's all it takes for mainstream reviewers to like it, too.



Speaking of Terminator, Angela pointed out an interesting article on why the Terminators make us so uncomfortable. The Uncanny Valley is a concept I've known for years now. Though it's a common query today, it's not a new idea. It never seems to lose my interest, either. It's at the heart of a surprising amount of great fiction, I think because it begs the question of identity.

That Uncanny Valley might have seemed like an impossible chasm for some film-makers (you listening, Zemeckis?), but it may have finally been crossed, and did it so fluidly that we hardly noticed.

The possibility of photorealism with even the human face plays right in with the trending cinéma vérité fictional narrative style showing up so often. We're in a post-reality-TV world, well on our way through the maturation of YouTube. We see films like the Bourne series, where shaky camerawork "immerses" the audience, where you feel the uncontrolled reality of the situation (though I feel that particular example was excessive and alienating).

You'll see more and more films not only using the documentary aesthetic, but the form as well. The Blair Witch project broke that ground, showing how effective the technique is. Their mockumentary on the Sci-Fi channel took me in as a sixteen-year-old, hook, line, and sinker. I've talked before about the "found footage" techniques used in Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead. It was even recently featured in a BYU Film project manned by a class that unfortunately didn't fit in to my schedule. Would have been great to be a part of that.

The style is becoming recursive, with doctored videos showing up on YouTube as though they were home videos. Here is a recent example that's floated around the Web.



The same form is used for an upcoming sci-fi picture presented by Peter Jackson.



The trailer for District 9 plays out as though it were a documentary, with the only indication of fiction coming from the impossible premise. That same premise was used in a short film from the same director. District 9 is really an expansion of that short (seen below). I'm excited.



Of note is the fact that I can't think of a single major film in this style that didn't use some kind of ARG and/or viral marketing. Viral ARG is becoming more and more common, but is far from universal. It's the exception rather than the rule. However, when we see first person narratives, it's a must, a staple. The film form and the promotional techniques play together to draw the audience in, to have them not only watch, but experience the world of the film.

How is all this for some stream of consciousness?

I've got more to say on the matter. A lot more. But for now, I'll leave it as is.

Expect more on this and related topics soon.

Star Trek - Just a good, fun movie?

If you read this blog, you should know by now that I like that J.J. Abrams guy, and I like sci-fi, and I like movies.

So it should come as no surprise that I'm going with some friends to an advance screening of the new Star Trek movie. This should be good.

Early reviews are positive, though not everybody is happy with the outcome.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

The Mystery Box

In honor of the upcoming premier of Cloverfield, here is a talk given by producer J.J. Abrams at TED.

Loophole

I just finished the fourth season of LOST. It took me just over two weeks from the first episode of the first season.

That J.J. Abrams. He knows how to weave a mystery. Or, at the very least, he knows how to keep you in suspense.