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Here's how to make this type of 'empty' film in 1 day.

posted 8 years ago by WoodCheese
13 replies | jump to latest

Here's how to make this type of "Oscar Nominated" film.

1. Take any of your rants and ponderings on the future. Alternatively, if you don't think about this, simply browse MILLIONS of blog posts online that talk this same philosophical, empty, useless talk. I do it when I'm high all the time.

2. Split that "blog post" of ponderings into two sections - questions and answers.

3. Take two voice over actors, have them read the text.

4. Slap cheap animation on top of the voice over which you can outsource and get done on freelancing websites for under $200.

This, my friends, is cheating. This is not filmmaking.

Empty. Useless. No depth.

Want actual philosophical film with interesting ideas that actually matter, that are curious, that raise important questions, AND when it's all done well? Check out Linklater's The Waking Life.

This is *beep* And it's cheating.

[–] pistolp265 8 years ago

But these steps do not describe how Don Hertzfeldt made this film. All you're saying is that you could have made this film without any passion or artistic integrity. I mean good for you. You must be a very talented film maker to be able to theoretically make such a well reviewed, thought-provking film in less than a day. But if this film was so easy to make, then you should have made it. Clearly Don Hertzfeldt's Academy Award nomination should have been yours.

[–] LordInsect 8 years ago

That's an extremely shallow way of looking at it.

"Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

[–] TxMike 8 years ago

Fitting, though, because 'WOT' is an extremely shallow film.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Take a risk, Take a chance, Make a change. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

[–] angela-carson 8 years ago

Oh, Mike. You just don't understand it.

[–] TxMike 8 years ago

Oh Angela you just don't want to see that the Emperor has no clothes on!

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes not.

[–] angela-carson 8 years ago

"I don't get it, so therefore everyone else is wrong," is not a very compelling argument.

[–] SethOfTheFields 8 years ago

1. Your suggestion would not lead to a coherent narrative.

2. Same as my answer to number 1

3. Interesting bit of trivia. He used that same technique to get a lot of the little girl's dialogue that they used for Monsters Inc. He just followed the girl around with a microphone and also recorded some of his conversations with her, rather than just having her read from a script. He then rewrote a lot of the older actor's dialogue to accommodate some of the things that the younger actor said.

4. Stick figures do not necessarily equal cheap animation. You clearly don't know anything about Hertzfeldt. This isn't just Flash. He draws out every single frame. Rarely would you find a $200 freelancer who would put this many months of hard labour into a project. Learn a bit more about animation before making this sort of comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FE9SLJ2Xoc

[–] vegfemnat 8 years ago

this is exactly how i feel about incoherent puzzle like narratives with no single thread of conscience binding them. movies like anomalisa. i feel like they are pretending to be deeper than they actually are with this scattered narrative. i have trust issues in general and watching such movies makes me wonder whether or not i should look deeply into the subtext; what if the filmmaker is defrauding me.

and i completely agree with the waking life. that movie felt absolutely genuine to me. i could easily recognise the themes and the subtexts.

[–] musicbymartin 8 years ago

There is depth to the narrative in this film, though. It is saying something very subtle about our perception as adults and children, how children optimistically accept much, even bad news about death, which adults struggle with; how children aren't led by attachments to things and values the way adults are; about how children live in the present rather than the past and future like adults. Children also find it hard to see other people, other ideas and other memories as separate from their own. None of this is overtly expressed, but the viewer is left to find the themes amongst the surreal sci fi and non-sequiturs.

I see it as a Zen koan, a kernel of rich meaning hidden within a simple, entertaining and enjoyable tale. The ideas expressed are akin to Buddhist philosophies about attachment, interconnectedness and transience.

Waking Life is a very well made film and is packed with ideas but it has eight times the running time, and a broad documentary style approach which leads the viewer to conclusions in a very different way to World of Tomorrow.

[–] yusef-ghanima 8 years ago

maybe you need to read jean paul sartre's being and nothingness

[–] DeusExKatrina 8 years ago

Read back any of Emily Prime's dialogue in this film and tell me which part of it corresponds to your concept of questions or answers.

"I drawed a triangle."

---
Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame.

[–] The_Boxing_Cat 8 years ago

WoodCheese sounds like an idiot!

[–] InkedInBlood 8 years ago

Because he is.

I don't like the way blood money spends.