RIP OTL

So... At around 6:00 this evening, NY time, the last vestige of On The Lot (OTL), it's interesting website thelot.com, just evaporated into space, redirecting all visitors to the FOX web site.

The show had a great concept: filmmakers competing for a development deal with DreamWorks, making a short film each week with professional Hollywood crews and actors, and the public voting for their favorites. More than ten thousand filmmakers submitted films for the contest, and tens of thousands more loaded additional, serious short films onto the website.

Unfortunately, the TV show was marred by poor writing, an awkward hostess, lack of compelling "judging" and no publicity, so it did poorly in the ratings. It was also on Tuesday at 8:00, where it was afraid to create a really edgy style (the website even BLEEPed out words like screw -- as in screw in a lightbulb) and it competed with the popular America's Got Talent.

The website was marred by bugs, and though it had many interesting and excellent features, it lacked a powerful search function (and other features), which were badly needed on a site with so many films, filmmakers, and actors.

And the whole production was marred by frequent changes of direction, and excessive secrecy that alienated many people who would have been its biggest fans.

The result was that neither the website nor the show really got any traction.

Yet it's a great loss. The concept was great, and had the execution been as good as the concept it would have been a blockbuster show. The website had an extremely rich collection of excellent films -- serious short stories by serious filmmakers -- and the forums, blogs, and industry information could have made this a very valuable website and a central hub for filmmakers and filmmaking.

I hope someone with a great vision, and an equally good production team, puts together a successful show about making films, with a companion website that becomes a central meeting place for filmmakers. And I hope this combination helps spur independent filmmaking and web video, and fosters communication between the world of emerging filmmakers and the professional film industry.

OTL - JASON'S FILMS

On The Lot (OTL) is going into its final episode (Fox, Tuesday 8/21, 8:00), The Finale!

There are three finalists, Adam Stein, Will Bigham, and Jason Epperson, one of whom is going to be the grand prize winner of a $Million dollar development deal at DreamWorks.

Each of the contestants made a series of films. I'm posting my reviews of several films of the three finalists, and, later perhaps, some other directors as well, notably Zach Lipovsky who was the #5 finalist, and may have been the most gifted, proficient, and original director of them all.

Here are reviews of the films of Jason Epperson. As of now, when this post is posted, these films can be seen by going to On The Lot, looking at the tab marked CONTESTANTS and selecting Jason.

AUG 7, 2007

Oh, Boy
Starring: Todd Waring, Patrick Kerr, Oscar "Big O" Dillon

I found this to be a mean spirited revenge film that was not very interesting. I don't know why people call Jason's films "sweet" or "kind." I don't like practical jokes. It's just one kind of bullying. When the explosives (which looked like wooden blocks from a kid's toy box) blew up, and sent a pillar of fire higher than the house, it would kill anyone but a cartoon character. Similarly, a punch that sends the guy clumsily flying twenty feet is cartoon stuff. That would be a whole change of genre not justified by the rest of the film. So I think this was a mixed up, nasty and uninteresting film.


JULY 31, 2007

The Move
Starring: Jerry O'Connell, Rich Pierrelouis, Randall Park

Mean spirited. Doesn't make sense. The dialog neither explains, nor is even really consistent with the "payoff". Mean spirited has payed off for Jason before; his Getta Rhoom was a vote getter. His strange ending also worked -- he survived -- in Blood Born. I think he deserves to lose, but the voters may not agree.


JULY 24, 2007

Old Home Boyz
Starring: Allan Wasserman, William Stanford Davis, Lin Shaye, Anthony Vatsula

This film was not good looking -- it was too dark, with an ugly color palette. It was a pretty good story. Jason did fine as an actor. The story was a nice one.


JULY 17, 2007

Sweet
Starring: Kirk Zipfel, Erin Cahill

A sweet film. Nice ending. Yeah... could've been a better bouquet. Not much action.

(But check out Zach's submission film, "Crazy Late," http://films.thelot.com/films/595 for a much more inventive and technically difficult -- as well as earlier -- version of almost the exact same story.)


JULY 3, 2007

Eternal Waters

I wasn't quite sure of the story when I saw this on TV. Watching it online, my first impression seemed to be correct: the dead boy's ghost, leaking water out of the photograph, trips up the slasher. But I still have reservations. I would have liked to see blood showing the stabber actually fell on his knife, or have the ghost more explicitly tell his mother she is safe. I have other reservations. There is no explanation for the slasher coming (just the exposition of a fragment of news). The mother is never really threatened much by the slasher. (Granted, it's hard to put in much buildup in such a short-short film, of course.) On the other hand, despite the judge's comments, I have no problem with the costuming or appearance of the mother, although she does not add much value to the story. Give this 1 fright mask and 1 bonus horror book for a complex story.


JUNE 19, 2007

Blood Born

This is a very interesting film. It does not really make sense to me what is happening, or why the shots look the way they do, but it still feels as if the director understands. So the film almost works.


24 HOUR FILMS

Wilted

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=25
Jarrett Conaway, Jason Epperson, Tamila D Amico


HORROR LIGHT - He is coming for you.

The script has good and bad moments. The first scene starts out great and looks great. The film kind of goes a bit downhill from there, and some of the acting is a bit off. The music works.


SUBMISSION

BOMB’S AWAY
http://films.thelot.com/films/1619


Student gets up in school to give a talk… there is a music video.

This is an inventive film. Very high energy. However it doesn’t make much sense. Unless the title is a contraction of Bomb is Away, or it’s about the away that belongs to the bomb, the title is a grammatical error – perhaps on purpose. Jason’s intro is essentially, “Pick me because I’m from Kentucky and not LA or NY like everybody else. "

OTL - WILL BIGHAM'S FILMS

On The Lot (OTL) is going into its final episode (Fox, Tuesday 8/21, 8:00), The Finale!

There are three finalists, Adam Stein, Will Bigham, and Jason Epperson, one of whom is going to be the grand prize winner of a $Million dollar development deal at DreamWorks.

Each of the contestants made a series of films. I'm posting my reviews of several films of the three finalists, and, later perhaps, some other directors as well, notably Zach Lipovsky who was the #5 finalist, and may have been the most gifted, proficient, and original director of them all.

Here are reviews of the films of Will Bigham. As of now, when this post is posted, these films can be seen by going to On The Lot, looking at the tab marked CONTESTANTS and selecting Will.

AUG 7, 2007

The Yes Men
Starring: Greg Collins, Lin Shaye, Fred Koehler, Travis Wester

This was a well-told story. It carries many characters and gives them all an individual life. It has a lot of sly satire throughout. And it more-or-less completes the story with a nice joke at the end. (But left dangling is the question of how or why he got into the dress without remembering.)


JULY 31, 2007

Road Rage 101
Starring: Kirk Zipfel

This had some great shots in the beginning; the initial set up, the eyes... It kind of makes sense all the way through. The driver's road rage leads him to beat up on his car. The car takes revenge, goading the other driver to pummel driver. He (driver) apologizes (questioningly, to be sure) to the car and then the car helps him. I haven't seen or read Christine, Steven King's take on a independent car, so I don't know how derivative this is.


JULY 24, 2007

Unplugged
Starring: Randall Park, Tatyana Ali

This was a cute idea, but I didn't think it was particularly well executed. I couldn't find a real logic in the things that the lamps were able to do and not able to do. I was confused by that noose-looking thing. (Was the lamp about to commit suicide for love?) It was quite dark and not all that beautiful to look at. The ending was lame. It could have been terrific if somehow the lamp romance had deliberately facilitated the couple's romance (but in any case all they did was look at each other).


JULY 9, 2007

Spaghetti
Starring: Erin Cahill, Travis Wester, and Todd Waring

This film has a nice look and a nice sense of humor.

But it is completely incomprehensible that the guy from the present world isn't scared when someone completely menacing says, "Today's a good day to die." That ruins the whole thing for me.

Present-world-guy seems to know he's in a movie. Cowboy seems to be totally oblivious. Neither character acknowledges the other. (If each one is supposed to be seeing something different from what we see -- something from his own world -- then that's gotta be established -- for example, in some POV shot -- without being corny).


JUNE 26, 2007

Nerve Endings

This film was also OK. It had good slapstick humor. Maybe that went on too long without being inventive enough. The pretext for the doctor to leave was ridiculous, and tainted the beginning. I felt a little cheated that the camera mostly hid the way the intern was manipulating the patient. The end was cute, but not strong enough to match the energy of the slapstick.


JUNE 19, 2007

Glass Eye

A pretty good film. However, the main character never seems to be really trying very hard to get his eye back. It's also careless that you can see his eye from time to time when it's supposed to be out of its socket.


24 HOUR FILM

Sponsored By

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=22
Kai Soremekun, Daniel Tenkman, Will Bigham


Drama -- Suicide prevention

OK story. The bat bit doesn't work too well. The ideas of realizing the log line "Out Of Time" by "raising the stakes" with a suicide prevention is a little bit film-school-exercise-ish. Will does OK as an actor in this film.


also

http://films.thelot.com/films/2040

In this film, directed by Danny Tenkman, Will appears as an actor, doing a nice job.

OTL - ADAM'S FILMS

On The Lot (OTL) is going into its final episode (Fox, Tuesday 8/21, 8:00), The Finale!

There are three finalists, Adam Stein, Will Bigham, and Jason Epperson, one of whom is going to be the grand prize winner of a $Million dollar development deal at DreamWorks.

Each of the contestants made a series of films. I'm posting my reviews of several films of the three finalists, and, later perhaps, some other directors as well, notably Zach Lipovsky who was the #5 finalist, and may have been the most gifted, proficient, and original director of them all.

Here are reviews of the films of Adam Stein. As of now, when this post is posted, these films can be seen by going to On The Lot, looking at the tab marked CONTESTANTS and selecting Adam.

AUG 7, 2007

Army Guy

Starring: Dan Gauthier, Heather Vandeven, David Burtka, Stuart McLean, Ian Bodell, Ariel Winter

On first watching, I found most of the action uninteresting and too silly. It did not work for me moment-to-moment. It had a nice ending. Typical of the directing/editing errors was the girl pointing correctly to the girl on our left, but not accurately pointing to the girl sitting down at our right.

Knowing the punchline, the movie makes sense and is a lot of fun on second viewing. (Someone pointed out that on second viewing they realized the "pointer" was a stewardess and she was doing what stewardesses do when they point to the exits.) It's an interesting "theoretical" issue -- is it "good filmmaking" to make a film that can not be understood until the second time you see it. (I've seen a lot of French films made like that.)

More to the point, in this case, is whether the number of voters that like the film well enough on first viewing, plus the voters that watch it twice and like it, are enough to carry Adam to the next round, and then to DreamWorks.

JULY 31, 2007

Driving Under The Influence

Starring: Tatyana Ali, David Burtka, Patrick Kerr

This was a joyous romp. However, the dancing at the end didn't seem quite right; and kissing the cop as the finale is not a resolution to the driver's traffic problem: What happens when the music stops?

JULY 24, 2007

Girl Trouble

Starring: Fred Koehler, Travis Wester, Patrick Kerr

This was really dreadful and painful to watch. It wasn't funny. It wasn't well acted or look very good. It didn't make sense. If Trent (Guy-2) knows a guy from a girl then he knows a guy from a girl... It was obvious that when he opened the door it was not going to be a beautiful girl: that would not have been funny. So it had to be something else. But another guy??? Doesn't make sense. Maybe if it was a gorilla, or a sheep...

JULY 9, 2007

Worldly Possessions

Starring: David Burtka and Janet Varney

This has the best story of the week. The magnifying glass setting fire to the tree is a brilliant little stroke. I agree that the destruction of the entire neighborhood is a bit much, but it's completely consistent with the set-up in the story. I wasn't too fond of the acting, especially of the wife.

JUNE 26, 2007

Discovering the Wheels

This film was OK. The acting was sort of iffy. The device of making the car appear and disappear with a click of the remote got old very quickly. The final stranding of the caveman did not resolve any story point. And I did not understand how the caveman was able to drive so well (even better than the stunt driver they talked about in the intro). There were a few good jokes. I liked the square wheel (but that idea never got developed), and the picture of the horse. Product placement hell, by the way (sponsored by Ford).

JUNE 5, 2007

Dough: The Musical

I'd have liked to see Adam do something that was not a dance/musical. It was a bit like a new-fangled-type broadway/off-broadway show. The singing wasn't great. (Other notes: Lip sync didn't always work. He sings out loud just when she comes in the store -- but there's no soliloquy convention, so why can't she hear him?) However, the lyrics and the story concept were very clever. It was the one cast I'd like to know more about. It had a great spirit. All in all, it was the most original, most ambitious, and most interesting of the shorts.(The strongest film of the night.)

MAY 29, 2007

Dance Man

Fun. (This film was actually made after Dough. Dough was a submission film, made before Adam was selected as a finalist.)

24 HOUR FILM

Time Out

Excellent -- Best film of the night.

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=21

The 24 hour films were each made in twenty-four hours by a team of three directors, in this case:

Zach Lipovsky, Sam Friedlander, Adam Stein

Sci-fi/drama/FX --

A conflict makes time stand still. Great! Coherent story. Nicely shot. The special effects work perfectly.

BEHIND THE SCENES AT OTL

On The Lot (OTL) (and its official website www.thelot.com) has maintained high secrecy since it started. In fact, one of the major compaints of filmmakers and viewers has been the lack of information as to what is going on. The show has changed direction several times, confusing viewers. The official website never explained, and even had misinformation several times. And there was little information -- make that no information -- available to the 12,000 or so filmmakers that contributed films to the site and hoped to be on the show as to what the selection process schedule would be. Some people were even posting questions as to when contestants would be notified as the show was starting... with no response.

Now the first little bit of light on the internal processes at OTL have been revealed. A blogger on OTL, lizriz, linked to a another blogger, Denis Logan, who was part of a FORD junket to OTL. Here are links to his posts:

http://www.superguncinema.com/blog/?p=172 -- Tidbits from OTL
http://www.superguncinema.com/blog/?page_id=166-- The whole story of the trip.

Among the most interesting revelations is how hard everyone is trying and how much effort is going into the show. That contrasts with the impression on the website that nobody cares, which is a result of the secrecy, and the trivial errors on the site that go uncorrected for long periods of time. (For example, the 40,000 or so films now on the site suddenly went AWOL last week and have not come back.)

Note: It would be great to see stories like this on the OTL site itself.

Note: It would have been great to invite QPORIT to participate in this junket! I'm a great fan of the show (and a critic only because I want it to succeed).

This Tuesday (Fox, 8:00) is the final episode, when the winner of the grand prize: a $Million dollar development deal at DreamWorks is revealed.

HEY, KEVIN REILLY!

Kevin Reilly (KR) has just started managing programming at FOX as entertainment president .

On The LOT (OTL), the (potentially) best summer show on FOX, is languishing in the ratings; and the (potentially) valuable web site thelot.com is shooting itself in the foot, preventing itself from becoming an established destination site for filmmakers.

That’s two projects just crying for some TLC, some attention and some fixing, with a large upside possible, really quickly.

Here’s my memo to KR:


THE SHOW:

On The Lot (OTL) has a great concept: New directors competing their hearts out for a $$$ Million dollar deal with Dreamworks, making short films (like those that get gazillions of hits on YouTube).


And three problems:

1 – Short films are not by themselves an audience draw – only certain kinds of films get lots of play on YouTube, and that’s not the kind of films these directors have been making -- the filmmakers have limited time and some constraints that make the films fair to middlin, at best, and not the kind that get the webonomic eyeballs.

2 – The “judging” is lackluster, the show format has little originality (it was terrible and completely derivative for a while, but it has improved to mediocrity). And the previews before each film are wrongly conceived – they don’t help the film, or hype the contest, and in some cases even contain “spoilers” that defang the films before they’re shown.

3 – There’s no publicity anymore. (There were a lot of billboards – and not much else -- when the show started.)


To fix these problems:

1 – Apply some muscle to up the energy on the show: Make the candidates into star personalities. Improve the preview films. Get the actors talking about the films. Explore the magic of filmmaking. Use rehearsals to get the judges to be more precise both in their praise and criticism. Ditch the phony boos from the audience when a judge criticizes – that’s been done to death on Idol. Set it up so the contestants can explain and defend their films, so they sound strong, intelligent and opinionated, and not defensive and argumentative.

2 – Improve the films themselves. Sprinkle in some name talent. Get the candidates working now on the films for the semi-finals and the finals, so they can be as good as possible: pre-production and script development can start on the final films, even while films are being made for the early rounds. (Some candidates will not get to make these semi-final and final films of course.) Encourage the film makers to write and direct films that are different, personal, edgy, interesting and controversial in some way, not bland and careful.

3 – Business, Show Business, and filmmaking in particular, live and die with publicity. Even feature films need lots of promotion to get viewers. With the show itself improved, and the short films improved, (and the weaker directors out of the competition), hype the remaining shows. Get the audience back. Create publicity for the contestants. Make the directors into stars. Create publicity to make the the films “important” so that people will come to watch something important happen. It can be done. The ratings are way down, which means there is a lot of room to go up!


THE WEBSITE:

The website is very well designed, and very rich, but very badly executed.

There are forums, blogs, lots of short films, classified ads, a gallery of actors, profiles of filmmakers and actors, contests, news of the show, news of filmmaking, all well organized with front page promos and clear tabs. And there are many more features, too...


However:

• ? There’s not enough real news about the show – the producers are absent from the website; news often comes from other sites copied to a board post by a user.
• ? Information on the site is often wrong. One week, the next show (actually coming on Monday) was said to be coming on Tuesday for the entire week before.
• ? In fact, at this moment the home page says, “Two contestants will be voted off and five new contestant film premieres!” Five? There are supposed to be six. Is that an error? Or did something happen?
• ? Either they should fix the error, or discuss the change.
• ? The search function is terribly incomplete.
• ? There is no list of posts, no search of blogs.
• ? There is no useful search function to go along with actors’ pictures.
• ? Online voting has not worked well at all.
• ? Posting classified ads hasn’t worked well.
• ? And many more issues.

At one point there were more than 100,000 people on the site (according to the sitemeter), now it barely gets to 35,000. At one point there was a lot of activity on the boards (a lot of it expressing frustration -- a sign of a passionate fan base that isn't getting what it needs), now there is only a little. The traffic and the excitement is there, and it can be brought back with a well-run site.

Fixing all the problems on the website, and adding a few more functions to appeal to people serious about film, and other functions for film fans, could make this one of the most valuable web properties on the Internet, for FOX/BURNETT/DREAMWORKS, film fans, and filmmakers.

The thread “HELP IMPROVE THE SHOW” has over two hundred posts. Kevin, you can HELP more than anyone else!

OTL REMIX

On The LOT is a TV "reality" show descibing a competition among directors to get a $1 million development contract at Dreamworks. The Executive Producers of the show are star director Steven Spielberg and star reality producer Mark Burnett.

The concept behind On The LOT (OTL) is terrific. It is

• (1) a great contest that
• (2) provides abundant material for compelling TV, and
• (3) a valuable website: a showcase and forum for filmmakers, with contests, casting, classifieds and film news.
  

Unfortunately, the devil has disrupted the details. Ratings are low, and the website forums are nearly unanimous in their comments on problems with the show and the website.

Here are the biggest problems and how to fix them. It’s an OTL REMIX summary.


The structural problems:

Movies are great. People love exciting/beautiful actors/actresses. People love a feature film that takes them into some fantasy world for two hours. People like to watch how this fantasy world is made. People don’t care that much about short films; they’ve never been really big. People don’t care that much about directors unless they’re already celebrities.

The producers are being very secretive – for example, not releasing any information to the "official" website until after everyone else knows about it. There was almost no information about the show or the developing competition posted on the website from the time people entered the competition until the show went on the air. The TV show skipped some steps in the selection of the finalists, relegating a "missing episode" to "outtakes #4" in a clip a few minutes long on the website. They continue to be secretive about the process, and when they do release news, it’s not on the website. They have alienated many of the most likely fans – the filmmakers active on the website.

The contest is structured so that people (civilians, the TV audience) vote on the films. This is problematic. If they show all the films on TV, people will not remember them. Online, not many people are going to view all the films and make a wise decision like a critic might, or the way a director would critique a student director’s work. People are going to vote on personalities, on their connection to the filmmaker, and on their interest in the overall story, and the mayhem that occurs in the film. On the web it has always been funny films, erotic films, embarrassing films, and other quirky films that get watched a zillion times. Great, well-directed short films not so much. It’s really hard to vote on films on the telephone and, so far, website voting has not worked well at all.

The public is not really aware of the show. Even many filmmakers I've talked to have not heard of the show.

The website has a lot of great sections. Unfortunately it does not work. It is way too slow. And there are many crucial bugs in essential features. The casting section is a mess. The voting didn’t work the first time around, the classified ad section often doesn’t accept ads, and there is no search on blogs, boards and casting. Also, the producers seem to post news about the show everywhere else, before it shows up on the "official" site.

The show seems under-rehearsed, with poor performances by the judges and the hostess, and a terrible script and format that is too derivative of Idol.


Here’s my fix:

A- Hire a celebrity host who is a great improviser, knowledgeable about movies and their creation, and is a big draw for the show. Possibly a comedian/comedienne, or a model or actress who has hosted TV and other events; and someone who is savvy about filmmaking. That will help improve ratings AND give the show more energy.

B- Change the show format, and hire a new writer and director for the show who will give it a distinct identity. That will make the show more fun. (This may be in the works; see below.)

C- Make stars of the directors; and make events out of the short films: Give the directors some celebrity actors to work with. In the show, focus on the performers, the directors and the filmmaking process. Get the judges to disagree and debate the films. Let the directors engage the judges, rather than be just "rated" as they are on Idol. Directors should be articulate about films and filmmaking – that’s what makes directors interesting. Conclude the show with a brief segment sending someone home; followed by the presentation to the directors of the next challenge.

Promote the show more vigorously. For example, I haven't seen anyone from the show on the talk-show circuit. (Having more celebrities involved in the show would make this easier.)

D- Change the rules for the contest – despite the promotions – so that the public can rate the quality of the film, but the judges (and Spielberg) make the final decisions. The public can not reasonably select the best director, especially not with the current system for viewing the films and voting on them. It’s hard for the audience to properly study the films, and hard to vote fairly for filmmaking/directing ability on either the web or the phone.

The producers have actually subtly changed the rules already. According to an e-mail I received – which, as usual, was not posted on thelot.com – here is the plan for this week. Quoting from the e-mail:

"Tuesday's one-hour Episode of On The Lot will be premiering five of the remaining contestants’ 3-minute shorts. The judges will weigh in with their thoughts and feedback on the films that the finalists created and then you will decide! Your vote determines who will go and who will stay. The "Box Office" results will be announced in next week’s episode. Make sure you head to TheLot.com after Tuesdays Episode to watch the Contestants Films from this week and cast your vote!"

It’s not clear if this means we only vote on 5 at a time, and the contestants now have extra time for the next film, or if the show is only promoting 5 of the films – like a magician who asks you to choose a card, any card, and then "forces" the choice.

It also means that the most interesting news about the show is still not coming on the website.

E- Fix the website: (1) Put all the information about the show and the contest on the website first. Give the producers, judges and others who run the show (and even the candidates) a blog on the site to talk openly about the making of the show and the contest – the filmmaking, the judging…. (2) Put a lot of tech talent into updating the website, fixing the bugs, and fixing the speed problems.

This TV show can still be a hit! The contest can discover some new directors! And the website can be great for filmmakers, and a very valuable property!

0 -- 0 -- 0

I'm not on the show. I am in the Headshot Gallery, but right now no-one will ever find my picture because it is buried amongst about 3,000 other pictures with no way to find any particular one. But you can find my film, OTL ...

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479

OTL - FIRST RESULTS SHOW ON THE LOT

I really want to like this show.

It was sort of exciting. There are people to root for. There are people to root against. There is heartbreak when it goes wrong and joy when it goes right.

There were some very good films.

There was one good line. (Something like, "It was a terrible concept, badly executed.")


But...

a) The hostess is terribly irritating. Her script is worse.

b) The format is terrribly derivative. (That's not a spelling error.) Any decent filmmaker knows that if you want respect with a sequel, you've got to work hard to innovate. OTL's a poor imitation of Idol & Apprentice.

c) Oh, and it spawns repetitive criticism, like the use of terribly in every paragraph here. As well as a chorus of similar remarks all over the boards.


d) The "voting" system is suspect and biased. There were all kinds of problems with online voting last night. And clearly the Europeans were at a big disadvantage. Someone who is good at campaigning for votes may do much better than someone who concentrates on making films.

e) The judges are not articulate, or passionate enough about their likes and dislikes. Worse, they have similar opinions. If three people say the same thing, more or less, just one is all you need. Controversy would be electric.

f) The biggest disagreement was between Carrie and herself (about Getta Rhoom). She completely reversed her opinion. The judges should pre-screen the films they are going to comment on, so they have a chance to think about what they are going to say. A movie isn't a live performance, it's a movie. So why not screen it and study it before you say something.

g) The most interesting thing that was supposed to happen was the challenge setup for next week's film. Nothing. The setup is the carryover from this show and the promo for the next show.


So here are my suggestions for the show:

a) Get a new hostess or give her much more rehearsal and direction so she improves.

b) Give the structure a big change, and put more effort into improving the script, so it has a personality distinct from Idol or Apprentice.

c) Strengthen the quality of the judging -- set up more confict between the judges and more detailed and stronger criticism and praise. (Also, when they point out film terms --eg "rack focus" -- explain it with a moment from the film. -- The hostess should be able to do that!)

d) Show more scenes from the making of the movies.

e) Make sure people can vote and that the voting is fair and balanced.

f) Devote a segment at the end of the Results Show to the setup for the next week's filmmaking challenge.

OTL - THE 24-HOUR SHORT FILMS

Here are some comments and reviews from my response to the 24 hour films On The LOT (OTL):

Overall, I found that my judgement of the films was mostly formed by the extent to which I felt the basic story worked.

(Filmmakers in bold italics are among the 18 finalists.)

Out of Time 1 GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=19
Jeff Seibenick, Trevor James, Marty Martin
Drama -- Kind of a mystery.

I don't get the story. I saw it twice. It's not a coherent story. The music doesn't completely match as a whole throughout the video. Color, style & story continuity don't match from scene to scene.


Vinny's Vault GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=20
Kenny Luby, Jess Brillheart, Hannah Sink
Mob story -- Something's been taken

Story is real jumpy. Not completely coherent. The look is boring. Could use music. The narration doesn't add enough.


Time Out EXCELLENT -- BEST FILM

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=21
Zach Lipovsky, Sam Friedlander, Adam Stein
Sci-fi/drama/FX -- A confict makes time stand still.

Great! Coherent story. Nicely shot. The special effects work perfectly.


Sponsored By GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=22
Kai Soremekun, Daniel Tenkman, Will Bigham
Drama -- Suicide prevention

OK story. The bat bit doesn't work too well. The ideas of realizing the log line "Out Of Time" by "raising the stakes" with a suicide prevention is a little bit film-school-exercise-ish.


Call Waiting QUITE GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=23
Opie Cooper, David May, Justin Lutsky
Comedy -- A broad comedy short about hiring the cable guy who knows nothing.

Funny. Makes sense. Looks good. Some split screen adds a bit of interest.


Organized Crime GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=24
Mateen Kemet, Shira-Lee Shalit, Gil Krueger
Drama - Nefarious transaction

A coherent, but not quite credible story. The first scene is badly lit. The script uses "out of time" explictly, which is kind of exercise-ish. It tries too hard to tell a high-stakes story with a dramatic ending, but doesn't quite make it.


Wilted QUITE GOOD. THE FIRST SCENE IS EXCELLENT

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=25
Jarrett Conaway, Jason Epperson, Tamila D Amico

HORROR LIGHT - He is coming for you.

The script has good and bad moments. The first scene starts out great and looks great. The film kind of goes a bit downhill from there, and some of the acting is a bit off. The music works.


Reverse OK

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=26
Phil Hawkins, Hillary Skarl, Shanna Baca
Drama - Murder mystery

I don't really get this story. At first it seems contrived, then just confused. The "flashback" scenes are interesting. The rest doesn't work so well. Another badly lit indoor scene. Continuity? There's a girl on the train tracks, then a train goes over the tracks. Where's the girl?


Random Acts Of Kindness QUITE GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=27
Brent McCorkel, Hilary Graham, Carolina Zorilla De San Martin
Comedy - A woman is determined to be kind

This is cute. It is simply photographed and directed. The narration carries the burden of making the story a bit more complex. I liked the other entries in the woman's notebook. The ending is a bit forced, and her behavior at the end is too simplistic and unnatural.


Ding OK

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=28
Tamika Miller, Randy Slavin, X Dean Lim
Drama - Gambling problem

This doesn't really make sense. The first scene is too explicly "out of time" though it starts OK. The scene with the other gambler and with the woman are unconvincing.


Smile QUITE GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=29
Phil Allocco, Shalini Kantayya, Jeff Speed
Drama/Romance/Horror - A photographer discovers a beautiful modelSimple. Spooky. It works.


Out Of Time 2 QUITE GOOD

http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=2&vd=30
James Breese, Claudia La Bianca, Andrew Hunt
Drama/Romance - Can he save the relationship?Carries a lot of story in 2 min.

The only film with this tone. Unfortunately, while the main character's story makes sense, the behavior of the other characters does not. Well shot and edited. Good music.

OTL - THE PITCH -- A NEW PARLOR GAME

The first On The Lot (OTL) was a good show! As many people predicted, it follows the template of other competition shows and, among other things, spends more airtime showing the bad tries than celebrating the good ones.
Still, there is no doubt from the judging they showed, that this is a tough competition to pick a versatile and skilled filmmaker. Indeed, almost without warning (though they might have guessed something like this would be thrown at them), the contestants immediately faced two difficult, grueling tasks -- the first, to create overnight, and then deliver, a pitch for a feature film; the second to create, in twenty four hours, with a team of three competing directors (coopetition as a test), a 2 1/2 minute film. Anyone who can do these two tasks well is already proven to be extremely skilled.

The rest of the competition, making a dozen or so additional short films, one a week, that the public will like, is a severe test of filmmaking ability. Whatever mishaps the show's editors and producers may choose to show on TV, the contest itself is very, very real and a great test of directing expertise, agility and versatility.

Meanwhile, the Pitch Game could replace charades and other improvs as a parlor game.

Here's the non-competitive version: Sitting in a circle, one person throws out a log line (that's the theme or basic idea). The next person tells the first scene in a sentence or two. Each person in turn then adds a scene. The tenth person (or -- coming full circle-- the first person, if there are around 10 people in the group), then wraps up the movie pitch with a great ending.

The competitive version of the Pitch Game has a bunch of log lines thrown into a hat. Each person takes a random log line and has about 20 min to make a story for a movie out of it. They deliver the pitch to the group. Each person in the group votes with points for story, beginning, ending, characters, confidence, and overall impression. At the end, each person's score is added up to create a winner. With 20 minutes instead of all night to create the story, this is even harder than the OTL version, except you are not pitching to Garry Marshall, Brett Ratner and Princess Leia, you are not pitching for your future, and you don't have to stay up all night worrying.

THELOT.COM MAKEOVER

On the eve of the premiere, the website for On The Lot (OTL) has gotten a substantial makeover, with new features and a new home page. Happily, the old features have not been deleted and filmmakers and audience can (still) upload films and photos and communicate on boards and blogs.

Even before the show premieres, and while most of the world is watching the Idol finale, traffic OTL has multiplied five-fold from a usual web audience of about 11,000 to 56,131 as I'm writing this.

In addition to a casting section with headshots and resumes for actors which was added a few days ago, and the staples, which have been on the site from the beginning -- logs, boards, film uploads, photo uploads, private site e-mail, friends lists, and Hollywood film news -- some new features OTL are:

• a video creation tool from Verizon;
• a video challenge (coming soon) -- make films each week along with the contestants on the show -- also from Verizon;
• a section describing VCast downloads of show clips to your Verizon phone;
• something about "Film Critics Needed," which is not explained;
• and clips from the runup to the show.
  

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I'm not on the show, but I do have...

My Own Film OTL:

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro:
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479

NYT: T-SHIRT WISDOM FROM CANNES

In a dispatch from Cannes, AO Scott in The New York Times (Monday, May 21) describes a T-shirt which quotes Pierre Rissient, a French "Man Of Cinema" (that's the title of a documentary about Rissient being shown in Cannes) --

"It is not enough to like a film. You must like it for the right reasons."



This is advice that would be well applied by those who are going to vote on films in the contest On The Lot!

On The Lot (OTL) opens tonight. (See below for more stories about OTL). The OTL web site, by the way, should begin to see a huge increase in traffic as the show develops. It can be a great place for film networking.

My Own Film OTL:
FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro:
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

I avoided this film for a while because I thought it would be another sappy success story.

It is actually a fierce success story.

It describes how a man with no financial resources takes care of his son, and deals with massive personal and financial problems while competing with dozens of others for a position as an apprentice... er... make that junior, stock broker.

There is more than a passing resemblance between the real competition the character in the movie faces, and the reality show competitions that contestants in Burnettesque shows face on television.

One reason the movie succeeds is the brilliant (Oscar nominated) performance by Will Smith. He is always on screen and always interesting. His son in the movie, played by Smith's own son, Jaden Smith, makes an excellent screen debut, and they work together with genuine chemistry.

Since the movie is about a father-son relationship, I found it rather strange that the end titles described the career of the father who was the inspiration for the movie, but not what happened to the son. Was he ??? A little strolling through the Internet, however, provides some answers.

By the way, watching The Pursuit Of Happyness would probably not be a bad way to help filmmakers prepare psychologically for the challenges they will find On The Lot (OTL), a Burnett reality show starting Tuesday.

OTL - VOLARE - TAMELA D'AMICO

On The Lot, the new reality show for film directors (see our earlier posts listed below), has just announced the 50 semi-finalists (first name only).

Dedicated trackers on the OTL site have identified several of these (first name only) directors and paired them with the films they posted on the site. One of these is Tamela D'Amico (In addition to her home-page, she has an OTL profile.)

She posted on the OTL site a trailer for her prizewinning short film, Volare. There were some 12,000 films submitted in competition. (There are many more on the site.) Hers is listed as #80, suggesting that at least some of the selecting was done really early on in the submission window. Her film was uploaded on Oct 10, 2006; and as of right now (2007-05-16 03:42 AM EST) has been viewed 126,199 times.

The 3 minute film clip looks beautiful, seems interesting, and suggests the short film itself (which is 30 minutes long) is well written, well acted and well directed.

SOME POSTS IN QPORIT ABOUT ON THE LOT (OTL):

Casting Actors On The Lot

On The Lot -- More Details

Film Networking in NY with OTL & QFW

On The Lot

Dreamworks, Burnett, Fox, Filmmakers

My Own Film OTL:

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro:
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479

FILM NETWORKING IN NY WITH OTL & QFW

The website created for On The Lot, the new Spielberg/Burnett "reality" competition coming to Fox on May 22, provides an opportunity for filmmaker networking, both on the site and at offline meetings -- real people in real places -- organized online.

Join the site and check out the Board posts on New York meet-ups.

In addition to the OTL NY Meetup, there is another venue for networking in NY: Quick Flick World (QFW): www.qfworld.tv.

QFW is in a number of cities around the world. They've been off and on in NY. I think right now they are safely back on.

Each month they propose a theme. Films should somehow refer to the theme and be less than 3 min long (legal length sometimes varies). At the end of the month there is a workshop where the films are submitted and discussed. A few days later there is a party where all the films are shown, along with selected films from all around the world from the previous month's theme. Selected films are posted on the site.

Workshop and party locations and film specs sometimes change without notice, so always confirm everything directly with the New York Producers and Curators: http://www.qfworld.tv/cities.php?city=7.

It can be a great party, great networking, great films.

This month's theme is KISS (with optional technical parameter FISHEYE) which sounds like a fun project.

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My film on Quick Flick World:

CONTRADICTION -- My VLOG post:
http://www.beam.tv/view.php/QF2905NY02_VLog_EricR.mov?uwuwhjqs

My film OTL (which was shown at QFW):

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro:
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479

CASTING ACTORS ON THE LOT

Actors can now post their headshots and vital statistics ON THE LOT (OTL), the website for the new Spielberg/Burnett show. I have no idea whether or not it could result in any casting for the show, but the site seems a good place to network with filmmakers. (Filmmakers have posted a lot of good short films on the site, and participate in blogs and forums. Recently, about 9,000 to 13,000 people are logged in at any one time.)

The actor can also link to their profile page, or give it out as an online headshot and resume.

The actor registers on the site, then clicks the Actor radio button in the profile. The actor can upload pictures and credits. People can post comments on the actor's site. The actor can participate in forums (including an Actor's Forum) and can write a blog on the site. People on the site can exchange private e-mails with each other.

TO FIND ACTORS' PROFILES

Searching on the site is not very good. These are the only ways I know to search on the site (for actors, films, filmmakers or anything else):

1- Use films:
http://films.thelot.com/films/


2- Use casting:
http://www.thelot.com/casting/


3- Use google with thelot.com as part of the search

4- Use Josh Rencher's search:
http://64.39.15.100/onthelot/



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My film OTL:

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479

ON THE LOT -- MORE DETAILS

Some details have finally been released on how On The Lot (OTL) is going to work.

OTL is a version of Apprentice/Idol/Survivor for filmmakers, with Steven Spielberg as the central figure and Mark Burnett as the TV producer.

From 12,000 submissions, 50 filmmakers were picked to go to Hollywood for "boot camp". 18 of those will make it to the final competition. Their (short) films will be judged by a panel that includes Carrie Fisher, Brett Ratner, Garry Marshall, and Jon Avnet.

Ultimately, the final choices will be made by public voting, based on the films made by the filmmakers each week, with the lowest vote-getting director eliminated on each episode.

The show premieres May 22 on Fox.

The OTL web site can become a central meeting place for filmmakers, as well as a magnet for the viewers of the TV show, if the show's producers put a little more work into making the site user-friendly. (For one thing, it needs really good internal navigation, including a good search engine for films. Right now, navigation assistance is minimal.) The site includes community bulletin boards and blogs, filmmaker and actor profiles, and tens of thousands of interesting short films.

My own film is up there:

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479