SciFi YouTube Video Lands Million Dollar Deal

[Mcface]

Looks pretty stupid IMO.

 

[Sporky111]

That's pretty damn amazing, especially since he made it with only $500 dollars. This guy deserves to be making full length movies, I don't blame them for pouncing on the opportunity.

Now, I know how easy it is to take a stab at Micheal Bay, but imagine the heyday he would have had with the rockets and the final nuking. This was done to great effect, but I just imagined the gratuitous fireworks and Linkin Park playing in the background.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

while the technique and optics were excellent, that was the most stupid invasion tactics I have ever seen in a movie (or game).

for one: why first invade a city with 'light artillery' when you blow up the whole thing anyway.
why does everybody leave their cars and RUN away etc.
And for the realism freaks: how many rockets fit in a robot arm if the size of one rocket is about the third of the arm. That is japanese Gundam Style. Cool but kills the realism.
(and even Alien technology bends to laws of physics)

Cohersive (visual) story telling does not seem to be Alvarez' masterskill.
this was not anything beyond Micheal Bay could do.

 

[Shapsters]

Wow, thats all I can say is wow, what an incredibly high quality job for just $500!

Good luck to the man lets see what he can do!

EDIT-

Looks pretty stupid IMO.

What looks stupid about it? The fact he made a movie just to show off his special effects skills and only spent $500 on it? Do you think he made the movie so he can show off his story making skills and character development? So what is it that's stupid about it?

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

The ending was just... wow.



Amazing animation.


But really. They just came together, and boom. Also, great Music.

 

[Hirvox]

When I saw the lone guy in the skyscraper, I immediately began thinking of Canabalt [http://www.adamatomic.com/canabalt/]. A big city, giant robots, alien fighters and an overwhelming sense that something terrible is about to happen..

 

[tkioz]

I'll also be honest in saying that I have very mixed opinions about foreign film makers, especially when they primarily want to set movies in their native land or whatever.

err because America is the only country on the planet? I don't know about you but I'm sick of seeing movies based in New York or LA there are other cities out there.

True enough I suppose, but I tend to notice a distinct decline in film quality when you wind up with a foreign director, dealing with his homeland. Oftentimes accompanied by attempts to referance to politics and situations that I have little or no opinion on.

And you think the rest of the world gives two craps about some American joke or politics that are in every god-damn movie coming out?

Well the thing is that we're the dominant world power and our form of "conquest" has come through the spread of our culture. Things like Mcdonalds, Starbucks, etc... are known all over the world, as are American concepts like Cowboys. For all the criticisms made about foreigners aping us badly at things, the simple truth is that even while "hating" us everyone also wants to BE us.

Now before you flame me for daring to say that, the point is that our humor is something that most cultures get. What's more throughout most of the world people know who the big names in American politics are like Bush, Obama, Clinton, etc... because what they do/decide can effect them. While people complained about the amount of attention it got internationally, the entire world was pretty much following the US Presidential elections and inserting opinions on it. You literally had people stopping guys in other nations on the street to ask their opinion, typically from pro-Obama media. The point here being that you COULD do this and find the man on the street having some knowlege of American politics.

When it comes to other nations, very few people know or care about their politics unless it directly affects them (like being a neighbor or whatever). There are literally hundreds of differant countries and very few people could tell you who was in the #1 position in most of them who didn't live there. Even a well informed person who isn't directly involved in politics isn't liable to know more than a couple dozen, especially when dealing with nations that have little contact with his own.

Love it or Hate it, people know America, and you can drop a movie involving referances pretty much anywhere and people will be able to follow it. One of the reasons why American movies are such a big deal internationally, and why many nations have been trying to control the import of our media (under a large number of excuses) cultural conquest through ideas so to speak.

At any rate, drop a movie set in the US into say Southeast Asia and they will generally get it. Drop a movie made in South or Central America with local jokes and political referances and people in Southeast Asia are likely to go "huh".

As much as some nations like France hate this, really the three biggest "universal" media producers right now are America, Britan, and Hong Kong in roughly that order. Canada and Australia are not far behind but haven't produced quite as much, and honestly I think a lot of people wind up thinking their productions are American or British. Having talked to a bunch of sci-fi nerds I've heard Lexx (Canada) and Farscape (Australia) referred to as American more than once even though they WERE marketed here, I believe most of the production happened outside the US even if US money and talent were involved in places.

"Hong Kong Cinema" has gained increasing global circulation as the Chinese trade more and more, and in general you can find an almost universal appeal to things like Kung-Fu movies and Erotic thrillers/comedies. It was once a cult thing, outside of China, but has been taking off.

I can understand how a new film maker from outside this group of nations might want to put his country on the map cinematically, and hope he could spread/improve his culture through exposure. But in general I don't thinkt hat is liable to work, in general first a nation/culture becomes successful, and then their media/popular culture tends to follow (with rare exception).

Not faulting his ambition actually, it's just that I feel that even if his first horror movie succeeds, if he wants long-term success and recognition he's ultimatly going to have to work within the big media. With American sponsors apparently that means working in and around Hollywood (or New York for TV) and at most travelling out sporadically

Well I could go into a point by point rebuttal of pretty much all of that, especially the "want to be us" you couldn't pay me enough money to want Australia to be more like America, in fact we are already infected too damn much by your culture, however arguing with you wont do anything since you've proven my point thank you very much.

You are too centred (yes that is the correct ENGLISH spelling, get with the times) on American themes, you would be one of the people who dismiss things without giving them a chance because they don't fall into your narrow prospective of what should be good, which is a shame since perhaps the best Sci-Fi movie of the decade was set in South Africa (w-t-f is up with South African accents? I can handle every other accent of English speakers, even the damn Scots and Liverpudlians, but South Africans I get lost).

You dismiss this man who has done an incredible video because you don't think his movies, which he hasn't even made yet, wont be centred on your narrow little culture... that's self-centred arrogance of the worst kind. That's part of the reason your nation is becoming more and more alienated to your tradition allies, I mean honestly, do you have to drum on and on about how great you (think) are? It's getting annoying, and I swear every time I see a billowing American flag or hear a monologue about how great America is in a movie I just want to puke, at least try and be subtle.

 

[AquaAscension]

Really well done on the CGI, and I wonder how he got the "running terrified" scenes. My personal favorite aspect of that film though was the music. Epic music in my opinion.

 

[Syntax Error]

Looks interesting, hopefully it won't go Cloverfield and bombard viewers with "gritty and realistic" shakycam.

 

[scotth266]

The collection of impressible short films made this year by previous unknowns gets larger and larger. With talent like this flying around, I can have a little bit of faith in the movie industry's future.

 

[duchaked]

I'll also be honest in saying that I have very mixed opinions about foreign film makers, especially when they primarily want to set movies in their native land or whatever.

err because America is the only country on the planet? I don't know about you but I'm sick of seeing movies based in New York or LA there are other cities out there.

I think his other points were definitely of concern

I mean, don't get me wrong, the youtube video was amazing (as everyone has said, $500?? not including previous capital)

but yeah the visual fx director isn't generally the whole production's director, but we'll see what he spins out =] should be pretty cool

 

[Darth_Dude]

Amazing, even more so because he had a budget of $300.

 

[Woem]

Thank you so much for sharing this, it's an amazing 4 minutes!

 

[Xvito]

That's $500? Holy poo poo!

Also, the child in the beginning is one of the better child-actors I've seen to date...

 

[ERadical]

Snip

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees it did sound like the heavy didn't it, although i did pretty much just spend the whole day playing TF2

Great video, he definitely deserves his contract..

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

It looks like they're getting attacked by Imperial Titans...
must... keep... watching...

EDIT: Oh my. That is purely fantastic. Amazing, even.

 

[Saul B]

Hmmm... $500 into $1,000,000? thats a 200,000% profit rate (I think)

 

[Leroy Frederick]

Excellent special effects, it will be interesting to see how he does with story, script and characters (although I suppose a bunch of people will be helping with that now). Great story anyway