I have no idea where to place this having scoured every board's definition, so if I'm wrong by placing this here, please forgive and move accordingly.

Some months ago, someone came onto the board and asked for a script with some very specific requirements. (I looked for the original post and it was cleaned out). In under a month, I wrote this sci-fi comedy and called it Alien Proof. He said it could only have males between 12 and 16 years, and only a couple of sets and locations. He also used the term "glorious(ly bad) CGI". I was amused and hey, the prospect of any production is a draw for me. The original script was 73 pages (not much material to work with, nor could I go beyond certain boundaries, but he was happy with the length), the final cut he turned out was 35. Yea, a whole lot was cut out, although curiously, most of Act one remained intact. I have been trying to take the wmv file he sent and reduce its size to no avail so far. Maybe I'll get it down, but I thought I'd share this big file for now.

I found it very amusing in its final form, and though not the best film on the planet, it is also not the worst. Since its viewing some people have commented on some changes to the script I could do, and their suggestions are actually quite clever. I'm sure there are several things I could have done better on it, especially since he shot the first draft. I did zero revisions on it after I sent it to him. He just took it and ran with it. Talk about a tight schedule.

3/11/06 Update: I recently went through the film and edited down some of the scenes to make them a little more efficient and a little easier to watch. I also tweaked one scene that ran on for awhile (but that I couldn't really edit) to make it a tad more interesting to watch.

June 7, 2006: I uploaded Alien Proof on to ifilm.com, so it'll be there as long as I want it to be. Enjoy if you've never seen it:

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2733361

Hope you enjoy it...oh yes, and he did misspell my name in the credits...he apologized profusely. I have since corrected the opening credits, but I left the closing ones as is, with only one L in my last name.

Good news, George. Congrats.

I'll download this when I get home tonight.

In 20 minutes I'll have it... I have high high speed so it only takes about 20 minutes for these big files.

I love watching these types of films and or shorts as they give a guy like me hope that I too can make something with very little cash.

(Update... I watched some of it but it's just too much, I just hope they didn't actually spend any real money on this film ha-ha I'll have to watch it in full but the characters were very hard to understand at times because they have thick accents and it seems they didn't do a recorded soundtrack as most films do and match it up so that they could have the best audio quality possible.)

This would go in "Bragging Rights", which was the virtual trophy case of this online community until that section was deleted.  

Whoa... whoa... can I borrow some weed from these guys?

I'd agree that it is a bit too long, but I still thought there were many cool scenes.  I also liked that the director chose to do long, un-edited takes that were, for the most part, fairly well acted.  I especially thought Harjeevan Narulla did a great job, as he seemed to have an actual presence.  But, yeah, ditto on the sound.  This is me being an ignorant American, but some of the accents were so thick, that for the first minute or so, I actually thought they were speaking German.  Though, this could also be fault of the audio equipment itself, if any.

Still, a cool job, and I actually thought some of the shoddy green screen effects added something interesting to the movie, and I do mean that as a compliment.  Plus, it had a kicka** soundtrack.

Well, I think I failed to mention these guys are Australian, which is probably obvious from the accents. But I think you're right on the audio as well. It had a lot of background "fuzz."

I didn't mind the unedited scenes in so much as he seemed to insist everyone leave the "stage" before cutting. I think if those handfuls of seconds were cut from the end of each scene, it would improve greatly.

I looked for Bragging Rights first, but being unable to find it, I stuck it here.

Thanks for watching, Wesley and SyCo.

Last chance to see this short film before the link craps out on us tonight. My seven days are up just after midnight tonight.

I'm going to download it in a few hours.

You Send It, possibly the best site for this sort of thing though if you really care to you could always try Acid Planet. I have an account but never use it as I don't make movies at this time but you could probably with permission from the film maker upload it there and with that it's readily available for future watches.

Also you can just directly watch it from that site instead of downloading it first. You'll have to ask SyCo but you may have to break it up into two or three parts.

Just a suggestion though if you wanted to keep it up and available. I have it downloaded on my PC so I can watch it in the near future to see if it was as I first thought or if I was just being picky because I wanted to do something else ha-ha.

Quoted from George Willson I have no idea where to place this having scoured every board's definition, so if I'm wrong by placing this here, please forgive and move accordingly.

George, this is the right location.  I downloaded the movie and did watch it.  It was clever and imaginative.

Don

Thanks Don. Not bad for a month and no rewrites, I thought. Look forward to your thoughts, MacDuff. And Wesley, I'm looking into posting it somewhere else to make it a more permanant fixture. I'll check into Acid Planet. Thanks.

Okay, if you missed it last time or even if you didn't, here is Alien Proof v2. It retains the first film, but I edited down the length of some of the scenes trimming a little over 3 minutes off the run time. I also removed the reference to the website, since it is no longer active. The link is in the first post.

Yes, I should really work up the courage to fix the spelling of my name, but I haven't figured out how to get WMM to make different titles. I'll probably have to do it in Photoshop and cut it in. The problem (and fear) is that music track and keeping that and the audio all synced up.

Enjoy!

Hey George. I've just watched it. I'm congrating with you about your story and the director efforts. I've some points to comment and I gave 6 in 10, because of the sound problems, the english accent and for lot of wide shots. I seems like to film plays. Where are the medium shots, close-ups, details etc? Doesn't matter, it was a funny and interesting whatch, anyway.

I downloaded it onto a friends computer(faster connection). I'll be sure to give this a watch later.

-Zavier

Wow...he he...this was...interesting. Congrats though.

I played with some video effects to create some close-ups, but for a portion of the show, there are bars at the top and bottom of the screen making any attempt to zoom in on faces show this very clearly. If I could figure out a way to sort of "synthesize" those bars, I might be able to do more with it, since movie maker does have some effects that zoom and pan and such. It looks like they preferred to place the camera on a tripod and then film the static shot. On the original finished movie, the actors always walked on the set after the scene began and off the set before the shot ended. That is most of what I chopped out. All I have is a high quality WMV file that I'm messing with in movie maker to improve it a little bit. It was filmed in Australia by someone else entirely. I'm lucky to have more than just the DVD to work with.

And sorry, you'll have to live with the Australian accent. I'm not going to loop the dialogue.

Hey George, don't worry, the aussy accent was not problem. maybe I will have the same problem when the guy to finish Hello, Mr Einstein! Where is the script of it, by the way , George?

I considered posting the link to the script since I do have it online. I never posted it on SimplyScripts since I wasn't looking for feedback on it, but you can read it here: http://www.angelfire.com/film2/fempiror/AlienProof.pdf

It's 72 pages, and I suppose which way is better is a total toss-up. I did work to develop the alien characters a little more than was in the final version as well as make the other characters more complete, though they ended up a little thin anyway.

I have uploaded this little film onto ifilm.com (finally). That should make it permanent and watchable. I changed the first post to reflect the link, but here it is again:

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2733361