Oh, then it was twenty in a fifteen.

*blink*

I just remember it was five mph over. I was very drunk and slinging glass and soap socks.

Just awesome. We're all wondering in the office what they use for the VFX... I'd like to think Maya & Nuke but I have The Fear that it's Lightwave or Cinema4D...

And lots and lots of splash footage to screen over everything

That said, we have all decided the VFX are AWESOME.

Lightwave and Fusion are their weapons of choice.   

However, I did my shots with AE because it's the only comp software I know, fortunately for me they also have AE in-house.

No problem. Call it 1985 and make it a disaster movie where the totalitarian government's genetic experiments on rats used for head-cage torture mutate into giant man-eating CG rats that try to destroy the world. And for some reason they have to fight them with a submarine.

This just in:  Asylum's campaign to have people put 2010: Moby Dick on their Netflix queue has resulted in a "larger than normal" DVD order from Netflix.

So, Moby should be available from Netflix very soon, thanks to all of you who helped game the system.    In the words of Captain Ahab - HA!

/edit:  oops, actually that was just one word.

Last edited by Trey (2010-12-01 21:43:30)

One question I don't think you answered in the episode, Trey, is would you do it again?

Beldar brings up a good point -- Invid, I think maybe you could clarify your question.

Do you mean "if you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, would you still take the gig," or do you mean "If the Asylum came to you tomorrow, saying they really liked 2010: MOBY DICK, and offered you 1985: BIG BROTHER AND BIGGER RATS, would you say yes"?

My answer is a conditional yes.   

There's a lot I like about what the Asylum does, and the best thing is that they make movies.  I've got three potential "real" projects that have all been mired in months of negotiations now.  It'll be a great day if any of them actually happen, but the waiting is maddening, and they may never happen at all.    But in the case of Moby (and most Asylum projects), it's "we're shooting a movie next Monday, you wanna direct it?"  and boom, done.   And my favorite part of the process is being on set, no matter how bad and desperate and crazy it gets.   Post-production is just the necessary evil that comes afterward.  So if that call came again tomorrow, I might indeed say yes again.   

That being said, an even better scenario would be if I wrote the movie myself, because then I'd know what the heck I was making and have a chance to give it some thought beforehand.  And now that I know  the Asylum post-pipeline, I could shape the project from the ground up, so the post was more manageable.   And finally, it'd be nice to get some say in the crewing - while the vast majority of the Moby crew were great, there were a few weak links that were in over their heads and that cost us time.

Assuming Asylum would ever allow any of those things, or ask me to direct again anyway, of which I know not of their plans. 

But the paycheck alone would not be a draw.   I've actually been doing freelance fx work for the Asylum lately - 'twas just my luck that Moby was the last project they did with a two-person fx team, now they've tripled the in-house personnel and even farm out additional shots to folks like me - and being an Asylum fx contractor pays better than directing. 

If the movies with better fx don't bring in more money, I wonder how long that will last

This is kind of off topic, but Trey brought something up that's stuck with me; the bit about how "better quality doesn't change our bottom line."  I can't help but wonder if that's what's been happening with the studio system in, say, the last decade or so.  The difference is the studios do have the money and time for all the flashy fx, and don't seem to care as much about telling good stories. 

I'll site Alien 3 as an example here.  They knew they wanted to keep the franchise going, and went through no less than three different scripts (and several directors), and ultimately the movie we got bears little resemblance to what the guy who got the credit wrote.  People went to see it (including myself) because it was just "Hey, another Alien movie!"  The industry has literally become a Field of Dreams; if we make it, they will come.

Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of talented people out there, and as we've explored on the show, plenty of good movies being made.  But we've also had many examples of films that could have been so much better with just a bit more effort.  I'm not sure where the blame lies here, either with the business like machine of the studios, or the public who keep paying to see movies with little regard for quality; I suspect it's a bit of both.

Until the public becomes more discernible, I'll have to content myself with the fact that the system does produce something worthwhile occasionally, and that there are groups like this out there that do care.  I'm good with that.

The only "Warner" connection I'm aware of is that Asylum movies almost always end up on Time-Warner/Comcast PPV, there's even an internal "Time Warner deadline" for every film, that's when it gets submitted to TW for review and, hopefully, acceptance.

So maybe they've got some kind of distribution arrangement with Warner for other markets like iTunes as well, but I'm just guessin'.