Crapify
Sometimes you see something and you think to yourself “nothing good can come of this”. Enter massify.com. It’s the film industry equivalent of a thirsty baby playing with an open bottle of Drano.
Apparently they crowd-sourced an entire movie. Everything from the script to the casting was voted on, presumably by the same lunkheads who turned Digg into an extension of Apple marketing interspersed with unfunny comics and left-wing commentary. It’s a process scientifically designed to produce a film that’s mediocre for its budget range, which apparently was somewhere in between what a student film normally costs and my monthly car insurance payment.
Nothing good can come of this.
The trailer can be found here, but if you don’t feel like watching, let me sum it up. It’s every other low-budget slasher film trailer you’ve ever seen, but more low-budgety. Lots of short, blood-soaked clips fading out of and into blackness, some roars and creaky fence sounds. But in this case they couldn’t even afford the narrator with the really deep voice that everyone else uses, so they just show some words, because if there’s one thing we know slasher film fans love, it’s reading.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s neat the way the process worked, but I guess I’m unable to see the value in coming up with a novel way to produce more cinematic detritus. Hollywood regurgitates this crap 10 times a year, except (judging from the trailer) with more polish. They don’t need crowd sourcing to add to the dung heap.
It’s true that this gives a lot of people outside of the film industry a chance to participate, but I’m not so sure that is a good thing. The industry is sufficiently easy to at least attempt to join that anyone not motivated enough to try doesn’t belong on the set or in the production credits. Letting a gas station employee play director is perhaps less dangerous than letting him be a thoracic surgeon, but it’s no more likely to achieve a good result.
Hollywood isn’t incapable of good movies or new ideas, though you’d be forgiven for thinking that if you walked by a theater today. There’s an entire independent film system out there working very hard at making actual art. Lots of unknown people from a gas station in Whereversville end up getting their movie produced that way (or even through the major studios occasionally) every year because they send in something good. Not every movie is written by a John August or a Josh Friedman.
In fact, the one thing the movie industry has going for it is that it’s still much more meritocratic than most of the rest of America. A good script is a good script, no matter who wrote it, and the same is true of acting and directing. If a gas station attendant is still years away from breaking through, there’s a good reason for that. The system is flawed and imperfect, and probably ripe for change, but it still functions at a level where if anyone is so good that they can’t be ignored, they’ll end up on top.
So while the process is definitely new, I’m just not sure that making a movie via the crowd is a good idea if more of the same crap that’s been destroying the industry that some of us still love for the last 20 years is the result. Perhaps I’m just a curmudgeon clinging to some silly notion of the movie as America’s greatest art form, but this looks like something that nothing good can ever come of.
December 22, 2008 at 9:49 am
There's no question you're a curmudgeon, but that doesn't mean you're wrong
December 22, 2008 at 10:08 am
I think that's the best description of digg I've seen anywhere. Love it!
December 22, 2008 at 10:42 am
I couldn't agree more. The stuff that floats to the top is the lowest common denominator in social voting sites. It won't be long before we see “Lolcatz the Movie” if this works out.
December 22, 2008 at 10:48 am
This is the first I've heard of the process, and I expect it to be nothing other than crap, but I also think that most highly budgeted and produced slasher films are crap too. It's kind of intrinsic to the genre.
Anyway, it would be interesting to me to compare this post to early (and hell, even recent) commentary by journalists relating to blogging. 'Just leave it to the pros, you amateurs will only churn out crap.'
It is a contentious but common issue: Does more content mean more crap or do rising waters float more boats? I'm inclined to think both. Just as there's a ton of wasted disk space and bandwidth spent at YouTube, occasional gems shine through that couldn't if it wasn't cheap and easy to produce content. My stance is that the gems justify wading through the crap. I have no reason to desire your stance to be the same though, and I am always a fan of curmudgeonry.
December 22, 2008 at 11:12 am
I agree with most of what you say. I disagree with this:
“In fact, the one thing the movie industry has going for it is that it’s still much more meritocratic than most of the rest of America.”
While a good script is a good script, that doesn't mean that it will ever get recognized or made into a movie. I know you made a comparative statement, and the film industry may be *more* meritocratic than other industries, but I don't see it as particularly meritocratic. Hollywood is very much a “who do you know” business. As you say, there are a lot of independent films made, but they compete at such a disadvantage (budget, distribution) that a quality script can easily fail to ever be made into a quality movie.
December 22, 2008 at 11:40 am
“hey couldn’t even afford the narrator”
Yeah. He's DEAD bro. Watch the news much?
December 22, 2008 at 12:12 pm
You're post is so incorrect, I don't even know where to start.
> Apparently they crowd-sourced an entire movie. Everything
> from the script to the casting was voted on, presumably by
> the same lunkheads who turned Digg into an extension of
> Apple marketing interspersed with unfunny comics and left-wing
> commentary. It’s a process scientifically designed to produce a
> film that’s mediocre for its budget range, which apparently was
> somewhere in between what a student film normally costs and
> my monthly car insurance payment.
First of all, the process you've outlined in your post is *not* the process used on Massify. Massify users voted for the story, not the screenplay. The winner did not direct the movie, he served as a producer and got a small role in the movie. What he did get to do, however, is sit in on the production and participate, work with the screenwriters to flesh out the story, etc.
Furthermore the budget for the film was way beyond the cost of a student film and your monthly insurance car payment combined.
> Don’t get me wrong, it’s neat the way the process worked, but I
> guess I’m unable to see the value in coming up with a novel way
> to produce more cinematic detritus. Hollywood regurgitates this
> crap 10 times a year, except (judging from the trailer) with more
> polish. They don’t need crowd sourcing to add to the dung heap.
It's painfully obvious you've had little to do with film, like ever. Do you really believe most films are the work of a single individual? Movies have been crowd sourcing since before the internet tubes. The only thing Massify changes is who gets let into that particular crowd.
> Don’t get me wrong, it’s neat the way the process worked, but
How can you call the process neat when you haven't the faintest clue how it works?
> I guess I’m unable to see the value in coming up with a novel
> way to produce more cinematic detritus. Hollywood regurgitates
I'm not exactly sure our process is that novel. All we've really done is put a web interface on the same mechanic and opened up who can participate, nothing more and nothing less.
> In fact, the one thing the movie industry has going for it is
> that it’s still much more meritocratic than most of the rest of
> America. A good script is a good script, no matter who wrote it,
Again, you write with authority but it's obvious you aren't a student of film history.
I'd argue your points more, but discourse on the web is futile, specifically when there is a risk that the OP will be shown to be clueless and pedantic.
December 22, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Do you know what a straw man is? Because what you just did is create a few of them and argue against them. You didn't argue my points at all, you made up your own and argued them. Feel free to argue mine at any time.
December 22, 2008 at 4:51 pm
The blogging process is a lot different. A bunch of individuals make their own content, then users decide which they like at the end. That's a lot different than a wiki, where users create it together from scratch.
Blogging and YouTube are a lot more like the independent film industry than massify.
December 22, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I certainly don't pay any attention to any “news” source where that would be a headline. I'm more of a The Economist guy than Us Weekly.
But regardless, I have a feeling there is more than one person who can narrate movie trailers.