Alphas

I clicked the trailer and immediately found I couldn't continue, on account of it being on Syfy. I felt like watching Battle: Los Angeles, and downloaded it, but it turned out to be Battle of Los Angeles, which was a ploy that Syfy apparently employs regularly. Make a shoddy (and when I say shoddy I mean shoddy) Z-grade movie that has a name that's veeeeeery close to the title that they're trying to nick viewers from, and see a minimum of viewings generate enough profit to cover the costs.

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Show might be good though... but the annoyance from this incident isn't faded sufficiently yet ;P
 
That's not it Eriku. These films aren't made by SyFy, nor are they made purely so they can steal viewers for Syfy. These films are all made by the same company, The Global Asylum. They specialize in making ridiculous films, as well as very cheap rip-offs of blockbusters. Typically they spend anywhere between £50,000 - £500,000 on their films. What they do is when a big release is coming out, i.e War of The Worlds, or 10,000 BC, they release their version, The War of The Worlds, or 100 million BC, or Paranormal Entity etc. All this achieves is that the film is sent straight to DVD, of course, where people will confuse it with the real title, and buy that. They make more than enough to cover their budgets, and in the process have gained a cult following. For example, their release of 'The War of The Worlds' saw Blockbusters make a £100,000 order alone.
 
It's a genius plan. I'm going to make my own shit versions of their own shit versions for even less money in the hope that people will mistake my shit cheap films for theirs.
 
It works, on a very large scale. Okay, maybe not your idea though, but I'd love to be involved. Some of their films are exceptional. 2012 is the worst thing I've ever seen. Me and a friend at points actually stood up and went mental at the TV. I've never been so involved in a film before, it was almost as if it were interactive.
 
They've never recorded a loss on a film, and films can be completed from start to finish, script to finished article in 3-4 months.
 
My first one will be called Panamanian Amnesty ...I'm going to make it entirely out of papier mache
 
Hectic said:
That's not it Eriku. These films aren't made by SyFy, nor are they made purely so they can steal viewers for Syfy. These films are all made by the same company, The Global Asylum. They specialize in making ridiculous films, as well as very cheap rip-offs of blockbusters. Typically they spend anywhere between £50,000 - £500,000 on their films. What they do is when a big release is coming out, i.e War of The Worlds, or 10,000 BC, they release their version, The War of The Worlds, or 100 million BC, or Paranormal Entity etc. All this achieves is that the film is sent straight to DVD, of course, where people will confuse it with the real title, and buy that. They make more than enough to cover their budgets, and in the process have gained a cult following. For example, their release of 'The War of The Worlds' saw Blockbusters make a £100,000 order alone.
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Hah... thanks for setting me straight. I might've misread a post on IMDB, or they may have had it wrong... but at any rate it's astounding... and disgusting.
 
I just caught up with some recent released. 'Fast Five' was called '200mph'. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was renamed to 'Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls'.
 
Hectic said:
It works, on a very large scale. Okay, maybe not your idea though, but I'd love to be involved. Some of their films are exceptional. 2012 is the worst thing I've ever seen. Me and a friend at points actually stood up and went mental at the TV. I've never been so involved in a film before, it was almost as if it were interactive.
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Mockney said:
My first one will be called Panamanian Amnesty ...I'm going to make it entirely out of papier mache
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:lol:
 
Eriku said:
Hah... thanks for setting me straight. I might've misread a post on IMDB, or they may have had it wrong... but at any rate it's astounding... and disgusting.
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It's fantastic. Just last year they released Titanic 2.
 
Alright Hectic, but in that case, we'd need our turnover from script to screen to be ever shorter. Say, 3-6 days. We'd also need to make sure our titles are close enough rip offs of their titles, and not the original titles...

So, 200mph, could be 200kph, and set in France, and could be entirely comprised of someone explaining the difference in speed limit measurements in Europe to a bemused leaner driver in the back of a Renaut Clio.

While Battle of Los Angels could simply be Bottle of Los Angels. Which would be mainly focused on a very dull man showing us a bottle he found in Los Angeles.

What d'you think?....We would need to get papier mache in there somewhere as I've gotten all excited by it now.
 
Hectic said:
It's fantastic. Just last year they released Titanic 2.
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Holy feck... it's got next to nothing to do with the actual Titanic



Hilarious... for those who can't be arsed, a frozen Jack is thawed and finds his way back into modern life. Hheheheh :D
 
:lol:

I'm on it. Papier mache is a fantastic idea. Not only will it go along with the intentional budget look we are after, but it also saves us loads of money. I'd say that works well, we limit scripts to a week maximum. If by that time there is any left, we will end the film at that point, making it ripe for a 'sequel' in the future, regardless of what actually happens.

It's going to be a lot like Monty Python in the sense that we will have to play loads of different characters for each film, not in the sense that it will be actually brilliant.

It's a shame the video isn't still around, we could have saved a fortune. Also if we shoot the film in one take, we can spend less time on editing, maybe cut that area down to 6-7 hours per film.
 
Hectic said:
:lol:

I'm on it. Papier mache is a fantastic idea. Not only will it go along with the intentional budget look we are after, but it also saves us loads of money. I'd say that works well, we limit scripts to a week maximum. If by that time there is any left, we will end the film at that point, making it ripe for a 'sequel' in the future, regardless of what actually happens.

It's going to be a lot like Monty Python in the sense that we will have to play loads of different characters for each film, not in the sense that it will be actually brilliant.

It's a shame the video isn't still around, we could have saved a fortune. Also if we shoot the film in one take, we can spend less time on editing, maybe cut that area down to 6-7 hours per film.
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We could perhaps cut back the entire cast list of every film to just us, and any peripheral characters could be made from papier mache and voiced by one of those automated programmes where you type stuff in and it says it in a Stephen Hawking voice. This could then have the knock on affect of making these characters distinctive and cool, like little papier mache robot sidekicks, which we could then merchandise, naturally. In fact we should probably get a merchandising deal sorted before we write the film.

Also to save on action set pieces, we could probably just draw them, with little arrows and captions and shit, and then hold them up to the camera. I think that'll be fine as long as it's clear what's happening.

I've also thought of another one. Brakes on a Train...It would mainly (in fact, entirely) consist of someone checking if the brakes worked on a train. They would work of course. Any kind of crash would be far too time consuming to draw. But there'd have to be a moment there where you aren't sure.
 
That's an excellent idea. I think our entire business model should be based on merchandising, which inevitably is entirely papier mache. Without a cast to account for, our profit margins should be fantastic. I thought that to add a bit of realism and unpredictability, we could attach the papier mache characters to a harnessed dog, who is anchored to the ground close by to limit too much movement. This would look great I feel, especially for chase scenes.

I like that. For the very few but really special scenes we can just apply shutter speeds and slow motion to the camera, allowing us to achieve visually attractive scenes like the whole of Inception for example, but on paper, being drawn. It sounds much better. We need a knock off Hans Zimmer as well who can do us cheap scores, although we could outsource this to the paper machier department, which comes with unknown results.

Brakes on a Train is going to be our first release. It's going to launch us worldwide, for two reasons. Not only will it be a unique take on Snakes on a Plane, which is actually not a unique take, but a complete irrelevance, it will also double up as the single most expensive and informative full length motion picture on the workings and safety of trains. It would be the safest demonstration of trains and train tracks, from the workers perspective as well as ours, ever seen before.
 
Yeah sorry Chiring, but I think we are onto something much better here. Might even give that 'Alphas' bullshit a look as thanks.
 
We damn sure are. I've already started production on Brakes on a Train. And by production, I mean I've drawn a picture of a train. It's the most half arsed, least realistic picture of a train you've ever seen, but I feel that'll add a cool surrealist element that'll hook in the arty film types...like Spoony.

There could be a whole DVD special features segment that would just consist of me showing people bad pictures of trains I've drawn. It's almost voyeuristic, and a deep social comment on something.
 
That could very easily be a potential sequel. Filmed as a companioned piece. Set at the same time, but from a different perspective. All arty like. So whilst the first film deals with some people checking the brakes, on a train, the second would deal will one passengers personal ordeal throught this process....Which would involve him sitting in his seat listening to breaks on his iphone. On a train.

You'd never quite actually hear the breaks...Just the sort of tinny, headphone sound you hear when someone else is listening to something you can't quite make out. For about an hour. It's genius.

I'm not sure where the papier mache comes in to that one though. At least not yet.
 
Get Elena Anaya to star and you can swap the papier mache for boxes of tissues.
 
Aside from not knowing who she is, I'd assume she'd come with a fee...We're trying to keep the production costs down here. Though we could make a model of her out of papier mache and then stick a picture of her face on it..Or even better, draw it.

The man would obviously have a dog too. Allowing us to test our harnessed anchor movement method.
 
Mockney said:
That could very easily be a potential sequel. Filmed as a companioned piece. Set at the same time, but from a different perspective. All arty like. So whilst the first film deals with some people checking the brakes, on a train, the second would deal will one passengers personal ordeal throught this process....Which would involve him sitting in his seat listening to breaks on his iphone. On a train.

You'd never quite actually hear the breaks...Just the sort of tinny, headphone sound you hear when someone else is listening to something you can't quite make out. For about an hour. It's genius.

I'm not sure where the papier mache comes in to that one though. At least not yet.
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I think Breakes on a Train is a great suggestion for a sequel. Possibly an unrelated prequel. I was thinking, to save money and effort, when we film the first movie, we could have several scenes, in fact make it a recurring theme that in the background we see train workers with headphones on. Obviously the audience just assume they are listening to music while they work, or to block out the sounds around them, it will look normal and commonplace. Then, all we have to do is select those scenes, and that becomes the basis for the sequel/prequel. It's the same scenes, but with music, except there's this underlying question as to where the music comes from, we never see the workers use a phone, ipod, or mp3 player, but pass along one set of headphones to the next worker after they've finished. There is a purpose behind this. Then we can do a Jungle prequel to the prequel, which is 'Amen Breaks on a Train', and explains where the source of the music came from.
 
It's not out yet wr8...we haven't even got a solid script yet.
 
We have got a drawing of a train though. But It's not half decent. It's pretty bad. I haven't coloured it in yet though.
 
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