But is it a SPY film?

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John, I'm going to agree and disagree. First of all, I agree that the genre really wasn't attacked as I thought it would be. The 'spy' or 'espionage' type of films were less and more was talking about being a spy.

Was "Son of Bond" a spy film? He was the son of a spy. In the end he killed someone. I found it engaging, but I did not find it true to the genre.

Neither "Without Provacation" which did not truly delve into the spy theme, but was more of a hostage situation theme.

"Hoffnug" was more a war theme.

"My Grandad Is A Hitman" is exactly the title, hitman.

To say you're a spy, have two talking heads like in "Cristo" (underwater scene sublime) and a few others, I'm sorry, but it doesn't do it for me. It's not true to the genre of spying, true to the gathering of information.

Though "Ancient Chinese Secret" was truer than most in the spying/gathering of information, I would have loved to seen it more about the spy game.

I think this genre was harder for most people to tackle. "Ancient..." is more spot on, however, if we are looking for people who call themselves spies, then "Spies Girls" really has the corner market. This film is totally engaging to this community.

We were told, Bond-like, frankly, so far, I'm not seeing it.
 
Hmmmm....so is the purpose of this list sorting people into a list based on What you think they should be (SPYFILM) as opposed to where they actually be based on the rules?

It seems like this could make people think some movies were not in the correct genre for the fest and sway votes away from them. I know some people who would not vote for amazing movies like imprint if they felt the person had not done what the fest asked of them. It seems this list could be detrimental to some of those films? That makes me wonder why even have it up in the first place?
 
Brandon Rice said:
HEY! If Larry_R or Barry_S deemed the films fit with the theme, then they did!!! END OF STORY PEOPLE! SOMEONE CLOSE THIS STUPID THREAD! Watch the films, and CHILL OUT!
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Brandon certainly gets himself wound up sometimes, don't he? :)

I think we're all good here.
 
cinealma said:
Brandon certainly gets himself wound up sometimes, don't he? :)

I think we're all good here.
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Ain't wound up bro... just think this is a SILLY conversation... :beer:

Charli said:
We were told, Bond-like, frankly, so far, I'm not seeing it.
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Sorry the filmmakers chose to get more creative than Bond... :huh:
 
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Wait...I think something needs to be cleared up. We keep referring to (and I've done it myself as well) "spy" as the genre. "Spy" isn't a genre, but a "theme".

The genre of the film could be action, adventure, thriller, mystery, horror, comedy, etc as long as there was some "spy" element within the core of the story.


Charli said:
We were told, Bond-like, frankly, so far, I'm not seeing it.
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That was stated in the original rules, but if you continued through the rules discussion it was talked about and made clear that there was a much broader definition of the "theme" allowed.
 
Charli's hardcore, I tell ya! :)

I updated the first post and took the list down. BUT, I hope we can keep this conversation open as a means to discuss our films and how we approached the whole "spy" thing.

Great films this time around, people! I think we can all be proud!
 
Larry R said:
Robin the Spy works because although he doesn't do any "explicit spy-ing", he is clearly a "spy".
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Don't make me post a screen grab of Robin hiding behind the base of a wall and spying! Enough with this propaganda!


BTW, for those who don't get it... I'm just playing around. :)

But he does do some spying...

I won't mention it again...

Probably...

Maybe...

We'll see...

Mike
 
Charli said:
We were told, Bond-like, frankly, so far, I'm not seeing it.
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We actually weren't told that:)

Barry_Green said:
Please, for the love of all that's holy, let's have some films that are about something OTHER THAN James Bond! :thumbsup: Stretch your creativity here, folks. Nobody wants to see a lame pale imitation of something else; we keep the rules specific and few so that you can comply (to the specificity) but be wildly creative (because of how few rules there are).
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Thanks James! Wow... finally the truth comes out.

Frankly... I think everyone did a pretty good job of being MORE creative, than a straight Bond-type movie... good work.
 
cinealma said:
THE LIST IS GONE!

I made an error in judgement as I did not have all the information as far as the thematic rules of Spy Fest. I guess I should have done a little spying myself.

Anyway, I would still like to keep this thread open to have a productive and friendly filmmaking discussion, if we can.


Cheers!
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aww now that recess is over...i still didn't make the kickball team...:crybaby: lol
 
Charli said:
... We were told, Bond-like, frankly, so far, I'm not seeing it.
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Jarred mentioned that offhandedly when he first posted the contest and unfortunately it was never deleted.

What was discussed ad nauseum in about 6 other places was that the film had to do with spying in some way, either have a real life spy, or a little girl that spies on her kid brother in the sand box would do just as well, for example.

So there is a very good reason you are not seeing Daniel Craig, or Emma Peel times 30 around here.

I can guarantee you that it is not the purpose of this festival to have 30 James Bond films and thank frickin' god.

If Barry_S or Larry or any mod wants to jump in right now and clear that up it would be great.

I can think of few fates worse than watching 30 DVXuser's version of James Bond. Wow.

Or this fest could be like EVERY OTHER DVXuser fest, and have a loose theme for us all to hang our hat on so that we can make films that excite us and express our individual voices under a common umbrella. That's it.
 
Let's be honest, really, when you think of spy, you don't think of "Charlie's Angels" or "Rush Hour" or "Officer and a Gentleman" - what do you think of?

BOND, JAMES BOND

so in essence, if we are a community are told me construct a story using 'spy' as the theme, who are you kidding when your story doesn't have the tension of espionage, the gathering of information, the sense that someone is watching you.

Spy is spy. So when we looked at the horror films, we got horror (not all good, mind you), when we looked for drama, we got drama, this fest, for me, missed the mark.
 
Wow, it's disappointing that more people didn't understand how we do things around here. I guess we'll have to be more proactive in describing some things next time around.

For The Record: The Rules Are Not There To Corral The Filmmakers Down Any One Path.

The rules are there only to give some measure of common theme to the festival. That theme can be as loosely or as tightly interpreted as the filmmaker wants, as long as the theme is somehow met, by The Letter Of The Law. It does *not* have to meet The Spirit Of The Law, if you know what I mean!

When we had ZombieFest, not all films featured zombies. We extended it to mean any "undead" creature. We had fake TV commercials, we had vampires (one of the best films dealt with vampires in fact), we had all sorts of stuff. And we had a lot of fun.

I made a specific plea that people open their minds and create something creative. I'm very glad to see that some people stuck with the literal definition, some went with a loose definition, and some went completely off kilter but still met the technical requirements.

These have been our definitions. These were the definitions of the DVX Fest organizers and the DVX Fest rules committee. If anyone's particular interpretation is to say that the festival rules are "wrong", well, I don't know how to respond to that... that's just ... really presumptuous, I guess...

Feel free to make the film however you want, so long as it complies with our particular rules, but please don't presume to tell the other filmmakers that their films "don't count" -- that's incredibly uncharitable, and frankly, unfair.

As has been repeatedly stated in numerous threads: if you have a question as to whether your specific idea will or won't comply with the fest, just *ask* beforehand. As long as we can think of any possible way to shoehorn it into the rules, we'll try. At least historically, that's how we've tried to accomodate the filmmakers -- by giving them the freest possible hand and the lightest "requirements" we can!

But with that said, new fests are always subject to having new rules. We might go with StrictFest next time, where the rules must be strictly complied to. Or we might go with OpenFest, where there are no rules whatsoever. All things are subject to change.
 
The mantra of DVXFest is --it's *your* festival. When we pick a theme, we try to see what excites you guys. I always read the suggestion threads. The rules are meant to be the minimal ones we need to run the fest smoothly. It's very clear that people want to be able to be creative in their interpretation of the themes, so we try to allow that (to a point). We also prescreen with a very open view that allows our users to judge the films. You can judge the gray areas yourself and not vote for a film if you feel it violates the rules or spirit of the fest. When we leave something open--feel free to roam, but when we have a specific rule we expect filmmakers to follow it. We do disqualify films every fest--unfortunately.
 
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