This short film landed the dude a major motion picture directing gig.

It's a great short. AFAIC whoever hired the director (and writer) for the feature gig isn't pissing in the wind. The actor (J.B. Smoove, who is a very experienced pro, and perfectly cast) is also brilliant. Like I always like to say (in one way or another), good acting + good writing + good production = ticket to success. In other words, this proves that for the most part, 'the industry' actually is a meritocracy...

Happy to hear about one that does what every short-film creator hopes theirs will. Myself included...
 
Man, this was both extremely boring and funny. I really can't believe someone saw this and concluded this was good enough to trust the makers with a feature. The actor is great, he steals the whole show, but man, isn't he alone in this. The story is mediocre and the direction is TV soap level at best.

If this was someone's ticket to a feature, it shows that anything goes... But I'm happy for them. Good luck.
 
you have to follow the link at slashfilm to understand. read the story and you'll understand why this was a no-brainer for an instant big time D gig. Happens like every year in HW.
 
It's entirely senseless to examine the quality of this short and then try to reach any conclusions about why the guy got a movie deal. Because, friends, it has nothing to do with quality. It was amusing to some powerful insiders, so they made it happen for the guy - zero to do with quality. That's it. Take an identical level of directing skill, acting, story and exact location, but make it about some other industry, not film (i.e. have this actor talk about another industry, otherwise keeping everything exactly the same), and it would be just another of a million anonymous youtube videos. You know what the real skill was here? Access to powerful insiders. He found a way to reach them. It may display shrewd political skills, but has zero to do with technical or artistic filmmaking skills. There are a million other directors/writers who show equal or greater skill in their shorts than this, but who didn't just happen to be in the right place at the right time. When you hear of someone winning the lottery, do you rush out and study their number picking methods? It's as pointless in this instance.

By the way, if you want a story that is far more penetrating and brilliantly searing and deals with the inside world of talent agencies, take a look at Swimming with Sharks. Now that was a good piece of work - in a different galaxy quality-wise than this little piece of nothing. Based on this, one would think that George Huang certainly deserved a career, but the subsequent career was pretty underwhelming.

So don't begrudge this guy his movie deal. It says nothing about where it may take him - it may all peter out. Or, perhaps he'll be a great future director... though you couldn't really say that based on this short. But whatever you think of the short, just remember, quality had nothing to do with this guys movie deal. In other words, merit is definitely not the deciding factor - or a factor at all - in this case. Which, happens not infrequently in Hollywood. Having merit puts you ahead of the game and makes your odds much better, but is by no means necessary for success.

It would be a mistake to look at this short and try to divine lessons to be learned, because that's not what made the guy's deal. No amount of studying the directing, the acting or the story of this particular short will move you one millimeter closer to success. That's my opinion.
 
On responding to comments: I'm on the fence about that. Or at last on a major blog, that's like setting up defense from people to really speak their mind. Guess everyone's policy is different, though. Exploit those connects!
 
Perhaps it's just jealousy talking, but I find it pretty sad if that short film got someone a major directing job. The actor was great, but everything else was mediocre at best. I guess it goes to show that quality is not the only way to be successful in this business.
 
Nuno Dias said:
Man, this was both extremely boring and funny. I really can't believe someone saw this and concluded this was good enough to trust the makers with a feature. The actor is great, he steals the whole show, but man, isn't he alone in this. The story is mediocre and the direction is TV soap level at best.

If this was someone's ticket to a feature, it shows that anything goes... But I'm happy for them. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I agree. I just don't see it.

Just means there's hope - a lot of it out there!


JJM
 
Seems like there was a lot more going on here than "Some guy made a short film and it got him a HUGE DIRECTING DEAL!!!"
Maybe it was deserved, maybe not, but this isn't some midwest high school kid whose talent was immediately recognized by the starseekers of hollywood. Guy was a pro screenwriter-- he was already working in the industry. He had access to an empty WME, had access to what seems to be some big names, certainly had a ton of connections to the industry.
 
Also, his directing gig isn't locked in yet he mentioned. This kinda of film gets someone a directing gig every year, if the right people see it - and he was already in. Read the article and you'll k ow why
 
IMHO the piece simply shows off the writer/director's strong ability in areas that are unfortunately quite elusive for most short film makers. First and foremost: writing and (directing/casting the) acting, most notably as a successful comedy, because as any one who know knows, comedy is hard. Then there's the concept (which was within externally assigned parameters - read the accompanying text for details), which under the circumstances was both narratively and visually clever.

Again, good ol' solid fundamentals. But of course, as always, this is just:

My $.02
 
Ted Spencer said:
IMHO the piece simply shows off the writer/director's strong ability in areas that are unfortunately quite elusive for most short film makers. First and foremost: writing and (directing/casting the) acting, most notably as a successful comedy, because as any one who know knows, comedy is hard. Then there's the concept (which was within externally assigned parameters - read the accompanying text for details), which under the circumstances was both narratively and visually clever.

Again, good ol' solid fundamentals. But of course, as always, this is just:

My $.02
Click to expand...

This comment/response finally made me click play. xD Yeah, comedy is hard, but if this is "good" or successful comedy then a lot of comedians that are actually funny, or writers, will be out of jobs soon.

Not only that, this thing goes on for 5 minutes too long, and all he's doing is yelling.

It's a pretty good example of how good contacts help. No offense to the guy, efforts always applauded, but this is not funny or good, or well written or anything like that, to me at least.
 
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