On The Lot, judges and shorts
July 18, 2007 — 1 Comment
I’m not sure if anyone’s been watching On The Lot but it’s a show on Fox, created by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett. I’ve heard about it a number of times, but I only happened to catch it earlier this week. For those who don’t know, it’s sort of like an American Idol for filmmakers with a prize of a one-million dollar development deal at dreamworks. So as expected, many people apply and only a handful are selected. Each week a group of contestants are given a theme for a short, and once made, viewers vote on their favorite films. The contestant with the least votes is sent home.
Anyway, when I saw the show earlier this week there were quick highlights of the previous week and the judges comments, which I find hilarious. One judge, Gary Marshall, loves quoting other people in his appraisals of short films. Carrie Fisher is equally amusing. You probably need to watch just one episode and you’ll enjoy the somewhat non-constructive feedback.
I’m not sure if this is a regular thing on the show, but there was a guest judge on this episode who was one Luke Greenfield. He’s quite a young filmmaker, just over thirty years of age. I looked him up on IMDB just because I was bored, and I wanted to know who he was. His notable directing achievements are basically The Animal with Rob Schneider and The Girl Next Door with Elisha Cuthbert. Both films had their amusing moments, but neither was really that good in my opinion (but who the hell am I?) and his comments on the show which could be summarised as “totally unexpected is good” were a bit strange. I was just wondering why he was on a show as someone with authority where they are trying to find a good new filmmaker. I was reading his bio, and I read that Adam Sandler searched out Luke Greenfield to direct the Animal after seeing his short film The Right Hook which was made a good six years after he left the USC under-graduate film school. I checked out the film on YouTube, and it was quite decent – written and directed by Luke Greenfield, check it out here.
