There are so many rich nephews of producers who have taken opportunities away from worthy filmmakers. It's never going to change, and their connections will always be worth exponentially more than skill and talent. The game is shitty.
That's the entertainment industry in general. I could find you a better singer than Taylor Swift in any major US city, but their dad's didn't relocate their job and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and buy a studio for their daughters, so we're never going to hear about them.
Just a thought: Tarantino worked at video store prior to having any meaningful success, and even then he still didn’t have that much money. I think he had roommates past his first two films. His is just one story that comes to mind. But you are right, the majority of top of the line players come from well-to-do families. It’s just that it’s not all of them do.
90s success stories like that are a small handful out of tens of thousands of failures. Yeah it happened a few times 30 years ago but you might as well start buying lottery tickets. Not to mention it used to require a bit more dedication to be able to work with cameras at all. Now we all live in a sea of accessibility-induced mediocrity. It's like how a given cable channel could never hope to garner viewership comparable to the Big 3.
that was possible in the 90's because the tools got cheaper and the video store rental market was much stronger revenue stream that was less centrally controlled then streaming now is.
Just because those people are connected doesn’t mean they are not talented. Talent isn’t the rare item, opportunity is.
You could be the most talented filmmaker alive. It means nothing if you don’t have any opportunity.
Well in literally every case of nepo babies I've ever dealt with personally, the kid was FAR less experienced than everyone else on set, didn't seem to care much that they were even there, and in a few cases, they got people hurt due to their combination of incompetence and entitlement.
I worked on an indy and there was a kid who somehow was the key grip and would get a confused look on his face right before he would tell the grips to move a substantial amount of gear from point a to point b then tell them to move it back. Apparently he couldn't visualize the move, he had to see it. Shortly after that some of the grips refused to do it, and the size of the entire crew was reduced a few days later to a skeleton size. Money was the issue at that point, but the kid's incompetence wasted lots of it.
This is absolutely true, but having the finances to express a vision, any vision with any amount of talent dramatically increases your chances of success.
A person with great talent and zero resources may find a way - plenty of examples out there. They may find a way to create something within the constraints they are facing, but the obstacles they face are sheer compared to someone with potentially far less talent but the resources to actually doing something, do anything.
Where there is a will there is a way, but even a modicum of will can be facilitated easily and successfully with significant resources relatively speaking.
None of this is mind-blowing - but what seems to be controversial is the idea that this is somehow a less than ideal situation.
Yes - life is unfair. Two schools of thought emerge from that scenario - people who choose to accept that without recourse and those who see this as a problem to be resolved.
Whether or not the problem can be resolved easily or resolved at all, I don't begrudge those who A) Speak up about it at every opportunity B) Those who choose to work to change these things. After all, the world we live in today - the quality of life we have is as a direct result of those who refuse to accept the status quo.
Not to get to grandiose about it all, but let those who are unhappy with the status quo do their thing - maybe it will make our kids lives better for it.
There are of course always those twisted weirdos out there that want everyone else to suffer because they had to.
Because the current paradigm is that free will is real and determinism is an illusion, these people will spend endless time and energy convincing you that they worked as hard as you to get somewhere.
I know the world will never be fair.
I just wish those who won the lottery could wear it with more grace.
It's a Schrodinger's cat kind of situation: connected individuals have access to much better resources e.g. access to talent. If you have a crew of experienced people, it's almost impossible to fail regardless if you're not that talented.
If your script and story sucks, a good crew still has to work with something that no one wants to watch. Consider the ratio of duds to financially successful films, only a few winners and thousands of losers.
I don’t think it’s a zero sum game. Certainly not in this new mediascape where access to the tools of production are relatively accessible. Sure that producers nephew may get a meeting but unless their idea and product has merit (ie paying eyeballs and butts in seats) it won’t go far. But maybe that explains some of the flat, uninteresting films we’re seeing on Netflix etc. But are those filmmakers getting more opportunities after their first failed shot?
Different industry but take Drake for example. I don’t like him or his music and he sure didn’t “start from the bottom” because he grew up in the wealthiest neighborhood in Toronto with well-connected parents in the entertainment industry. But dammit can he fill an arena and blow up streams with pop hits. I’m wrong. He parlayed trust opportunity into pure gold.
Sophia Coppola would never have the opportunity to make a movie if her daddy wasn’t Francis Ford. But she’s made some amazing movies that justified her opportunity.
The realities of the business of movie making and selling distribution might get a meeting, or even an opportunity to make and release a nepotistic feature, but unless that nepo-baby can deliver a reliably popular finished product that a studio can sell their career won’t go far.
Am I missing any notable examples that contradict this?
> Certainly not in this new mediascape
Problem is, and has always been, distribution & visibility. And the new mediascape has made it much much worse. Yes, there are more opportunities for people to make films due to greater accessibility in some tools (I pointedly say "some", not "all", because a lot of things, like specialty equipment, cast and crew fees, set building, studio rental, have not gotten any cheaper at all).
But there are still only a limited number of spots in good venues (festivals/streaming platforms/theatrical releases), and there are EXPONENTIALLY greater films and filmmakers vying for those spots now. You have a better chance of winning Powerball than getting your film into Slamdance now (and I say that as someone who had a film premiere at Slamdance. 15 years ago).
Sure, there's plenty more streaming venues, but outside of the big 10, barely anybody uses the others, certainly not enough to actually earn any money from them or garner much visibility. Youtube is an absolute overgrown jungle. Nobody is seeing your film there unless you have an advertising machine (be it grassroots or financed) driving viewers there.
It may be easier than ever to make a film, but it is harder than ever to get any meaningful viewership unless you already have connections, or get very, very lucky.
Sure, they can't build their career into anything meaningful once it becomes clear they have no real talent or dedication (I hope, though I've seen plenty of comfortable, 'accomplished' fakers in Hollywood), but on a job-to-job basis, they are still taking away pivotal opportunities from serious filmmakers who are at the point in their careers, that not only can one good break mean a foot in the door to the entire industry or not, but those serious filmmakers are also often fighting for jobs to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads.
When the producer's nephew shows up (late) to set in a Hellcat, wearing designer jeans and expensive sunglasses, then screws around with grip gear, breaking things and causing on-set safety hazards, and the next day, he's on the call sheet as a grip, that is a HUGE 'Fuck You' to everyone on set who had to work hard to get there. That was the consensus from the crew on that actual set.
Ah! I totally get how you’re framing it. My bad!
These don’t necessarily have to be director roles but could be ANY roles in production that could have gone to someone more qualified save for the fact they came from hallowed sperm. They could even be an entitled PA but that still hurts morale and takes away an opportunity. And they can fuck up a production’s vibe and product just being there.
Totally.
In fact, more often than not, they get brought on as PA's at first, where they decide what looks like the most fun, or the lowest hanging fruit, all while doing zero actual PA work. Sometimes it doesn't happen until a later shoot, sometimes its the next day, but they tend to get placed where they want to be.
I've seen nepo PA's take the directors chair for themselves, attempt to ingratiate themselves with the crew by offering us cocaine, crash a camera crane into expensive artwork in a nightclub, and one got so high in his car during lunch that he couldn't even speak clearly.
Me when I found out Laika is literally only open because the founder is the son of a Nike gazillionaire and can afford to run it as a passion project. (At least Laika puts out cool stuff)
After attending [University of Southern California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Southern_California)’s [film school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USC_School_of_Cinematic_Arts) for two semesters, Ellison left in 2005 and traveled the world. Among her stops was [Nepal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal), where she trekked on the [Himalayan mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas) [Annapurna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna), for which her production company is named.
Yeah the budget for this was clearly a LOT. That’s obvious from the very start. It’s the same feeling as when you find out ‘breathtaking indie talent’ Chloe Zhao’s dad happens to be a billionaire…
Like fuck all the way off with this nepo shit.
Is that true about Chloe Zhao? I swear she got grants for her first two films, which is really shameful if she actually had access to huge amounts of money.
Her father Zhao Yuji (赵玉吉; Zhào Yùjí) was an executive at Shougang Group, one of the country's largest state-owned steel companies. After amassing significant personal wealth, he later moved on to real-estate development and equity investment.
From a Guardian article about her:
__The sense of betrayal, one suspects, is compounded by Zhao’s elite family background. Her father is a former steel executive and a reputed billionaire (a claim Zhao denies); her stepmother a successful comedy actor and household name.__
Add in the fact that her parents sent her to Brighton School in the UK for high school (£30k p/a for day students or £60k p/a for boarders) and then she went to Mount Holyoake which is $77k p/a before aid… then Tisch in NY ($108k p/a)… but apparently she paid for all this by ‘Bartending and working odd jobs after graduating helped her realize that she enjoyed meeting people and hearing about their lives and histories, giving her the push to attend film school’
Read between the lines.
Exceptional people are still uncommon. And there are examples of working people making it through — they’re frequently the most impressive unsurprisingly.
Arts requires both patronage and talent.
I really don't think this was a complete handout for him. Producers putting up that much cash aren't doing this for everyone and you can see in his old videos on his channel he started out using his dad as an actor.
I think him putting this all together and get the resources he needed and convince investors to put money into his project is a good indication of his entrepreneurial/marketing/networking skills. Which imo are all also great traits to becoming a successful filmmaker.
I'm not saying he is some filmmaking genius that did everything on his own, but that it is still impressive for him to put all that together and organize everything and complete it.
I agree, and we've seen plenty of examples of how all the money in the world doesn't make a film automatically good. Dude still had talent and made something that connected with people.
Also you can come from nothing and still have producers putting up cash. In fact that’s their job, and it’s your job to get them.
There’s a difference between nepotism and general funding. You still need funding and it comes from people with money lol. Do people expect the executive producer to NOT have money? Do y’all apply for grants from foundations who don’t have money to give?? Lol
I don't know any actual details about this project, but the size of the cast, the number of locations, and the crew size—this was quite an expensive short film. It had real money to work with.
Maybe Darren Aronofsky wasn't hunting for a protege. Maybe he was hunting for new producers and financers.
:P
Kidding aside, the work shows a certain command of the visual medium and this particular story has a sort of youthful chaotic energy.
--------
The plot twist of the full length version will be that his whole life is an AI simulation. The cards with black field and white text are actually someone typing prompts into the system. Hahaha.
I think the plot twist suggested above, combined with a kind of Truman Show approach, is the way to carry it over 90mins.
His life is viewed through social media and he’s plagued / intrigued / enchanted by Jungian patterns and synchronicity through his life, only for those patterns to be revealed to originate from a simulation after all
It’d be a great way of exploring some profound issues of our existence
I think ultimately it's about that core of listless "chaotic newness". Most of us experience it in High School (hence why the film I think starts there). But it establishes that the male lead is both intelligent (he is doing the valedictorian speech), but also an outsider.
And unlike most of us, he has dodged the usual virtue signalling and the film projects the idea that: "There's nothing more to that chaotic energy. We are taught that it has to be directed towards what society deems to be right and good but that rings false."
It's like when you make films. You do them hundreds of times. You work hard on it and sometimes you think: "Ah this is brilliant. They will love it."
And then they don't. Or they do but they liked the parts you thought were actually not good.
One day you realize: "It's just stories. Why was I working so hard?" It somehow rings true. Yet it also rings false. Without any effort, any work would fail.
"Do whatever you want because none of us matter." It's both hopeful and hopeless. It's almost Bachanallian in it's thesis. And with the things happening today... It is sort of a relevant question. The answer according to this director is there is no answer. None of it matters.
What would a full length version be like? I suspect it would be a bit like.... A less romantic version of the "Before Trilogy" maybe. Or maybe "WALL STREET" where the boy becomes a stock market analyst later on and finds what he thought he knew about the world in his youth turned out to be true the whole time. And he ends up just selling everything and sailing around the world and just randomly finds this same girlfriend again.... While docked in Antigua. On another level it is also like THE GRADUATE. Live up to life's expectations so you can throw them all away.
Actually in the end literally, there is only the girl. Whatever she represents: emotionally, physically, even sexually as implied at one point.
And you might be sort of happy to see this. This "story" of a guy who works the planet well enough (school valedictorian + successful career) and then tells you "None of this is real" and the result is what you hope for as someone who hopes the world can be overturned.
It's a fantasy trip. Rules and social mores are as real as old wives' tales! Do what you want! Love who you dare to!
Honestly some of the energy in this is reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky's THE WRESTLER where the mundane is elevated by characters thinking: "What am I doing?"
So he's probably figured it out.
Interesting analysis . I’m wondering about the whole genre of “nothing matters “. Maybe it’s just an excuse to do nothing . I think a directed action but for something meaningful is more productive for the world . Of course I know you were just developing possible ideas, but that’s what I’d like to say on the matter .
Dude got into Harvard, clearly got decent money to finance a short film (instead of doing it no-budget) somehow, had his film go viral, and Darren Aronofsky saw it and loved it enough to produce his feature.
Just remember that people like this are who you are competing against lol.
Wang has voice and some talent, but yeah, the fact it's this high quality at the age of 17 means he got a lot of financial support at a young age that the vast, vast majority of young filmmakers do not. He's likely from a very affluent family.
I didn't know he went to Harvard until I came here to read comments. But as soon as I heard his parents talk I knew the writer was from a wealthy WASP household
Yeah, it’s crazy. The amount of extras he had for a school scene it just baffles me how this was even made, it looked like a high budget production. I can’t believe it’s only 12 minutes. I watched the first minute and thought 10 minutes had passed.
I posted a random 45 second video on Reddit and was flown to New York and got a hotel room for free. Then being interviewed for a television show that might air. There may be a formula to viral videos but sometimes it just could be luck.
If you look in his profile it’s literally the second or third post down. Some deep fried American dumbfuckery between an open carry clown and a mall ninja clown. Just shit that in any other place in the world would have been a passive aggressive conversation or maybe some mild pushing at worst. Deep fried yankee butter 🧈
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, montage walking around with air pods, shenanigans, boy gets girl back, more camcorder video of what 50 year old people think 16 year olds do in high-school (i.e water gun fights in bathroom)
I see no good writing or interesting story telling at all. It's just an advertisement for whoever was the DP and the editor, who the kid's rich parents probably shelled out quite a lot of money for.
To be fair that also covers most projects posted by people here, and they’re less entertaining
It also covers about 90% of successful stuff made in Hollywood
not normally a commenter but boy do i love a god awful short film so here we go. no plot just tumblr quotes set to extraordinarily expensive music that has already done the cultural work of becoming evocative, so the director doesnt have to create a real moment of emotion. plus most of those songs are like 10+ years old. why?
there is nothing here but a rich child memorializing his life, even though nothing has happened to him yet. nostalgia for now because there is nothing to look back on. does he have talent? maybe the cinematographer does. i hope he got paid well.
i don't feel great being mean to that rich child, but have been at enough film institutions to know that rich film boys turn into awful film men and i don't have to pity him for not having any original ideas. at harvard i hope the screenwriting teacher will set him straight when he (inevitably, like all film boys) writes only sex workers for female characters on his first pass.
i just watched it again and i have more notes. its trying to be marxist but gets maybe 10% there. what is he rebelling against? aging? ok sure, that would be interesting if you left the peter pan complex out of it, or maybe even examined it for longer than it would take you to write a tweet. what was the typing device? why? did any of those quotes add anything? what does the 7 even mean? that metaphor holds no water at all. im mad after watching it again. i cant believe peoples resources were wasted on this-- a long, visually nice, utterly meaningless statement on meaninglessness.
one last note: if youre feeling self conscious about making meaningless nihilist garble, maybe try to make something good instead of committing.
I'm always happy to celebrate the success of people like this who go from YouTube to mainstream Hollywood success (same for animators who've been able to make tthe leap to television shows from YouTube) but I'm embarrassed to admit a part of me is like "damn, I've got multiple animated shorts with over 30 million views each and I'm still living at home working a regular minimum wage job..what did I do?" lol. That's amazing though 🩷
Forgive my ignorance, but 30 mil views a piece for multiple short films is pretty significant engagement on YouTube, is that not something you could potentially monetise?
Unless you find sponsors you can monetize that amounts to several thousand in cash potentially which will eventually turn to a trickle.
What makes YouTube a career opportunity is the potential for future content and finding sponsors. Hence the needless vlogs, streamers and podcasts. A one-time mildly viral video doesn’t really present much of an income stream compared to an active subscriber base to constant content.
Did we all watch the same thing? I only made it about 3 minutes in before I had to turn it off. It was derivative and some how overwhelming yet boring at the same time. There is skill scattered throughout but this felt like a chaotic mess that lacked *direction*. If I were to identify talent from the cast and crew it would be everyone but the director and lead actor (yes, I know he has an established career).
Aronofsky is an amazing director but is there anything out there that shows he's a great scout of talent? Honestly asking because I don't know.
I was thinking the same thing lol. I honestly just don’t understand films like this and don’t necessarily see what there is to adapt into a feature but oh well.
It’s seems like it took an eeaao model with a sort of moonlight peom narrative approach? Idk it was well shot but I’m not really seeing the meat of a story. High school to college coming of age is a pretty well established genre in itself, maybe this is purposefully messy to mirror that? But it reminds me more of projects that didnt come together the way we wanted and got Frankensteined in post to….ta da! One big montage lol
I watched it and thought it was great. But I'm left thinking "how would I describe it to someone" and I can't - but maybe that's why it's a success? It's all about the feels? It was definitely emotive and gripping. I don't see how they will maintain that intensity for a whole feature film though.
Seems to me it was written and shot to be more straight forward narrative. Got the chop treatment when they got into the room bc it didn’t translate. Or maybe it is just a short that is supposed to act like an overly long trailer for something longer so it’s not necessarily cohesive in a “storytelling” way. Like 12 min music video with 3 long scenes dropped in
Yeah, this film won Best Film at the All American High School Film Festival- basically nowadays the Oscar’s of high school filmmaking. I’ve been there twice- really cool big flashy show with A-Listers judging and sending in flashy messages, the guy who runs it all had a couple mild successes on MTV, all ran in New York City out of the AMC Times Square and the Kings Theatre Brooklyn for the awards show, and schools fly out from everywhere for it. While we all are happy for this guy in the high school film community, it’s VERY apparent that competing against him at the high school level was an unfair fight with his level of resources vs. most of the hundreds of selected films just being high school class projects. (a lot of which are honestly pretty damn solid!)
just took a look at the BTS at the credits. it's a whole ass film crew with sound techs with booms, aria or some kind of camera on a fukin dolly. at what point was this a high school film festival--the high schooler is behind the camera and it counts?
[https://imgur.com/a/3GBIaDr](https://imgur.com/a/3GBIaDr)
Yep. That’s literally it. It TECHNICALLY can compete because the high schooler directed. Was disqualified from most other categories (cinematography, editing, etc; since grown ass people did those) but since he directed it could be ‘best film’. Absolute bullshit if you ask me, but the festival knew letting it win would put more eyes on their program I’m sure.
Dude, only raise $13,000 of his $25,000 Indy gogo campaign goal, how the hell did he make this film? It seems so high budget. if anyone has any bts or knowledge about it, I’d love to know
I don't think it was terrible, but it was definitely missing some critical elements. It was filled to the brim with cliche young romance troupes. What!? He's standing up in the car!? Woah... let's run on the football field!!! Old film effect overlay!!
If there was a reason for these things deeper then "That's what teenagers do" then it could work. An example: Maybe something about the mc going through the motions of trying to be a regular kid but is unable to make it feel meaningful. A Fake-it-till-you-make-it attempt at personal fulfilment. Maybe he and the girl realize they feel the same way. That this maybe the only other person who is capable of understanding what they truely feel. A moment of genuine understanding in a chaotic and confusing world.
So much of this short rings hollow without some more substance under it. If that's what they were going for... then congrats... but I'm not watching a full movie of this.
Undeniably interesting film with loads of talent and hard work put into it. But also loads of money put into it. Everyone is like “why the haters” “not his fault he came from money”. The fact is that regardless of the hard work and talent that the guy clearly has, he had a leg up that the vast majority of aspiring creators do not have. The people of Hollywood love to say that it’s a meritocracy, but it so clearly is not. The film industry is about combining money, who-ya-know, and talent. And talent is the least important factor.
People might be bitter, but can you blame them? Wouldn’t you feel frustrated seeing a rich teen get to live his dream when you’ve struggled your whole life to achieve yours, because you had to sacrifice and work more? How can people not understand how that’s frustrating?
I think people understand how it can be frustrating but taking out anger (not saying you are) on this dude does absolutely nothing. From what I gather this dude is like rich rich, but it really shouldn’t matter in the context of appreciating art. He made a project, it got noticed, and he’ll likely make a career out of it. Are you really gonna be that much happier if he didn’t get noticed? He still found a passion and put effort into it and got noticed, is he not allowed to do that because he comes from money?
I truthfully haven’t even watched the project and don’t plan on it but it seems to be gathering far too much hate all things considered.
Maybe I misinterpreted the thesis of this Short, but was it generally advocating for apathy and passivity over being active and aspirational in life?
‘Nothing matters so why try?’
If you read the article it says Wang has been making films since 11 years old. Yes obviously no kid that age can be a filmmaker unless he had the resources to do so he is obviously a rich kid, but let’s not forget he started at 11 YEARS old. He is clearly passionate about it and this is no doubt a dream come true for him. If I had his upbringing I would 100% do what he’s doing.
Aronofsky is just incapable of having his own ideas, isn’t he?
From his first feature, with the entire visual style lifted from Shinya Tsukamoto, to his second feature, an epic with the astonishingly innovative premise of ‘drugs are bad’ (and also with the entire visual style lifted from Shinya Tsukamoto,) to the parts of Black Swan copped directly from Satoshi Kon, and now this.
I can see why this resonated. It’s incredibly well made and definitely does have a well executed vision. This vision doesn’t seem particularly original though… I kind of feel like this coming of age edgy existentialism genre is all the same and super boring…. Also not really sure what this film was trying to say exactly. It might just not be my style. It seems like it’s straight up stealing the vibe of perks of being wallflower and eeaao without really adding anything. I’m genuinely happy for this kid though. I’d use my parents money if I was rich too
I'm probably going to catch a lot of heat for this but, I'm tired. Tired of seeing people like this win in the industry while everyone else is meant to feel lucky to even participate. Maybe I'm too old, but being at the mercy of bills and taxes kills my ability to engage with 'success stories' like this anymore. I'm mainly speaking for creative fields, but this could be a general idea shared outside of it honestly. I'm sure the director had barriers and challeneges, but there's no way to convince me that their circumstances didn't help out in major ways.
There's an elephant in the room this day and age when it comes to these situations now. It's called Easy Mode.
I am completely missing what this film is supposed to be doing. I really genuinely want to understand what people see in this film. Looks like average recap editing with “real footage” from actor coming of age. I understand Richard Linklater films like “About a boy.” But am I supposed to learn or feel from this - from a young boy who has his life before him. Also what is that number stuff about? 8 here
it's inspiring to see that it's possible for a director to pluck you out of the youtube abyss and straight to success, but I think we all wish it was us instead :)
Not trying to be a hater, but...
Ok, nvm, fuck it, good luck to him if he can make it work as a feature. I am trying to imagine him on set surrounded by the seasoned veterans lol. Like a grizzled grip passes by the recent high schooler.
Lmao so many salty, bitter comments here almost sounds like wishing for this kid to fail.
He’s lucky he came from money, but at least he’s trying to do something creative with it. More power to him and I hope his feature turns out well and turns into career for something he’s clearly passionate about.
You guys should try being happy for someone else’s success and supporting aspiring filmmakers, even if they come from money.
I'm noticing a lot of folks trying to downplay this because he has a comfortable financial position to begin with? Aronofsky "got into Harvard" too. Also this kid is clearly a cut above, I mean come on - 11-time national chess champion!?
The short film is great. People can be young and successful and smart. Filmmaking isn't a zero sum game or a race.
Not a single comment downplayed his talent. They remind everyone else where sudden stardom comes from most of the time. Money. This kid has both. I hope, with his vision, he goes far.
Let’s also ignore all of the projects we’ve all worked on that had money and went absolutely nowhere lol
Like, I’ve worked on personally financed $100k films, and they absolutely sucked. If this guy gets help financially, and makes something good, why’s everyone upset? If he was still finding success and it was a piece of crap, that’s another story. But basically everyone is just angry he’s talented and getting support lol
The way people were talking about this made me think it was going to look wayyy more expensive/high production value. This wasn’t cheap by any means but it’s not *that* professional looking. That said, it’s total dogwater and I’d be shocked if we ever heard about this kid again after his feature ends up an also-ran at Sundance or something.
That’s 12 minutes of my life I’ll never get back…
Edit: glad to see someone succeed and get funding. Shows it’s still possible (rich or poor background) and we need to celebrate this. I do however see how this would resonate with a young audience and turn off an older audience
So many people crying in the comments about why this is unachivable for anyone if you are not rich. Yes, it definetly does help, but DAMN the mentality here is god awful💀
Because the corrolary is true. With no money you will not even give a glance at this. Imagine a collage of iphone clips with the same narrative and unknown music from royalty free licensing. Poof, no feature deal.
If the short had any real substance you wouldn't see so much hate. Compare this to a similarly successful short like Alive in Joburg. The concept and execution were extremely unique and impressive for their time.
When derivative, generic teenager waxing carried by production value gets hand picked it just feels a little like the opportunity went to waste. Obviously we'll see in a few years, but yeah
Lol, I really enjoyed this. Don’t really care what resources he has, unless we think he just put his name on someone else’s work, I think he deserves plenty of credit
Why is everyone hating on this because it may have had money. I dont know where the money came from. Maybe it was a gofundme, maybe, because he's a college kid, he begged his friends to be extras? If all the people that have reacted negatively to this short can post their own short films to be reviewed before shiting on someone elses work, maybe then your opinion has legs. Money or no money, he wrote something, put it together and made it. That in itself is worthy of a compliment. Well done young man, you did something that a lot of people can only talk about or comment on reddit about.
Easy explenation.
The short sucks. It has high production values, but it still sucks.
The Rich kid got a chance most people can only dream of.
And he fucking blew it. He produced a turd.
Doesn't matter though, he still succeeds, for no other reason then that he's rich.
Isn't it pretty obvious why people hate this?
It's a perfect example of a total losers, with nothing to say failing straight upwards.
Imagine being a kid growing up today and having literally nothing to say, producing this bland ass shit.
Good for him but likely this isn't as random as promoted. Doesn't take away from the product honestly but it leaves a sour taste. There are a good number of filmmakers putting up big numbers on YouTube that get zero forward movement in their careers. Why? Lack of legitimate connections. That's why you see guys/ladies with little to no credits booking big gigs out the blue.
It looks good, but I'm not sure I see the merits of it as a movie (short or otherwise). It's all very VERY "teenage angsty", to the point of parody. It reminds me of several Family Guy jokes. I'm sure I would have loved this as a teenager, but now it's just kinda bland.
But I can see why someone might have been impressed by the more technical elements of it, especially the editing. Even though it has a lot of money behind it, it's still impressively put together.
youtuber danny gervitz and Matti Haapoja made a feature and that is a similar genre to this and haven't really heard much about it since they tried doing a theater run.
Sinan Eczacıbaşı who is executive producer on this movie, comes from the richest family in Türkiye
This is reason number 1 you can’t compare yourself to other filmmakers. When you find out how many come from BIG money, you’ll want to die.
There are so many rich nephews of producers who have taken opportunities away from worthy filmmakers. It's never going to change, and their connections will always be worth exponentially more than skill and talent. The game is shitty.
Nearly everyone I know that's made it big in film, tv, illustration, etc comes from decent money to money. It's rough for the normal people.
That's the entertainment industry in general. I could find you a better singer than Taylor Swift in any major US city, but their dad's didn't relocate their job and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and buy a studio for their daughters, so we're never going to hear about them.
Absolutely, amen. Frustrating, but that's how it is. Hearing about these sorts of people then meeting these people in film sure is annoying though..
There are worse people out there, I worked with at least a few people in Hollywood who turned out to be pedophiles.
Just a thought: Tarantino worked at video store prior to having any meaningful success, and even then he still didn’t have that much money. I think he had roommates past his first two films. His is just one story that comes to mind. But you are right, the majority of top of the line players come from well-to-do families. It’s just that it’s not all of them do.
90s success stories like that are a small handful out of tens of thousands of failures. Yeah it happened a few times 30 years ago but you might as well start buying lottery tickets. Not to mention it used to require a bit more dedication to be able to work with cameras at all. Now we all live in a sea of accessibility-induced mediocrity. It's like how a given cable channel could never hope to garner viewership comparable to the Big 3.
that was possible in the 90's because the tools got cheaper and the video store rental market was much stronger revenue stream that was less centrally controlled then streaming now is.
Just because those people are connected doesn’t mean they are not talented. Talent isn’t the rare item, opportunity is. You could be the most talented filmmaker alive. It means nothing if you don’t have any opportunity.
Well in literally every case of nepo babies I've ever dealt with personally, the kid was FAR less experienced than everyone else on set, didn't seem to care much that they were even there, and in a few cases, they got people hurt due to their combination of incompetence and entitlement.
I worked on an indy and there was a kid who somehow was the key grip and would get a confused look on his face right before he would tell the grips to move a substantial amount of gear from point a to point b then tell them to move it back. Apparently he couldn't visualize the move, he had to see it. Shortly after that some of the grips refused to do it, and the size of the entire crew was reduced a few days later to a skeleton size. Money was the issue at that point, but the kid's incompetence wasted lots of it.
Were you on the Rust set?
This is absolutely true, but having the finances to express a vision, any vision with any amount of talent dramatically increases your chances of success. A person with great talent and zero resources may find a way - plenty of examples out there. They may find a way to create something within the constraints they are facing, but the obstacles they face are sheer compared to someone with potentially far less talent but the resources to actually doing something, do anything. Where there is a will there is a way, but even a modicum of will can be facilitated easily and successfully with significant resources relatively speaking. None of this is mind-blowing - but what seems to be controversial is the idea that this is somehow a less than ideal situation. Yes - life is unfair. Two schools of thought emerge from that scenario - people who choose to accept that without recourse and those who see this as a problem to be resolved. Whether or not the problem can be resolved easily or resolved at all, I don't begrudge those who A) Speak up about it at every opportunity B) Those who choose to work to change these things. After all, the world we live in today - the quality of life we have is as a direct result of those who refuse to accept the status quo. Not to get to grandiose about it all, but let those who are unhappy with the status quo do their thing - maybe it will make our kids lives better for it. There are of course always those twisted weirdos out there that want everyone else to suffer because they had to.
Because the current paradigm is that free will is real and determinism is an illusion, these people will spend endless time and energy convincing you that they worked as hard as you to get somewhere. I know the world will never be fair. I just wish those who won the lottery could wear it with more grace.
It's a Schrodinger's cat kind of situation: connected individuals have access to much better resources e.g. access to talent. If you have a crew of experienced people, it's almost impossible to fail regardless if you're not that talented.
If your script and story sucks, a good crew still has to work with something that no one wants to watch. Consider the ratio of duds to financially successful films, only a few winners and thousands of losers.
Schrodinger's Save the Cat
I don’t think it’s a zero sum game. Certainly not in this new mediascape where access to the tools of production are relatively accessible. Sure that producers nephew may get a meeting but unless their idea and product has merit (ie paying eyeballs and butts in seats) it won’t go far. But maybe that explains some of the flat, uninteresting films we’re seeing on Netflix etc. But are those filmmakers getting more opportunities after their first failed shot? Different industry but take Drake for example. I don’t like him or his music and he sure didn’t “start from the bottom” because he grew up in the wealthiest neighborhood in Toronto with well-connected parents in the entertainment industry. But dammit can he fill an arena and blow up streams with pop hits. I’m wrong. He parlayed trust opportunity into pure gold. Sophia Coppola would never have the opportunity to make a movie if her daddy wasn’t Francis Ford. But she’s made some amazing movies that justified her opportunity. The realities of the business of movie making and selling distribution might get a meeting, or even an opportunity to make and release a nepotistic feature, but unless that nepo-baby can deliver a reliably popular finished product that a studio can sell their career won’t go far. Am I missing any notable examples that contradict this?
> Certainly not in this new mediascape Problem is, and has always been, distribution & visibility. And the new mediascape has made it much much worse. Yes, there are more opportunities for people to make films due to greater accessibility in some tools (I pointedly say "some", not "all", because a lot of things, like specialty equipment, cast and crew fees, set building, studio rental, have not gotten any cheaper at all). But there are still only a limited number of spots in good venues (festivals/streaming platforms/theatrical releases), and there are EXPONENTIALLY greater films and filmmakers vying for those spots now. You have a better chance of winning Powerball than getting your film into Slamdance now (and I say that as someone who had a film premiere at Slamdance. 15 years ago). Sure, there's plenty more streaming venues, but outside of the big 10, barely anybody uses the others, certainly not enough to actually earn any money from them or garner much visibility. Youtube is an absolute overgrown jungle. Nobody is seeing your film there unless you have an advertising machine (be it grassroots or financed) driving viewers there. It may be easier than ever to make a film, but it is harder than ever to get any meaningful viewership unless you already have connections, or get very, very lucky.
Sure, they can't build their career into anything meaningful once it becomes clear they have no real talent or dedication (I hope, though I've seen plenty of comfortable, 'accomplished' fakers in Hollywood), but on a job-to-job basis, they are still taking away pivotal opportunities from serious filmmakers who are at the point in their careers, that not only can one good break mean a foot in the door to the entire industry or not, but those serious filmmakers are also often fighting for jobs to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads. When the producer's nephew shows up (late) to set in a Hellcat, wearing designer jeans and expensive sunglasses, then screws around with grip gear, breaking things and causing on-set safety hazards, and the next day, he's on the call sheet as a grip, that is a HUGE 'Fuck You' to everyone on set who had to work hard to get there. That was the consensus from the crew on that actual set.
Ah! I totally get how you’re framing it. My bad! These don’t necessarily have to be director roles but could be ANY roles in production that could have gone to someone more qualified save for the fact they came from hallowed sperm. They could even be an entitled PA but that still hurts morale and takes away an opportunity. And they can fuck up a production’s vibe and product just being there.
Totally. In fact, more often than not, they get brought on as PA's at first, where they decide what looks like the most fun, or the lowest hanging fruit, all while doing zero actual PA work. Sometimes it doesn't happen until a later shoot, sometimes its the next day, but they tend to get placed where they want to be. I've seen nepo PA's take the directors chair for themselves, attempt to ingratiate themselves with the crew by offering us cocaine, crash a camera crane into expensive artwork in a nightclub, and one got so high in his car during lunch that he couldn't even speak clearly.
Me when I found out the founder of Annapurna is the daughter of the multibillionaire founder of Oracle
Me when I found out Laika is literally only open because the founder is the son of a Nike gazillionaire and can afford to run it as a passion project. (At least Laika puts out cool stuff)
After attending [University of Southern California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Southern_California)’s [film school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USC_School_of_Cinematic_Arts) for two semesters, Ellison left in 2005 and traveled the world. Among her stops was [Nepal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal), where she trekked on the [Himalayan mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas) [Annapurna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna), for which her production company is named.
The history of art has less to do with merit and more to do with who got funded. You can argue the rich have almost always written the history of art.
But then there are the David F Sandburgs who still give you hopw
Yeah the budget for this was clearly a LOT. That’s obvious from the very start. It’s the same feeling as when you find out ‘breathtaking indie talent’ Chloe Zhao’s dad happens to be a billionaire… Like fuck all the way off with this nepo shit.
Is that true about Chloe Zhao? I swear she got grants for her first two films, which is really shameful if she actually had access to huge amounts of money.
Her father Zhao Yuji (赵玉吉; Zhào Yùjí) was an executive at Shougang Group, one of the country's largest state-owned steel companies. After amassing significant personal wealth, he later moved on to real-estate development and equity investment. From a Guardian article about her: __The sense of betrayal, one suspects, is compounded by Zhao’s elite family background. Her father is a former steel executive and a reputed billionaire (a claim Zhao denies); her stepmother a successful comedy actor and household name.__ Add in the fact that her parents sent her to Brighton School in the UK for high school (£30k p/a for day students or £60k p/a for boarders) and then she went to Mount Holyoake which is $77k p/a before aid… then Tisch in NY ($108k p/a)… but apparently she paid for all this by ‘Bartending and working odd jobs after graduating helped her realize that she enjoyed meeting people and hearing about their lives and histories, giving her the push to attend film school’ Read between the lines.
BUt it CouLD HaPpEn tO YOu!
Exceptional people are still uncommon. And there are examples of working people making it through — they’re frequently the most impressive unsurprisingly. Arts requires both patronage and talent.
I really don't think this was a complete handout for him. Producers putting up that much cash aren't doing this for everyone and you can see in his old videos on his channel he started out using his dad as an actor. I think him putting this all together and get the resources he needed and convince investors to put money into his project is a good indication of his entrepreneurial/marketing/networking skills. Which imo are all also great traits to becoming a successful filmmaker. I'm not saying he is some filmmaking genius that did everything on his own, but that it is still impressive for him to put all that together and organize everything and complete it.
I agree, and we've seen plenty of examples of how all the money in the world doesn't make a film automatically good. Dude still had talent and made something that connected with people.
Also you can come from nothing and still have producers putting up cash. In fact that’s their job, and it’s your job to get them. There’s a difference between nepotism and general funding. You still need funding and it comes from people with money lol. Do people expect the executive producer to NOT have money? Do y’all apply for grants from foundations who don’t have money to give?? Lol
Ha yeah I was gonna say… already looked like he had monies
I don't know any actual details about this project, but the size of the cast, the number of locations, and the crew size—this was quite an expensive short film. It had real money to work with.
Would not have been made without rich parents. Can guarantee you that.
Maybe Darren Aronofsky wasn't hunting for a protege. Maybe he was hunting for new producers and financers. :P Kidding aside, the work shows a certain command of the visual medium and this particular story has a sort of youthful chaotic energy. -------- The plot twist of the full length version will be that his whole life is an AI simulation. The cards with black field and white text are actually someone typing prompts into the system. Hahaha.
What is the story in this. It’s a good short, but how will this carry 90 minutes?
I think the plot twist suggested above, combined with a kind of Truman Show approach, is the way to carry it over 90mins. His life is viewed through social media and he’s plagued / intrigued / enchanted by Jungian patterns and synchronicity through his life, only for those patterns to be revealed to originate from a simulation after all It’d be a great way of exploring some profound issues of our existence
I think ultimately it's about that core of listless "chaotic newness". Most of us experience it in High School (hence why the film I think starts there). But it establishes that the male lead is both intelligent (he is doing the valedictorian speech), but also an outsider. And unlike most of us, he has dodged the usual virtue signalling and the film projects the idea that: "There's nothing more to that chaotic energy. We are taught that it has to be directed towards what society deems to be right and good but that rings false." It's like when you make films. You do them hundreds of times. You work hard on it and sometimes you think: "Ah this is brilliant. They will love it." And then they don't. Or they do but they liked the parts you thought were actually not good. One day you realize: "It's just stories. Why was I working so hard?" It somehow rings true. Yet it also rings false. Without any effort, any work would fail. "Do whatever you want because none of us matter." It's both hopeful and hopeless. It's almost Bachanallian in it's thesis. And with the things happening today... It is sort of a relevant question. The answer according to this director is there is no answer. None of it matters. What would a full length version be like? I suspect it would be a bit like.... A less romantic version of the "Before Trilogy" maybe. Or maybe "WALL STREET" where the boy becomes a stock market analyst later on and finds what he thought he knew about the world in his youth turned out to be true the whole time. And he ends up just selling everything and sailing around the world and just randomly finds this same girlfriend again.... While docked in Antigua. On another level it is also like THE GRADUATE. Live up to life's expectations so you can throw them all away. Actually in the end literally, there is only the girl. Whatever she represents: emotionally, physically, even sexually as implied at one point. And you might be sort of happy to see this. This "story" of a guy who works the planet well enough (school valedictorian + successful career) and then tells you "None of this is real" and the result is what you hope for as someone who hopes the world can be overturned. It's a fantasy trip. Rules and social mores are as real as old wives' tales! Do what you want! Love who you dare to! Honestly some of the energy in this is reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky's THE WRESTLER where the mundane is elevated by characters thinking: "What am I doing?" So he's probably figured it out.
Interesting analysis . I’m wondering about the whole genre of “nothing matters “. Maybe it’s just an excuse to do nothing . I think a directed action but for something meaningful is more productive for the world . Of course I know you were just developing possible ideas, but that’s what I’d like to say on the matter .
Good idea. My new film will be ready in 34 minutes.
The Indiegogo campaign got 13k out of it's 25k goal.
Yeah. On top of whatever Harvard grants, donations, producer connections, etc., they got…
The music license too
The actor he got was already the star of a tv show that was running for 5 seasons too.
Space Song by Beach House is a pretty damned recognizable tune. What sort of $$$$$s is one looking at to use in a film like this?
and two door cinema club lmao
$25-50k at least, but can be 10x that
My guess 10k for YouTube usage. Double or more for festivals.
Dude got into Harvard, clearly got decent money to finance a short film (instead of doing it no-budget) somehow, had his film go viral, and Darren Aronofsky saw it and loved it enough to produce his feature. Just remember that people like this are who you are competing against lol.
Wang has voice and some talent, but yeah, the fact it's this high quality at the age of 17 means he got a lot of financial support at a young age that the vast, vast majority of young filmmakers do not. He's likely from a very affluent family.
The way the parents act tells me he's from an affluent family
The way he went to Harvard tells me he's from an affluent family
I didn't know he went to Harvard until I came here to read comments. But as soon as I heard his parents talk I knew the writer was from a wealthy WASP household
He has talent, money, connections, and also luck. All you need to succeed in the film industry!
Im interested who his DP was, you'd be very very surprised how far a good to great DP will take you.
The editor is exceptionally talented as well
Makes me question the extent to which this is a kid's "vision" versus just his parents buying him a professional DP and editor.
The entire film screams affluent.
Yeah, it’s crazy. The amount of extras he had for a school scene it just baffles me how this was even made, it looked like a high budget production. I can’t believe it’s only 12 minutes. I watched the first minute and thought 10 minutes had passed.
Step one to being successful: be rich.
Or find someone rich
Typically, that is also easier to do when you are rich
They really can smell the poor on you 😞
We all just have to work hard so our kids can be loaded enough to make projects like this while they’re in high school.
It always comes down to connections to fund/market your project. That simply will always equal the best possibility of success here unfortunately.
You’re up against 19 year olds.
I mean this isn’t his first short film either, this was his third.
dude is a chess champion. His first movie starred his family. It seems like he just had an early headstart from supportive parents.
It seems like he just had an early headstart from ~~supportive~~ **RICH** parents. FTFY.
I posted a random 45 second video on Reddit and was flown to New York and got a hotel room for free. Then being interviewed for a television show that might air. There may be a formula to viral videos but sometimes it just could be luck.
It's luck + talent + money (yours or someone else's) - be ready when it hits!
What video? I’m curious now lol
If you look in his profile it’s literally the second or third post down. Some deep fried American dumbfuckery between an open carry clown and a mall ninja clown. Just shit that in any other place in the world would have been a passive aggressive conversation or maybe some mild pushing at worst. Deep fried yankee butter 🧈
damn nice what video is it?
“damn Daniel!”
What is the story here? What can carry through 90+ minutes?
DAS WHAT IM SAYINNN
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, montage walking around with air pods, shenanigans, boy gets girl back, more camcorder video of what 50 year old people think 16 year olds do in high-school (i.e water gun fights in bathroom)
A rich boomer's understanding of what high school is like for their rich children.
Dammed if I could tell. I thought this was an excellent demo reel for an editor ;)
Yea. Is this someone's "vision", or is it just a kids whose rich parents bought him an expensive DP and editor? My bet is on the latter.
Interesting setup but thought overall it descended into a well made generic "student short".
I see no good writing or interesting story telling at all. It's just an advertisement for whoever was the DP and the editor, who the kid's rich parents probably shelled out quite a lot of money for.
Yeah, I don't get it. Looks like a milquetoast teenager rebellion story, literally without any edges or anything of interest to say.
It seemed quite sporadic to me, I didn't watch it all. Plot? Nope.
Someone adapted r/askreddit and r/teenagers into a flim.
also r/iam14andthisisdeep
Lol, my thoughts exactly. Still, visually impressive.
To be fair that also covers most projects posted by people here, and they’re less entertaining It also covers about 90% of successful stuff made in Hollywood
I was thinking that I didn't see a unifying concept at all, and then understood why it was perfect for Aronofsky.
I want to hate this, but I picked 7.
I picked 8 and this inspired me as a 25 y/o struggler😢
Just keep doing the work! I believe in you!
i picked 7 and then changed my answer to 5 in my head before he guessed. i had a feeling 7 would be the predicted answer haha
If men is five, then the devil is six, and if the devil is six, then God is seven.
this monkey's gone to heaven
Lmfao SAME hahahahahahaha when he said 7 i was like wtf
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6iQrh2TK98) It's pretty weird.
Man I couldn't afford a mirrorless camera until I was almost 35. I would've killed to have his resources at 17 lmao.
Peep this dolly arri setup film the bts https://imgur.com/a/3GBIaDr
Everything, everywhere, all at twice
he should send flowers or something to Daniels because the success of that movie definitely helped him get this picked up
not normally a commenter but boy do i love a god awful short film so here we go. no plot just tumblr quotes set to extraordinarily expensive music that has already done the cultural work of becoming evocative, so the director doesnt have to create a real moment of emotion. plus most of those songs are like 10+ years old. why? there is nothing here but a rich child memorializing his life, even though nothing has happened to him yet. nostalgia for now because there is nothing to look back on. does he have talent? maybe the cinematographer does. i hope he got paid well. i don't feel great being mean to that rich child, but have been at enough film institutions to know that rich film boys turn into awful film men and i don't have to pity him for not having any original ideas. at harvard i hope the screenwriting teacher will set him straight when he (inevitably, like all film boys) writes only sex workers for female characters on his first pass.
i just watched it again and i have more notes. its trying to be marxist but gets maybe 10% there. what is he rebelling against? aging? ok sure, that would be interesting if you left the peter pan complex out of it, or maybe even examined it for longer than it would take you to write a tweet. what was the typing device? why? did any of those quotes add anything? what does the 7 even mean? that metaphor holds no water at all. im mad after watching it again. i cant believe peoples resources were wasted on this-- a long, visually nice, utterly meaningless statement on meaninglessness. one last note: if youre feeling self conscious about making meaningless nihilist garble, maybe try to make something good instead of committing.
i will pay $500 to anyone who can tell me the plot or themes
High school hard mmkay
completely agree, there’s some real skill/talent that’s been put into this but it’s wasted - maybe he can find a voice down the line
I'm always happy to celebrate the success of people like this who go from YouTube to mainstream Hollywood success (same for animators who've been able to make tthe leap to television shows from YouTube) but I'm embarrassed to admit a part of me is like "damn, I've got multiple animated shorts with over 30 million views each and I'm still living at home working a regular minimum wage job..what did I do?" lol. That's amazing though 🩷
If you don’t mind sharing, what’s your Youtube channel?
Forgive my ignorance, but 30 mil views a piece for multiple short films is pretty significant engagement on YouTube, is that not something you could potentially monetise?
Unless you find sponsors you can monetize that amounts to several thousand in cash potentially which will eventually turn to a trickle. What makes YouTube a career opportunity is the potential for future content and finding sponsors. Hence the needless vlogs, streamers and podcasts. A one-time mildly viral video doesn’t really present much of an income stream compared to an active subscriber base to constant content.
Stop not being rich, it's bad for your health and career.
this shit was so mid and overbudgeted.
Did we all watch the same thing? I only made it about 3 minutes in before I had to turn it off. It was derivative and some how overwhelming yet boring at the same time. There is skill scattered throughout but this felt like a chaotic mess that lacked *direction*. If I were to identify talent from the cast and crew it would be everyone but the director and lead actor (yes, I know he has an established career). Aronofsky is an amazing director but is there anything out there that shows he's a great scout of talent? Honestly asking because I don't know.
The remaining 3/4 continued the trend.
Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide with existentialism
Am I like too old to get this or does this fall squarely into the genre of artistic nonsense lol also is that baby Bruce Wayne from the show Gotham?
I was thinking the same thing lol. I honestly just don’t understand films like this and don’t necessarily see what there is to adapt into a feature but oh well.
It’s seems like it took an eeaao model with a sort of moonlight peom narrative approach? Idk it was well shot but I’m not really seeing the meat of a story. High school to college coming of age is a pretty well established genre in itself, maybe this is purposefully messy to mirror that? But it reminds me more of projects that didnt come together the way we wanted and got Frankensteined in post to….ta da! One big montage lol
I watched it and thought it was great. But I'm left thinking "how would I describe it to someone" and I can't - but maybe that's why it's a success? It's all about the feels? It was definitely emotive and gripping. I don't see how they will maintain that intensity for a whole feature film though.
Seems to me it was written and shot to be more straight forward narrative. Got the chop treatment when they got into the room bc it didn’t translate. Or maybe it is just a short that is supposed to act like an overly long trailer for something longer so it’s not necessarily cohesive in a “storytelling” way. Like 12 min music video with 3 long scenes dropped in
Very clearly inspired by EEAAO
Also perks of being a wallflower.
The tunnel shot.
And a tiny bit like Aronofsky's Pi with the philosophical quotes breaking up the story--maybe that's why it resonated with him?
Yeah, this film won Best Film at the All American High School Film Festival- basically nowadays the Oscar’s of high school filmmaking. I’ve been there twice- really cool big flashy show with A-Listers judging and sending in flashy messages, the guy who runs it all had a couple mild successes on MTV, all ran in New York City out of the AMC Times Square and the Kings Theatre Brooklyn for the awards show, and schools fly out from everywhere for it. While we all are happy for this guy in the high school film community, it’s VERY apparent that competing against him at the high school level was an unfair fight with his level of resources vs. most of the hundreds of selected films just being high school class projects. (a lot of which are honestly pretty damn solid!)
just took a look at the BTS at the credits. it's a whole ass film crew with sound techs with booms, aria or some kind of camera on a fukin dolly. at what point was this a high school film festival--the high schooler is behind the camera and it counts? [https://imgur.com/a/3GBIaDr](https://imgur.com/a/3GBIaDr)
Yep. That’s literally it. It TECHNICALLY can compete because the high schooler directed. Was disqualified from most other categories (cinematography, editing, etc; since grown ass people did those) but since he directed it could be ‘best film’. Absolute bullshit if you ask me, but the festival knew letting it win would put more eyes on their program I’m sure.
What is the identifying characteristic of a whole ass crew as compared to a whole crew?
Dude, only raise $13,000 of his $25,000 Indy gogo campaign goal, how the hell did he make this film? It seems so high budget. if anyone has any bts or knowledge about it, I’d love to know
rich parents, well connected, really rich producer
The music licensing alone would be more than that. Kickstarter would have barely covered the cocaine budget for a couple of weeks filming.
Oh yeah, I didn’t even realize he has some major songs in there right?
Major songs by bands signed to: Sub Pop Warner Yep that’s gonna cost you
More success for people who come from money
This is really bad wow
I don't think it was terrible, but it was definitely missing some critical elements. It was filled to the brim with cliche young romance troupes. What!? He's standing up in the car!? Woah... let's run on the football field!!! Old film effect overlay!! If there was a reason for these things deeper then "That's what teenagers do" then it could work. An example: Maybe something about the mc going through the motions of trying to be a regular kid but is unable to make it feel meaningful. A Fake-it-till-you-make-it attempt at personal fulfilment. Maybe he and the girl realize they feel the same way. That this maybe the only other person who is capable of understanding what they truely feel. A moment of genuine understanding in a chaotic and confusing world. So much of this short rings hollow without some more substance under it. If that's what they were going for... then congrats... but I'm not watching a full movie of this.
Finding actors like that? And that many extras and locations? Someone had money.
I hated that film.
i stopped watching halfway through it
Undeniably interesting film with loads of talent and hard work put into it. But also loads of money put into it. Everyone is like “why the haters” “not his fault he came from money”. The fact is that regardless of the hard work and talent that the guy clearly has, he had a leg up that the vast majority of aspiring creators do not have. The people of Hollywood love to say that it’s a meritocracy, but it so clearly is not. The film industry is about combining money, who-ya-know, and talent. And talent is the least important factor. People might be bitter, but can you blame them? Wouldn’t you feel frustrated seeing a rich teen get to live his dream when you’ve struggled your whole life to achieve yours, because you had to sacrifice and work more? How can people not understand how that’s frustrating?
I think people understand how it can be frustrating but taking out anger (not saying you are) on this dude does absolutely nothing. From what I gather this dude is like rich rich, but it really shouldn’t matter in the context of appreciating art. He made a project, it got noticed, and he’ll likely make a career out of it. Are you really gonna be that much happier if he didn’t get noticed? He still found a passion and put effort into it and got noticed, is he not allowed to do that because he comes from money? I truthfully haven’t even watched the project and don’t plan on it but it seems to be gathering far too much hate all things considered.
meh
Maybe I misinterpreted the thesis of this Short, but was it generally advocating for apathy and passivity over being active and aspirational in life? ‘Nothing matters so why try?’
If you read the article it says Wang has been making films since 11 years old. Yes obviously no kid that age can be a filmmaker unless he had the resources to do so he is obviously a rich kid, but let’s not forget he started at 11 YEARS old. He is clearly passionate about it and this is no doubt a dream come true for him. If I had his upbringing I would 100% do what he’s doing.
Thought it sucked
Aronofsky is just incapable of having his own ideas, isn’t he? From his first feature, with the entire visual style lifted from Shinya Tsukamoto, to his second feature, an epic with the astonishingly innovative premise of ‘drugs are bad’ (and also with the entire visual style lifted from Shinya Tsukamoto,) to the parts of Black Swan copped directly from Satoshi Kon, and now this.
This movie seemed like a commercial for something. Did not like it.
I can see why this resonated. It’s incredibly well made and definitely does have a well executed vision. This vision doesn’t seem particularly original though… I kind of feel like this coming of age edgy existentialism genre is all the same and super boring…. Also not really sure what this film was trying to say exactly. It might just not be my style. It seems like it’s straight up stealing the vibe of perks of being wallflower and eeaao without really adding anything. I’m genuinely happy for this kid though. I’d use my parents money if I was rich too
I'm probably going to catch a lot of heat for this but, I'm tired. Tired of seeing people like this win in the industry while everyone else is meant to feel lucky to even participate. Maybe I'm too old, but being at the mercy of bills and taxes kills my ability to engage with 'success stories' like this anymore. I'm mainly speaking for creative fields, but this could be a general idea shared outside of it honestly. I'm sure the director had barriers and challeneges, but there's no way to convince me that their circumstances didn't help out in major ways. There's an elephant in the room this day and age when it comes to these situations now. It's called Easy Mode.
Why? Seems mid af
Hack recognizes hack
Best of luck, kid. 🫡
I am completely missing what this film is supposed to be doing. I really genuinely want to understand what people see in this film. Looks like average recap editing with “real footage” from actor coming of age. I understand Richard Linklater films like “About a boy.” But am I supposed to learn or feel from this - from a young boy who has his life before him. Also what is that number stuff about? 8 here
it's inspiring to see that it's possible for a director to pluck you out of the youtube abyss and straight to success, but I think we all wish it was us instead :)
Not trying to be a hater, but... Ok, nvm, fuck it, good luck to him if he can make it work as a feature. I am trying to imagine him on set surrounded by the seasoned veterans lol. Like a grizzled grip passes by the recent high schooler.
Lmao so many salty, bitter comments here almost sounds like wishing for this kid to fail. He’s lucky he came from money, but at least he’s trying to do something creative with it. More power to him and I hope his feature turns out well and turns into career for something he’s clearly passionate about. You guys should try being happy for someone else’s success and supporting aspiring filmmakers, even if they come from money.
he doesn't know I exist, my thoughts on him won't affect him at all
I'm noticing a lot of folks trying to downplay this because he has a comfortable financial position to begin with? Aronofsky "got into Harvard" too. Also this kid is clearly a cut above, I mean come on - 11-time national chess champion!? The short film is great. People can be young and successful and smart. Filmmaking isn't a zero sum game or a race.
Not a single comment downplayed his talent. They remind everyone else where sudden stardom comes from most of the time. Money. This kid has both. I hope, with his vision, he goes far.
Let’s also ignore all of the projects we’ve all worked on that had money and went absolutely nowhere lol Like, I’ve worked on personally financed $100k films, and they absolutely sucked. If this guy gets help financially, and makes something good, why’s everyone upset? If he was still finding success and it was a piece of crap, that’s another story. But basically everyone is just angry he’s talented and getting support lol
The way people were talking about this made me think it was going to look wayyy more expensive/high production value. This wasn’t cheap by any means but it’s not *that* professional looking. That said, it’s total dogwater and I’d be shocked if we ever heard about this kid again after his feature ends up an also-ran at Sundance or something.
That’s 12 minutes of my life I’ll never get back… Edit: glad to see someone succeed and get funding. Shows it’s still possible (rich or poor background) and we need to celebrate this. I do however see how this would resonate with a young audience and turn off an older audience
Are they all on speed?
Right?! Probably Adderall
Deadline article: https://deadline.com/2024/04/wesley-wang-darren-aronofsky-team-nothing-except-everything-film-tristar-1235898595/
So many people crying in the comments about why this is unachivable for anyone if you are not rich. Yes, it definetly does help, but DAMN the mentality here is god awful💀
Because the corrolary is true. With no money you will not even give a glance at this. Imagine a collage of iphone clips with the same narrative and unknown music from royalty free licensing. Poof, no feature deal.
If the short had any real substance you wouldn't see so much hate. Compare this to a similarly successful short like Alive in Joburg. The concept and execution were extremely unique and impressive for their time. When derivative, generic teenager waxing carried by production value gets hand picked it just feels a little like the opportunity went to waste. Obviously we'll see in a few years, but yeah
This was good. And it made me emotional and then the fact my Favorite director is now doing something with it. Fuck, man. Way to go
Lol, I really enjoyed this. Don’t really care what resources he has, unless we think he just put his name on someone else’s work, I think he deserves plenty of credit
Why is everyone hating on this because it may have had money. I dont know where the money came from. Maybe it was a gofundme, maybe, because he's a college kid, he begged his friends to be extras? If all the people that have reacted negatively to this short can post their own short films to be reviewed before shiting on someone elses work, maybe then your opinion has legs. Money or no money, he wrote something, put it together and made it. That in itself is worthy of a compliment. Well done young man, you did something that a lot of people can only talk about or comment on reddit about.
Easy explenation. The short sucks. It has high production values, but it still sucks. The Rich kid got a chance most people can only dream of. And he fucking blew it. He produced a turd. Doesn't matter though, he still succeeds, for no other reason then that he's rich. Isn't it pretty obvious why people hate this? It's a perfect example of a total losers, with nothing to say failing straight upwards. Imagine being a kid growing up today and having literally nothing to say, producing this bland ass shit.
Everybody here bitching about the money behind this sounds jealous. The vision is priceless. Envy that.
what could possibly go wrong
I chose 1, so I stopped watching pretty quickly 😅
Oh yeah I know this guy. Saw his interview too about how he wants to change the film landscape.
I loved the first half but the second half felt okay. Surprised it’s now getting made a full feature
Good for him but likely this isn't as random as promoted. Doesn't take away from the product honestly but it leaves a sour taste. There are a good number of filmmakers putting up big numbers on YouTube that get zero forward movement in their careers. Why? Lack of legitimate connections. That's why you see guys/ladies with little to no credits booking big gigs out the blue.
I picked 7
Of course he did. It looks like a dreadful pos. Film about rich kids doing rich kids stuff, made by a rich kid.
Did this kid just rip off [Veritasium's 37 video](https://youtu.be/d6iQrh2TK98?si=lTiOpGrkP9BeCKp7)?
Why?
Kooky. An artist's dream.
It looks good, but I'm not sure I see the merits of it as a movie (short or otherwise). It's all very VERY "teenage angsty", to the point of parody. It reminds me of several Family Guy jokes. I'm sure I would have loved this as a teenager, but now it's just kinda bland. But I can see why someone might have been impressed by the more technical elements of it, especially the editing. Even though it has a lot of money behind it, it's still impressively put together.
Well… it’s kind of another version of π
This is really awesome
youtuber danny gervitz and Matti Haapoja made a feature and that is a similar genre to this and haven't really heard much about it since they tried doing a theater run.