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How Can B Movies Exist?


Peter Ellner

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Do you actually see any of the money from the rentals?

 

Just a second, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

 

Oh that was good.

 

Oh, and it better be good as I'm forking over almost 4 dollars! ;)

 

Um it won't be, hopefully you're into "alternate" cinema. :)

 

R,

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Back in high school, my best friend's dad was in the business of distributing sexploitation films, promoted as "educational films", and often screened as road shows at drive-ins. Of course in my youthful judgment, the man was a sleaze-ball. In my disdain I failed to take notice of the fact they lived in a quite nice house, dad drove a Cadillac, and dinner at their house was always a table full of good food, prepared by their live-in maid.

 

I doubt if any of the films he showed could claim "C" status...but the people who made them made a few dollars and a lot of teenagers saw things on the big screen that they definitely didn't see down at the Roxy.

 

I'm leaving names out on purpose, the father in later life actually became a highly respected diplomat!

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My two features are Hide and Creep and Interplanetary.

 

You can watch Hide for free (and legally) on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCY7XSTT4_Q&feature=avmov2 ) , and the DVD is available at Amazon.

 

Interplanetary is available on DVD and digital download at Amazon, and it'll be streaming soon on Netflix "Watch Instantly."

I don't know if the one I found on youtube is right, it's a zombie movie?

 

I love zombie movies...

 

See this is one of the reason why we have B rated movies.

 

It's not only about meaning of the film or decent qualities.

 

Like for food wise, sometimes you just feel like having bunch french fries.

 

I can enjoy it one.well..some of them, not all.

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I don't think Peter's post is arrogant, I just consider his opinion an indication that he is undereducated in the wider breadth of his choosen field of study. It is like a University Math student asking, why 2 + 2 = 4 or, "what's the use of algebra?"

 

I don't know if this is due to the film school he's attending (I didn't just see the films of the greats, I also saw B films, low budget films made by Carpenter, Kubrick, Hitchcock et al and even took a whole semester course on American exploitation/grindhouse films circa late 60s to early 80s).

 

Or, maybe Peter is an excited student who just finished his first year and decided to go to film school because he grew up watching A list Hollywood actors and Hollywood studio films and wants to be a part of that aspect of the industry. To him, quality could simply mean big budget like "Pirates of the Caribbean", not necessarily quailty such as "Psycho"; a low budget "B" type movie at the time. Other aspects of the industry and the history of film in general was of no interest to him before going to film school. This isn't a negative judgement, everybody has their reasons for wanting to be in the film industry (or digital video industry these days).

 

I do hope that in future courses and through life experience in the film industry Peter will come to respect, understand and enjoy the rich history of B movies in the history of the motion picture industry.

 

Heck, a widely respected genre/period today, Film Noir, mostly consisted of films regarded as "B" by studios at the time. I'd also take Carpenter's "Assault On Precint 13" and Corman's "Death Race 2000" over many of the big budget quality films of today.

 

That said, I saw Bill Murray being interviewed on TMC last night. I didn't recognize the interviewer or the program, but Bill was making a similar argument/rant as Peter. Bill was talking about his experiences in France during his hiatus in the mid 80s and how he watched this program that started with the earliest silent films. He was awestruck by the quality of the films and wondered how we could justify making inferior films with superior technology. Although I think he was mainly attacking the Hollywood system and not B and low budget films.

 

Peter, some great stories have been told through the "B" movie industry. Check it out. You're missing out on a gold mine.

 

Thanks Pat, I think you're very perceptive. What you wrote in your third paragraph is pretty much all true. I just want to say that I completely understand how hard it is to create a movie, let alone one that lots of people enjoy. And I am equally cognizant of the fact that the people behind many B movies are just like you and me, and they're trying to make some money to feed their families and survive.

 

My question wasn't about B movies that I would call "innocent" in the sense that they are created by inexperienced people that are just starting out. I am completely understanding of those sorts of movies and, more importantly, the people behind them. Rather, my question was really about the B movies that are seemingly intentionally bad. You know the ones I'm talking about: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Snakes on a Plane, Troll 2, Battlefield Earth, Starship Troopers, Uwe Boll films, etc. (By the way, I'm not talking about movies like Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, as I can completely understand how and why that film was made.) I'm talking about the ones that are so campy, cheesy, and painfully awful that I just can't imagine the writer and director not realizing it unless they have absolutely no self-awareness and no experience of what a good film is.

 

And this is what bothers me: as a film student, I'm told all the time how difficult it is to make movies, and how hard it is to make it in the movie industry, and yet there are movies that are being made all the time that are so bad, so completely tasteless that I simply don't understand why and how they're made. And I know that if I were to be like that, I wouldn't even have a chance.

 

I'm not arrogant, I'm actually just threatened. Threatened by the ubiquity and continued production of movies that almost everyone seems to hate, and the fear that I could make one just like that.

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Thanks Pat, I think you're very perceptive. What you wrote in your third paragraph is pretty much all true. I just want to say that I completely understand how hard it is to create a movie, let alone one that lots of people enjoy. And I am equally cognizant of the fact that the people behind many B movies are just like you and me, and they're trying to make some money to feed their families and survive.

 

My question wasn't about B movies that I would call "innocent" in the sense that they are created by inexperienced people that are just starting out. I am completely understanding of those sorts of movies and, more importantly, the people behind them. Rather, my question was really about the B movies that are seemingly intentionally bad. You know the ones I'm talking about: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Snakes on a Plane, Troll 2, Battlefield Earth, Starship Troopers, Uwe Boll films, etc. (By the way, I'm not talking about movies like Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, as I can completely understand how and why that film was made.) I'm talking about the ones that are so campy, cheesy, and painfully awful that I just can't imagine the writer and director not realizing it unless they have absolutely no self-awareness and no experience of what a good film is.

 

And this is what bothers me: as a film student, I'm told all the time how difficult it is to make movies, and how hard it is to make it in the movie industry, and yet there are movies that are being made all the time that are so bad, so completely tasteless that I simply don't understand why and how they're made. And I know that if I were to be like that, I wouldn't even have a chance.

 

I'm not arrogant, I'm actually just threatened. Threatened by the ubiquity and continued production of movies that almost everyone seems to hate, and the fear that I could make one just like that.

You can't be confused as to the quality of production and the value, the people that make or produce those films know very well that they aren't pieces of work to be proud of, more often than not producers fill a quota of movies that they full well know they may only be proud of one or two. They know that these works will not influence or contribute to society (like so many great classic films have done). They make these films full well knowing that they will make a return on their investment and indeed they very well do. People wonder why Uwe Boll gets the continued ability to make films? They're made cheaply and they make money.

 

That's the difference between a lot of award winning works and the crap you see getting reruns on cable television.

Edited by Marcus Joseph
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So go ahead and have high personal standards, strive for excellence, try to be the best, don't settle for being mediocre or a hack, push yourself... but be sympathetic to all filmmakers because this is not an easy way to make a living. You can hold yourself to very high standards without necessarily demanding that everyone else have them.

By the way, did anybody here besides me(and maybe David) ever get to see "Manure/The Smell of Success"?

It's kinda weird; the local Video Ezy has about 20 copies on the shelf, which is more than some big-budget films get. I tried to submit a review to one of the Sydney papers a while back to maybe stir up some interest, but they never actually replied to my email.

I see now it's available for download (legal and otherwise)!

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By the way, did anybody here besides me(and maybe David) ever get to see "Manure/The Smell of Success"?

It's kinda weird; the local Video Ezy has about 20 copies on the shelf, which is more than some big-budget films get. I tried to submit a review to one of the Sydney papers a while back to maybe stir up some interest, but they never actually replied to my email.

I see now it's available for download (legal and otherwise)!

Video Ezy's still around? I haven't seen one of those around in ages.

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Having been peripherally involved in the production of a couple of really awful B-movies, I do share some concerns with Mr Ellner. When we watch a bad movie, we often say things like "that was so awful it should have been obvious from the script alone". One of the most valuable things I learned from being slightly involved in a couple of "real" movies was that this suspicion is absolutely valid: you absolutely can tell that these things are going to be terrible from the script alone, and you can tell exactly how they're going to be bad, in some detail.

 

Presumably, they don't care; presumably, they don't think it's worth spending even a couple of weeks working some of the kinks out of the plot and dialogue. Presumably they know what they're doing. The producer I'm particularly thinking of has made a career out of making this sort of crap and presumably he knows how to make money.

 

But it is genuinely surprising to read some pages and think "good grief, this is just absolute junk", and see people who should know more than me spend seven figures on producing it.

 

P

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But it is genuinely surprising to read some pages and think "good grief, this is just absolute junk", and see people who should know more than me spend seven figures on producing it.

 

Hi Phil,

 

Thus it has always been: Story, story, story. "Casablanca" wasn't intended to be a classic, its production values were so-so and when it was made Bogart and Bacall weren't the superstars they became. But it had a good story and killer cast chemistry and became one of film's greatest classics.

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I'm not arrogant, I'm actually just threatened. Threatened by the ubiquity and continued production of movies that almost everyone seems to hate, and the fear that I could make one just like that.

 

I believe it's been mentioned already, for every well intentioned bomb or just plain stinker, you also have crazies with money who want to make a movie. I salute you for wanting to avoid the Tommy Wiseaus.

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I don't necessarily see a "problem" with Peter's arrogance -- it's the nature of youth... film school should be about seeing great movies and really understanding what movies are capable of being in the hands of a master. If you want to be a painter, you don't study mediocrity, you study the Great Masters. When I was a beginner, I was inspired by Kurosawa, Welles, Lean, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Ford -- and of course the average movie is going to look lame next to theirs, and a cheap B-movie perhaps even worse.

 

But life experiences are a humbling thing as you discover just how hard it is to make a good movie, let alone a great movie. Compromises come fast and furious; to some extent almost anyone who finishes a feature film at a professional level -- no matter whether it is any good or not -- has accomplished something that is very difficult to do. You start out as a beginner wondering why there aren't more movies like "Citizen Kane" or "2001" and a decade later you are asking Richard how he managed to get "Dogfather" made and distributed because even the littlest movie is very hard to get made if it is going to be done in the traditional way in terms of crew, cast, post-production, etc.

 

So go ahead and have high personal standards, strive for excellence, try to be the best, don't settle for being mediocre or a hack, push yourself... but be sympathetic to all filmmakers because this is not an easy way to make a living. You can hold yourself to very high standards without necessarily demanding that everyone else have them.

 

David,

 

Every time I think of replying to a thread like this, you've already said it better than I would have. Thank you!

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Here's the basic conundrum: You can't survive in this competitive business without drive, and drive partly comes from ego, ambition, and self-confidence. On the other hand, you can't grow as an artist without being self-critical. Maybe as a beginner, you have plenty of ego and ambition, but perhaps a lack of experience leads to some lack of self-confidence, but ego and ambition (with some natural talent) are enough to get you started. Then life experience kicks in and you perhaps gain some self-confidence but you are also continually humbled, and you also have to constantly examine yourself, evaluate your work very critically, to find ways to improve... and sometimes all of that can lead to a crisis of confidence.

 

So you play a lot of mental games to balance everything, like spinning multiple plates on a stick... a little ego messaging, a little self-criticism, a little re-evaluation, back to a little ego-boosting, etc. It never ends. But you want to avoid self-delusion because it's hard to go somewhere if you don't know where you actually are. Hence the need to see the world as it actually IS rather than how you want it to be.

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That's basically what happened me. It just got to be such a mental struggle I gave up and committed myself to an insane asylum where I sit in a straight jacket all day. I type with my nose. Yes Bruce, David does have a very succinct way with words. It's a good quality and probably comes in handy when explaining to directors and producers "why" or "why not."

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But you want to avoid self-delusion because it's hard to go somewhere if you don't know where you actually are. Hence the need to see the world as it actually IS rather than how you want it to be.

 

As usual, you make great points, but as Sidney Lumet said, we all need a little self delusion... and as I finish, or we might kill ourselves ;)

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Back in high school, my best friend's dad was in the business of distributing sexploitation films, promoted as "educational films", and often screened as road shows at drive-ins.

 

Ha! The old "white coaters". I bet he made a pretty penny off those films. A little bit of movie trivia, in "Taxi Driver" Travis Bickle takes his date to one of those films from Sweden. Note the men in lab coats at the beginning and the sombre voice over during the sex acts.

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My secret Phil.....I was smart enough to hire the best cover art guy in the business. :)

 

Very close to something Roger Corman said -- Always start by designing the one-sheet. Then make the movie to match it. ;-)

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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..., the man was a sleaze-ball. In my disdain I failed to take notice of the fact they lived in a quite nice house, dad drove a Cadillac, ....

 

Yup, that's where the money goes -- distribution.

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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"Casablanca" wasn't intended to be a classic, ....

 

Indeed, during production Bogart was concerned that it would be a turkey that would kill his career. It has gaping holes in logic, like would the Nazi's really give any credence to so-called "Letters of Transit"? But it's full of bit parts played by the greats of European cinema, who had escaped. Kurt Bois as the pickpocket, ah, so many of them.....

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

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Very close to something Roger Corman said -- Always start by designing the one-sheet. Then make the movie to match it. ;-)

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

Yep and every AFM is packed full of "posters" for movies that are a long way from existence.

 

R,

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Just look at the cost to make a movie. If a film is to be made, you have to raise money. How much money can you raise. You aren't going to make a good movie without a good story. So, let's say you have a good script and you need $15-20,000,000. Let's say you raise $7,000,000 and you have no more. Not everybody making a film gets the ideal budget they need to shoot a movie. What do you do? You may have to re-cast. You may have to change shooting formats. You may have to make location changes. Your major scenes may have to be cut. After all t his, one of your backers falls out and now you have $4,000,000. You have to cut all major actors but you can get Bruce Dern for a day. Now, you have to make major script changes. The cute trained dog is now out of the script entirely. Do you give up and say, "I can't make a movie for $4,000,000? You are confined by your budget. Not everyone gets funding for the$50,000,000 t0 $100,000,000. movie. To get there as a director, you have to have something in your resume that shows you can direct a film. And even if you do, there is no guarantee, you will ever get that job. If you limit yourself, to A movies, you will never get a film made. If we only made A movies, the amount of films made each year wold dwindle. Plus, t here is a market for b-movies. I forget the name of the event but I went a few years ago to a hotel in Santa Monica where film companies had rented rooms to sell their films for distribution all over the world and the b movies outnumbered the a movies like 20 to 1. B movies cannot be dismissed. They generate a lot of income.

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I forget the name of the event but I went a few years ago to a hotel in Santa Monica where film companies had rented rooms to sell their films for distribution all over the world and the b movies outnumbered the a movies like 20 to 1. B movies cannot be dismissed. They generate a lot of income.

 

Right, that's AFM.

 

R,

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