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watch L. Frank Baum's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, proof-of-concept

K

Keyser Sushi

Hey everybody! Been a while since I posted here, last time I didn't get much response, but we welcome any feedback at all so please speak up:

This is our proof-of-concept video. What do you think, do we have a movie happening here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8x0RNf32Ng
 
It's pretty good, but how're you going to differentiate it from the one with Judy Garland? IOW, if I had to watch either one, why would I watch yours?
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
It's pretty good, but how're you going to differentiate it from the one with Judy Garland? IOW, if I had to watch either one, why would I watch yours?
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Well, if that clip didn't answer that, how's this: in our movie there's a scene where the Lion and the Tin Woodman fight and kill a pack of wolves. We are fortunate that the MGM film did a bad job of adapting the book, even if it is a classic, and fun, movie.

Bottom line, Garland's Dorothy was a helpless damsel in distress: ours, as with the book, is a strong character and positive role model for young girls.
 
I am interested in seeing more of this. Is it going to be film festivals only, online, dvd or what? How close to completion are you guys?
 
Jsthompson79 said:
I am interested in seeing more of this. Is it going to be film festivals only, online, dvd or what? How close to completion are you guys?
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We plan to seek entry in festivals, but if nothing else it'll certainly be available on DVD and blu-ray. We've filmed all our major characters but we've still got a heap of smaller roles to film as soon as the costumes are done. We're about to set up campaigns at IndieGoGo and Kickstarter to try and raise the funds we need to make with the rest of the filming pronto.

Once we knock these last bits out there's a lot to do in post. But hopefully what we have here proves that it's viable...that we're making a film that can work. We just need to dig up some more digital effects artists to help get it done.
 
You got some great elements here. In particular the setting and also the look of the TinMan. Quite nice. I'm not sure if it interests you, but if you have ideas for children's TV programming, you could pitch your show on a paper while showing footage from this PoC and you'd have a solid chance. That's of course IF you had a concept idea. I could definitely see these visuals in a children's episodic.

As for how this all plays out as a feature film, that's hard to say. Festival runners for a story like this would want to see really nice visuals but a ton of heart. So if you have any way to show that your story delivers emotion, I'd recommend you milk that as much as possible. Some of the edits are a bit awkward, but it looks easily fixable with another pass in the editing bay and, on whole, your team did a nice job.
 
MarkKnightRises said:
You got some great elements here. In particular the setting and also the look of the TinMan. Quite nice. I'm not sure if it interests you, but if you have ideas for children's TV programming, you could pitch your show on a paper while showing footage from this PoC and you'd have a solid chance. That's of course IF you had a concept idea. I could definitely see these visuals in a children's episodic.

As for how this all plays out as a feature film, that's hard to say. Festival runners for a story like this would want to see really nice visuals but a ton of heart. So if you have any way to show that your story delivers emotion, I'd recommend you milk that as much as possible. Some of the edits are a bit awkward, but it looks easily fixable with another pass in the editing bay and, on whole, your team did a nice job.
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MKR, thank you for the kind words and especially for the helpful suggestions. Being Oz, there's plenty of heart to be had, once we've got all the raw footage for those scenes, so we'll be sure and push that in future reels. In fact the Tin Woodman has a nice tragic backstory - he used to be human but was cursed by one of the witches because of his relationship with an old woman's house maid. I think that'll play well.
 
I didn't know the rights to the Wizard of Oz were open to the public. :) I guess I learn something new every day!
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
So what's your business plan, may I ask?
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Business plan? Heh. We're just some guys making a movie. When it's done, if we can get into some festivals and get some buzz going we'll see what happens, but this is less about business and more about art and storytelling, and establishing ourselves in that regard. As well as just making a film that we want to see and that we hope others will enjoy as well.
 
directorik said:
Okay, now I am impressed!

Got some great Prather stories to tell - I met him in 1999. You're the first to notice.
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Awesome, dude, I'd love to hear them sometime. I've got all his books (save one, I think) and have read them all. He's one of my favorite authors, he's so compulsively readable and genuinely funny...guys like Robert B. Parker owe Prather more than most people realize...Prather is somehow not as well known, but the guy was great...and I hear he was an avacado farmer after retiring from writing?
 
When I wrote Prather a fan letter in 1995 he had recently
moved from California to Sedona, AZ. I drove there in April
of 1999 to meet him and his wife. To my delight we became
friends and I visited twice a year until his wife died in 2004.
I only saw him twice after that. I did a screenplay adaptation
of one of his books and he loved it and asked me to do another
one. By that point the copyrights of most of his books had been
rewarded to him in a lawsuit so he sold the adaptation rights
to four of his book to me for $100 and a bottle of 12 year old
Scotch. I wish I had that in writing.

Good luck with your Oz project.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
I learn something new every day. What''re you doing for funding, may I ask?
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We've got a couple of angles there, but nothing is guaranteed...we're about to run a Kickstarter campaign. We also have a lady who has experience at fundraising who has offered to help us out, but she's been waiting for our PoC...now that it's done we're still trying to set up the meeting.

But everything you see in that clip we managed to pay for out of pocket or with a couple thou we managed to raise ourselves from friends and family to start up production.
 
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