Project Greenlight

Project Greenlight is the brainchild of actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and Producer Chris Moore, the trio that brought `Good Will Hunting' to the screen. The show is based on a competition during which wannabe directors submit their scripts to Live Planet, the trio's production company, with the winner getting the opportunity to turn their script into a film, courtesy of Miramax. The series follows the exploits of the contest winner, Pete Jones, as he directs his feature, `Stolen Summer.'

Having worked on film sets before, I know that movie shoots that go well can be pretty boring places to be. The hours are long and the work is hard, but basically you set up, you shoot, you have lunch, you shoot some more, then you go home. It seems to me that the P.G. creators and producers stacked the deck against Jones to wring out as much `drama' as they could. First they give Jones, who has never directed a film before, less money and less time than would be optimal for the movie he is making. Logic would suggest you would want to give a neophyte more time and cash to make mistakes, do things over, etc. Logic would also suggest you would surround the newbie with the best people you could get to provide support and guidance. Instead, Jones is hooked up with a first-time Producer (Jeff Balis) and a Line Producer (Pat Peach) and cinematographer (Pete Biagi) who seem more interested in furthering their own personal agendas than making the best film for Jones. All through the series the question of `Who's in charge?' hangs in the air, with Executive Producer Chris Moore coming by the set to yell at people and threaten Balis with firing (as opposed to, say, providing genuine leadership and guidance to the production) and studio suit Michelle Sy occasionally dropping in to `represent the interests of Miramax,' whatever that means.

The series shows all the major screw-ups on the production – Jones shoots under a noisy train platform that renders sound recording impossible, the big baseball scene is rained out and the crew does not have an alternative location, the scene of the two main characters swimming is hindered by the fact that the child actors are terrible swimmers. The crew gets worn down but soldiers on through the confusion, taking note of such basic directing/producing mistakes as not having a daily shot list. The series is very good at depicting just how chaotic movie making can be, especially when the people calling the shots do not really know what they are doing. Unfortunately, the series did not show anything that went well on the set. Despite the numerous gaffs depicted in the show, a movie apparently did get made. It would have been nice to see how the crew went about crafting and shooting a normal, regular scene, without all the conflict that went on behind the camera.

The last episode of the series showed Stolen Summer's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It seemed the reactions of the audience to the film were upbeat, but not overwhelming. I hope the film is good – I'll probably check it out when it goes into wide release. I also hope the mistakes depicted in the series do not hurt Jones's chances of directing again. All in all the idea of Project Greenlight is an admirable one. Any opportunity for fresh talent to break into the insulated world of major films can't be bad. If Affleck and Damon decide to do this again, however, I hope they forget the whole reality series angle and just give the contest winner the money and people he or she needs to make the best film they can.

I'll admit when I saw the first few episodes of Project Greenlight Season 3, I made a snap judgment about Gulagher. I fell victim to a good producer who knew the first and foremost element of a good story: Conflict and Resolution. You have to hand it to them because they edited Gulagher's first interview with Wes Craven, Matt Damon, etc... to give the appearance of stupidity. He even clapped his hands, making music by enlarging and shrinking the opening of his mouth.

For all of the aforementioned, and numerous instances of stupidity that they credited to him as he went through the process of making a movie, Gulagher came forward as a bright and shining director/filmmaker. A force to be reckoned with in terms of film-making.

Remember folks FEAST was made for a million dollars, with maybe a tad extra to boot. Also, it was Gulagher's first full feature film if I'm not mistaken.

It was shortly after I heard Damon give Gulagher a big thumbs up about his film-making prowess at the end of the season when I realized there must be something we're not being told, because based on what I'd seen until then, this guy's a moron.

I rented FEAST as soon as I could find it on the rental shelf next to "Dawn of the Living Dead (Now with extra cleavage)." After watching the first five minutes, I could tell Gulagher will make it big. Yeah, not on FEAST because Harvey Weinstein sat on it, but more-so for his overall brilliance and knowledge of story telling.

"I don't know what I'm looking for, but I'll know it when I see it." John Gulagher

Watching this one-disaster-after-another reality show, I can't help but wonder if Pete Jones realizes just how lucky he is and how much scrutiny he's under. I mean, he's been pushy, demanding and silly on the set. He's not following a shot schedule or taking advice from anyone, particularly Chris Moore (who comes off in this show as a sort of wiseass, common-sense-spouting hero).

Incidentally, did you count how many drinks Ben Affleck had in the first episode? No wonder they sent him to rehab.

"Stolen Summer," which had a script that Matt Damon said sounded too much like an afterschool special, looks like it's going to be painful to sit through, but this show makes me want to suffer through it.

I watched the train wreck that was and obviously is Jason Mann Season (2??) and was HORRIFIED at this "young" man's ARROGANCE and total lack of empathy toward anyone but HIMSELF. What was even sadder was seeing the hosts (Matt and Ben) bend to his "artistic" whims and, quite frankly, childish tantrums.

I just looked up what he's been doing and, obviously, he took enough rope to hobble himself in the world of film. Somehow, with this invaluable and unique opportunity - he's remained highly unproductive and totally forgettable in his work.

All THAT said! It was fascinating watching "The Process".

And am looking forward to the next season - which will have a female director. Fingers crossed that this one is fun to watch! And gives us someone to CHEER for!

Edit - OMG! Am finishing up Episode 2. The director they chose is very "in her head" with zero sense of urgency, so everything is pulling teeth - I AM BORED. Also, she doesn't seem to have views of her own and needs a lot of hand holding. Yeah. No. Have taken away 2 stars. Will give it one more episode.

The peer-voting method of picking the top scripts and directors ensures that anything/anybody really good will not be selected. Would you really give someone high marks if you were competing against them? I read each of the top ten scripts in the first PGL and found that the winner, Stolen Summer, was the only one that was not full of typos and grammatical errors. The plots weren't great either.

I entered the second PGL and had one voter who gave me top marks in each category and one who gave me top marks in all but one category and that was just one down. What killed me were the other three voters who gave me marks close to the bottom. Yes, I'm bitter.