Wednesday, November 15, 2006

In Praise of Purchase College's Film School

They did, after all, turn down Dylan Avery not once, but twice. Why do I bring it up again? Because once again, Dylan Avery has shown what pitiful editing skills he has. James posted about this September 11, 2006 footage before. I made the mistake of watching the first 15 minutes this afternoon. It's incredibly bad, even worse than the rest of the vanity videos. No kidding, it's 90 minutes long and the first 8 minutes is them leaving the hotel or wherever they're staying and then walking along the streets of New York, them going down into the subway, them buying tokens, them coming out of the subway, them walking along the streets of New York... unbelievable. They had two or more cameras, so we get occasional side-shots instead of following Korey and crew.

Apparently sensing that this is boring the heck out of everybody, Dylan dubs in some music, but it's wildly incongruous with the video, which shows some poor buddy of Dylan and company schlepping a huge box full of DVDs to a guitar solo. Korey, no surprise, is carrying his sunglasses and nothing else. These guys never heard of characterization?

There's a brief bit of filming by Dylan himself prior to the Democracy Now taping. To his credit, Dylan points out that Jim Meigs of Popular Mechanics was a good guy, then notes that David Dunbar, also of PM, was not so nice. One problem: both of the graphics point to the same guy--Meigs as it happens.

They get near Ground Zero, and we have a moment of excitement. Some firemen are apparently asking for the "Investigate 9-11 Shirts". One fireman knows all about Loose Change, but he can't say anything on camera. Let's hope he just wanted a free tee shirt.

Then we get a really, really stupid bit where two 9-11 Truthers interview each other while filming it. First, the other guy interviews Dylan's cameraguy. But of course, Dylan's camera catches mostly the other guy's questions, not so much Dylan's cameraman's responses.

As if this wasn't bad enough, the guy they're filming says he decided to write a fictional screenplay about how these two friends find out about 9-11 being an inside job. As you may recall that was Dylan's original screenplay as well. Brilliant characterization!

3 Comments:

At 16 November, 2006 08:44, Blogger Triterope said...

One of things that baffles me about the whole Loose Change phenomenon is Dylan Avery's complete failure to learn anything from it.

He's in an enviable situation for an aspiring 24-year-old filmmaker: his amateur movie has been viewed thousands of times, he's all over the Internet, he's being interviewed on CNN and in mainstream media. He has the world's attention. And he's squandering this incredible opportunity by making ego-feeding sub-amateur home movies, in which he betrays his disinterest and/or inability in even the most basic filmmaking skills.

If I was in his position, I'd strive to make the best follow-up movies possible, just in case any Hollywood types might be taking an interest in me. At the bare minimum, I'd edit my six hours of home movie footage down to a tight 20-30 minute documentary. But Dylan Avery seems more interested in indulging his ego than advancing his film career.

 
At 16 November, 2006 09:14, Blogger Jujigatami said...

But Dylan Avery seems more interested in indulging his ego than advancing his film career.

Gee, ya think?

 
At 16 November, 2006 22:20, Blogger Pat said...

Triterope, he just doesn't have a clue how poorly this stuff is done, so he thinks all he has to do is throw some music on there and everybody will be impressed. Remember, 99% of the original Loose Change didn't even involve him shooting film; the only thing he added was a soundtrack and the interview with that guy who wouldn't rent Hani Hanjour a plane.

I got a raging clue that LCFC is going to suck bigtime.

I sure wish they'd invest some of their profits in a steadycam; I am getting nauseated watching these videos of theirs.

 

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