Sam finally got his first episode up of his documentary reviews! You want better quality and production? You got it! Share and critique as you will. http://www.gonzopolis.com/4/post/2012/09/dicking-with-docs-the-king-of-kong.html
Excellent. Finally, his knowledge of film comes through. Incredibly professional, great comments, good choice of clips, great music, great editing. Has a bit of a Penn & Teller feel to it. My only complaint is the lack of setup for an audience unfamiliar with the topic (8 minutes in and I'm not sure what the big deal is with this documentary he's talking about), but my guess is he wanted to attract people already familiar with the documentary. For a growing project though I'd really like to see him start with something that would grab a wider audience than "guys who've seen a 1980s documentary on some weirdass who played donkey kong." Unless most people have seen this and I'm just being clueless again. Which does happen a whole hell of a lot!
He chose this one first because it reaches the type of audience that he's going for: old school nerds. Even if they haven't seen the documentary, it will attract those people and give a small idea of what he's going for. He's got an entire list of documentaries he's going to be doing and this one is perfect for his start. He has a few more well known ones coming up here soon, though.
The thing with the Hetero Movie Date is that it was a simple vlog-style project that he could work on while we got all of our technical issues sorted out. It's really not supposed to be shined and polished like his other projects will be.
Too long, I think. I'd lose at least a third of it, maybe even half. I got bored and started skipping ahead at about the 6-minute mark. Better production value, though.
Ya and they don't have big audiences. Differentiate, short and to the point, high quality > 30 minutes and losing your audience's attention.
Yep. As garamet and any of the more creative types here can attest, you've got to be willing to "kill your babies". Get rid of elements that don't further the "story" of whatever it is you're doing, whether it's written or visual.
Just from what I saw in the "Dicking with Docs" video, it was a bit...disturbing...how much of a cult of personality had been built up around Billy Mitchell, a guy whose main accomplishment in life seems to be setting the record Donkey Kong score in 1982. I mean, really, look at how some of the dweebs in that video seem to revere him like a god or something and how protective THEY are of HIS image. Scary.
Figured I would reply to all of the suggestions. Zedword will also have his say on the matter. Sam says: This particular documentary is quite well known. They used to air it incessantly on G4 and the buzz about it during its release was huge. I do plan on "reviewing" other more well-known documentaries, but I'm definitely not going to do them all at first. My list of possible victims is pages long, some known and others not so much. These shows are also tailored to generate interest in the docs I "review" so the viewers can watch them for themselves. I also have plans to do themed months in the future which will include a Hollywood month, a "Love in All the Wrong Places" month, a pro wrestling month, an Errol Morris month, and others. If any of you have suggestions, I would love to hear them, although they might already appear on my planned list. As far as the running time goes, I plan to keep these hopefully below the 30-minute mark, but that's about the only limitation. I must argue the "no big audiences" issue. ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com features the most popular shows produced in this format and their following is quite huge. So big, in fact, that the producers don't need other jobs to supplement income. They make these full time and they are all anywhere from 20-30 minutes long, sometimes more. This fits the format I want and I don't have plans on changing it. The audience is out there.....it just may not be here. As I always like to say, "This isn't YouTube. This is for people with larger attention spans." As far as the "review" part goes, I keep putting them in quotes because Zed specifically states that "this isn't a review show". The point is to critique the people in the documentary rather than review the doc itself. As far as my personal taste goes, I love The King of Kong. It's one of my favorite docs standing alongside I Like Killing Flies, American: The Bill Hicks Story, and Being Elmo. In fact, I love most documentaries I watch even if I despise the subject matter. I'm a bit of a doc junkie. Zed will never state his opinion on the quality of the doc because it's not up to him whether or not it's good. Besides, the opinion of a doc is really about personal taste of the content and can't really be broken down and critiqued the same way a scripted film can. Even though it wasn't noted here, I would also like to comment on some of the cuts I made that left an extra frame or two. My apologies. I just started using a brand new editing suite (Avid Studio, highly suggested for prosumer projects) and I'm still learning a lot. I'm used to Adobe Premiere (all the way from 6.0 to the current run), but it has always been pirated and I wanted to go legit without dropping 800 bucks. Thank you all for giving my work the time of day and super thank you for the suggestions. I'm glad to be able to "prove my worth", as it were. Heh. Next Monday's episode will cover the documentary Heckler. Zed says: They said what?! Fools! *toke*
Nailed it. This is what DWD is about. Every episode will also feature a reading from the "Ancient Text of Documentary Downfalls" and someone to put on the Doc Dick Wall of Shit.
I'd never heard of TGWTG until you mentioned him so I checked it out. This is the Red Room so I'll be blunt. They are quite a bit better than you. You should also note that if you google the video runtimes that pop up in the first few reviews and other stuff from TGWTG are all between 17 and 21 minutes. While I believe that they might go 30 minutes plus from time to time I bet they are shooting for that 20 minute mark most of the time with good reason. The other critique I have for you is that when I compare you to TGWTG I get two very different impressions. Just at first glace I see nerdy but semi-professional from TGWTG, my brain thinks this is someone that might give good advice. You on the other hand come off as a guy that might ask me for money or a cigarette when I'm walking by. My brain jumps to "don't trust that guy and question everything he says". In other words, don't be afraid to take a shower, brush your hair, clean up the facial hair and give more of a friendly nerd vibe and less of a gas station attendant/movie theater concession stand worker vibe. I just got the Avid iPad app, now called Pinnacle Studio. The stuff I do is way more amateur in nature but I'm looking forward to giving it a shot because I hear great things about it. Personally, I love the touch interface when it comes to photo and movie editing and I'm looking forward to more professional level stuff embracing it in the future.
Actually I'd say he's about on par with some of the reviewers on TGWTG - he reminds me a bit of Cinema Snob, though admittedly I only see that guy when he does crossovers so I don't have a real feel for his review style. His refusal to give a recommendation or make an overall summation as to the quality of the work he's just been commenting on strikes me as an attempt to be a bit cute, and it's kind of pointless to say "this isn't a review" when, structurally, it pretty much is. True, he focuses on people, but he's also giving commentary on the documentary as a work as well, such as his bringing attention to how pointless it is to have a montage in a documentary. I recognize that he's trying to be different and set himself apart from the reviewers one might find on TGWTG, but unfortunately I can't give him much constructive criticism on how to achieve that while still being effective.
Sorry to pile on, but I have to agree with the 20 minute thing. Also, if you are looking for 'personalities' in Docs, you gotta have Jessco White on your list! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0h3a7MmMss
My first reaction to this is to be a sarcastic prick, but I think the fact that I'm not as good as them is obvious considering this is my very first attempt at that format. As far as the look goes, Zedword Bisley is just a scruffy and gruffy dude. It'll make more sense as the character evolves, but I have big plans for Zed. His history is already created and I know exactly how I want the overall character to be. I'll give an example. Hunter Thompson may have not been a grimy bloke, but Raoul Duke was. Same thing here. "Sam" the character is a lot cleaner and a lot more hopeful. Zedword is his opposite extreme. He's supposed to be a "bad" guy. In all seriousness, thanks for your feedback.
Wow! Thanks! I honestly think over time and after several more episodes, everything will settle like a nice marinade. Gonzopolis is 100% an experiment. It will change over time depending on reactions such as this. Sidenote: Brad Jones (the Cinema Snob) is one of my e-idols. What's worse is my Hetero Movie Date, which actually gets released before his Midnight Reviews, almost follow the same opinions and lines of thinking, sometimes even down to the exact word usage. Hell, in his video promoting Ninja the Mission Force, his cell phone ringtone is the same as mine. It's eerie, cool, and slightly pathetic (on my part) all at once. He's awesome. ADDITION EDIT: Thankfully, our Expendables 2 reviews were polar opposites. He loved it and even quoted it to be a movie "made to piss off cynical assholes". Which is exactly what it did for Bingy and me.
I actually just recently watched Wild and Wonderful Whites not too long ago and plan on doing this one fairly soon.
I like the idea of a 20 minute mark. There's a lot of independent reviewers (their own sites) that I've seen who do about 20 minutes, longer if it's a special movie that people are crazy about. I like the idea of the good vs. evil personas, and there's no rush in developing the characters right now since your focus is probably getting shit right. I do think in a few more episodes it should be pretty evident though. The beard really bothered me until you explained it's for a character.
