Wagner James Au sez, "I just published a short interview with the Purchase Brothers, the Toronto guys who made that great 'Escape from City 17' movie featured on Boing Boing last week. They explain more how they did it, and what they spent their $500 budget on. As it turns out, that's 500 *Canadian* dollars, so even less than most of us first assumed."
He said all of the visual effects were done from scratch. Many of the elements (the background, the gunships, etc.) were extracted from Half-Life 2, then graphically enhanced, and incorporated into the live action with “a lot of complicated tracking and rotoscoping.” Though the movie itself was made independently of Valve Software, the developers and publishers of the Half-Life franchise, David said the game company got involved with its promotion, plugging its premiere on Valve’s user community channel, Steam News.
The brothers plan to release part two of City 17 in 6-8 weeks, though the storm of attention over part one has delayed that somewhat. “We have been getting a ton of emails and phone calls, which has slowed things down,” said David. Judging from the brief teaser clips at the cliffhanger end of the first video, a spunky heroine joins the team – as do hordes of headcrab zombies. (The Purchases promise to reveal details about their cast after that goes online.)
Gus the hacker puppeteer writes, “Many of us hoped the Internet would disrupt the music industry along with all other media industries, giving more power — and more pay — to musicians and songwriters. And yet, somehow the amount musicians get paid each time their songs stream is a tiny fraction of a cent.”
The trademark was granted to discount eyewear company Specsavers, whose slogan is “should’ve gone to Specsavers.” If you object, you have until October 12 to file with the IPO.
Since March, the unnamed genius behind Paperback Paradise has been remixing the often dreadful covers of vintage paperback novels, refining their base material into golden lewd, hilarious new work. (via Richard Kadrey)
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a very impressive bit of work, and I mean no offense, but as a well-heeled low-budgeter, I have some problems with this number “$500” – it assumes the computers they work on cost nothing, the software cost nothing, and their time cost nothing… the ‘real’ value of “a lot of complicated tracking and rotoscoping†(whether they paid themselves industry standard wages, or pennies a day, or not at all) is a lot of dosh. I doubt if the 500 covered the food and coffee for the time period it took. and even the shooting would cost if not volunteered. simply because things are ‘in kind’ or the software/computers were already torrented/owned, doesn’t mean the value of the work should be stated as 500… it suggests that some kid with 500 should be able to just create that from scratch – impossible.
I’d like to see “a lot of complicated tracking and rotoscoping†expanded into several pages of material.
I’m not trying to be picky, but their shakycam was just bad. It literally made me very nauseous. I want to see a return to steadycam and track shots.
@ALANJCASTONGUAY:
That’s what most modern blockbusters are, these days.
OK haters, you’ve had your say. This is _Awesome_ for $500. And although the $500 doesn’t include equipment they already had, it’s still $500! Truth is, any kid can get their parent’s handycam and download Final Cut Pro these days.
To these creative filmmakers I say, “well done.”
Love the crowbar kill, with the same satisfying “thud” as in the game. All told, nicely done for a low-budget short.
I guess the budget allows an easy excuse for all the other problems that ail this short. I am really impressed with how the “advanced tracking and rotoscoping” worked. Over all though, acting needs a little improvement and still some work on camera use is in place.
Gtron, the thing is, most people already have incredibly powerful computers sitting on their desks or on their laps. Even kids usually have access to them. So including the cost of the computers, if they weren’t purchased solely for the project, is overkill.
Same with the meals; would they have not eaten during that time period? As for the question of time value, it’s typical for low budget projects to not factor in the “value” of labor that was provided for free. I’ve participated in a few fixed budget events and the budget rules specifically exempted free labor.
A kid with $500, a modern desktop computer, and a lot of motivation and care probably could create something like this.
Totally agree, g-tron. $500 is a BS number that they are using to get press. I’m sure they did it for cheap, but for those of us in the film industry, it would be more impressive if they were just honest and said how much it actually cost, or at least acknowledged “$500 plus the $10,000 of equipment and software we used”.
Editing software + special effects software alone would be in the multiple thousands.
I don’t necessarily agree that they should have to factor in their wages as part of the budget — that seems like the one ingredient they should be able to count as “free”.
Regardless, I’m tired of people throwing out impossibly low numbers to get press.
This wasn’t a $500 film. Let’s all just keep it real.
Not too shabby. And I concur on the $500 argument…if you’re a student, you can stretch that $500 a loooong way.
You guys are assuming they bought $10,000 worth of equipment for this short.
If someone had the software, the computer and the camera(s) already for other projects then I think its acceptable to say they spent $500 on this short.
From what I gather it seems like they used whatever they had already spent $500 and came up with what we just watched, nothing wrong with that.
BTW, for those paying attention the Canadian dollar was worth more then the American not too long ago *L* and thats from a country with 35 million people v.s. 350 million ;)
This would be great if the guys weren’t such terrible actors.
And, “I hate walking! Ok?”
For real? What a stupid line.
And the dude hopping over the small puddles at the end–that’s not exactly the right image.
This is truly cool.
Further to the budget question, we should recall that the SFX they yoinked from the game (and then “enhanced”) were produced at some expense by Valve. So even if the Purchase Brothers only spent $500, this isn’t a $500 film.
Between the SFX and equipment costs, the figure is more than a bit deceptive. But, you know, whatevs. If it helps them get some press, cool beans.
Budget calculations: (link to a torrent of Final Cut Pro goes here)
I know there was a powerfull open source SFX-editor I found a few years back, not very user friendly (at all) but it did all the cool stuff. I think it was an off shoot of blender.
I couldn’t find it again when I googled, but i found something called Jahshaka that looks promising. http://jahshaka.org/
And blender seems powerful enough on its own these days, if you are to believe the webpage. http://www.blender.org/
Nitpicking the $500 totally misses the fact that they did it really cheaply, with alot of passion and it looks pretty damned good.
Why get pissy at the publicity they’re getting? Seems like a bitter, silly little point to be making.
By cheaply, I assume you mean they cut a lot of corners. Most of the visual and audio elements are directly lifted. The ‘z0mg $500 you could do it too’ is therefore misleading and cynical.
I think $10,000 of existing equipment (computers, cameras, lenses etc) isn’t much of a stretch, considering the Purchase Brothers usually direct commercials (including one for coca-cola). They’re hardly struggling amateurs; this is just a really effective viral for valve.
why are u people hating so badly on this video sure it was 500 dollars but its still pleases the fanboys(me). i appluad them for making this im sure its better than what Gabe Newell saw heres a exerpt from a interview
“Eurogamer: Talking of Hollywood, has anyone from the movie world come up with a decent Half-Life movie script yet?
Gabe Newell: They all sucked!
Eurogamer: In what way did they suck?
Gabe Newell: They’re just bad movies – movies that shouldn’t get made. I’m a huge fan of movies, I love going to movies and we have absolutely no reason to do it. It’s not like they’ve offered us these giant buckets of cash and said “let us go and ruin your game” [laughs]. They offer you little tiny amounts of cash, so it’s like they’ve not even tried to bribe us to go and make a bad movie. So it’s the one thing we’re going to hold on to. Unless it’s a great movie, unless it’s as exciting a movie as the game was a game then it will never get made.
Eurogamer: Is it just that they’re not really in tune with what Half-Life’s about and don’t get it?
Gabe Newell: No, I just think that there’s an attitude right now that they’re trying to exploit the built-in audience of gamers right now and they don’t really care whether the movies are any good. I think there’s also this element of financing in Germany where they don’t really care how profitable the movies are either, so you have this collision of people who are not long-term stakeholders who just think ‘what are the next five movies I can crank out before the German government closes this tax loophole?’ and 95 per cent of the gaming movies are being made specifically for those reasons.
Eurogamer: Do you make a point of watching them just to see how bad they can be?
Gabe Newell: Yes [longest sigh ever]. I have to put on my professional ‘I’m doing this for the company’ hat, not the ‘I’m a movie go-er whose soul is going to be crushed by another unbelievably crappy game adaptation’ one.”
the fact that they plugged it on Steam News most likley means that gabe saw it and loved it.
Okay, let’s say you’ve got a camera and you’ve got your friends who have some computers already and just want to make a nice little flick for fun. None of that shit is going to be calculated into the budget, because that’s already handy. The only things calculated into the budget are the things that were attained “specifically” for this film. So the $500 probably goes into the costumes and props. And including the food is ridiculous. What, did they not pay for food before they made this movie? Its pointless to add in the price for things they already had or were already paying for before they even made this movie.
And they even mention specifically that they had no crew. So its not like they had to prepare a big snack time or something. They went out, shot guerrilla style and then afterwards probably went and picked up some hamburgers and messed with stuff on their computers and added in the voice overs for that walkie talkie part. By the way I loved the noise the walkie talkie made at the end. Straight from the game.
I just think everyone here needs to lay off their backs about the price and stuff, just because you don’t know how to spend your own money. I’ve gone out and made films in the past and never spent more money then it cost for the lighting equipment I needed (and that was only one time) and the outfits (though we can usually make do with what we all already have) the software we bought once (we all pitched in and that was months before we even made a film or even had an idea for one) and this time we bought a cheap car and wrecked it (not while driving it, through the use of a few camera tricks, some smoke and a couple of hammers its easy to make it look like two cars collide). The less money you have, the more you learn to stretch it. $500 can be like $1000.
a very impressive bit of work, and I mean no offense, but as a well-heeled low-budgeter, I have some problems with this number “$500” – it assumes the computers they work on cost nothing, the software cost nothing, and their time cost nothing… the ‘real’ value of “a lot of complicated tracking and rotoscoping†(whether they paid themselves industry standard wages, or pennies a day, or not at all) is a lot of dosh. I doubt if the 500 covered the food and coffee for the time period it took. and even the shooting would cost if not volunteered. simply because things are ‘in kind’ or the software/computers were already torrented/owned, doesn’t mean the value of the work should be stated as 500… it suggests that some kid with 500 should be able to just create that from scratch – impossible.
I’d like to see “a lot of complicated tracking and rotoscoping†expanded into several pages of material.
I’m not trying to be picky, but their shakycam was just bad. It literally made me very nauseous. I want to see a return to steadycam and track shots.
@ALANJCASTONGUAY:
That’s what most modern blockbusters are, these days.
OK haters, you’ve had your say. This is _Awesome_ for $500. And although the $500 doesn’t include equipment they already had, it’s still $500! Truth is, any kid can get their parent’s handycam and download Final Cut Pro these days.
To these creative filmmakers I say, “well done.”
Love the crowbar kill, with the same satisfying “thud” as in the game. All told, nicely done for a low-budget short.
I guess the budget allows an easy excuse for all the other problems that ail this short. I am really impressed with how the “advanced tracking and rotoscoping” worked. Over all though, acting needs a little improvement and still some work on camera use is in place.
Gtron, the thing is, most people already have incredibly powerful computers sitting on their desks or on their laps. Even kids usually have access to them. So including the cost of the computers, if they weren’t purchased solely for the project, is overkill.
Same with the meals; would they have not eaten during that time period? As for the question of time value, it’s typical for low budget projects to not factor in the “value” of labor that was provided for free. I’ve participated in a few fixed budget events and the budget rules specifically exempted free labor.
A kid with $500, a modern desktop computer, and a lot of motivation and care probably could create something like this.
Totally agree, g-tron. $500 is a BS number that they are using to get press. I’m sure they did it for cheap, but for those of us in the film industry, it would be more impressive if they were just honest and said how much it actually cost, or at least acknowledged “$500 plus the $10,000 of equipment and software we used”.
Editing software + special effects software alone would be in the multiple thousands.
I don’t necessarily agree that they should have to factor in their wages as part of the budget — that seems like the one ingredient they should be able to count as “free”.
Regardless, I’m tired of people throwing out impossibly low numbers to get press.
This wasn’t a $500 film. Let’s all just keep it real.
Not too shabby. And I concur on the $500 argument…if you’re a student, you can stretch that $500 a loooong way.
You guys are assuming they bought $10,000 worth of equipment for this short.
If someone had the software, the computer and the camera(s) already for other projects then I think its acceptable to say they spent $500 on this short.
From what I gather it seems like they used whatever they had already spent $500 and came up with what we just watched, nothing wrong with that.
BTW, for those paying attention the Canadian dollar was worth more then the American not too long ago *L* and thats from a country with 35 million people v.s. 350 million ;)
This would be great if the guys weren’t such terrible actors.
And, “I hate walking! Ok?”
For real? What a stupid line.
And the dude hopping over the small puddles at the end–that’s not exactly the right image.
This is truly cool.
Further to the budget question, we should recall that the SFX they yoinked from the game (and then “enhanced”) were produced at some expense by Valve. So even if the Purchase Brothers only spent $500, this isn’t a $500 film.
Between the SFX and equipment costs, the figure is more than a bit deceptive. But, you know, whatevs. If it helps them get some press, cool beans.
Budget calculations: (link to a torrent of Final Cut Pro goes here)
I know there was a powerfull open source SFX-editor I found a few years back, not very user friendly (at all) but it did all the cool stuff. I think it was an off shoot of blender.
I couldn’t find it again when I googled, but i found something called Jahshaka that looks promising.
http://jahshaka.org/
And blender seems powerful enough on its own these days, if you are to believe the webpage.
http://www.blender.org/
Nitpicking the $500 totally misses the fact that they did it really cheaply, with alot of passion and it looks pretty damned good.
Why get pissy at the publicity they’re getting? Seems like a bitter, silly little point to be making.
By cheaply, I assume you mean they cut a lot of corners. Most of the visual and audio elements are directly lifted. The ‘z0mg $500 you could do it too’ is therefore misleading and cynical.
I think $10,000 of existing equipment (computers, cameras, lenses etc) isn’t much of a stretch, considering the Purchase Brothers usually direct commercials (including one for coca-cola). They’re hardly struggling amateurs; this is just a really effective viral for valve.
why are u people hating so badly on this video sure it was 500 dollars but its still pleases the fanboys(me). i appluad them for making this im sure its better than what Gabe Newell saw heres a exerpt from a interview
“Eurogamer: Talking of Hollywood, has anyone from the movie world come up with a decent Half-Life movie script yet?
Gabe Newell: They all sucked!
Eurogamer: In what way did they suck?
Gabe Newell: They’re just bad movies – movies that shouldn’t get made. I’m a huge fan of movies, I love going to movies and we have absolutely no reason to do it. It’s not like they’ve offered us these giant buckets of cash and said “let us go and ruin your game” [laughs]. They offer you little tiny amounts of cash, so it’s like they’ve not even tried to bribe us to go and make a bad movie. So it’s the one thing we’re going to hold on to. Unless it’s a great movie, unless it’s as exciting a movie as the game was a game then it will never get made.
Eurogamer: Is it just that they’re not really in tune with what Half-Life’s about and don’t get it?
Gabe Newell: No, I just think that there’s an attitude right now that they’re trying to exploit the built-in audience of gamers right now and they don’t really care whether the movies are any good. I think there’s also this element of financing in Germany where they don’t really care how profitable the movies are either, so you have this collision of people who are not long-term stakeholders who just think ‘what are the next five movies I can crank out before the German government closes this tax loophole?’ and 95 per cent of the gaming movies are being made specifically for those reasons.
Eurogamer: Do you make a point of watching them just to see how bad they can be?
Gabe Newell: Yes [longest sigh ever]. I have to put on my professional ‘I’m doing this for the company’ hat, not the ‘I’m a movie go-er whose soul is going to be crushed by another unbelievably crappy game adaptation’ one.”
the fact that they plugged it on Steam News most likley means that gabe saw it and loved it.
Okay, let’s say you’ve got a camera and you’ve got your friends who have some computers already and just want to make a nice little flick for fun. None of that shit is going to be calculated into the budget, because that’s already handy. The only things calculated into the budget are the things that were attained “specifically” for this film. So the $500 probably goes into the costumes and props. And including the food is ridiculous. What, did they not pay for food before they made this movie? Its pointless to add in the price for things they already had or were already paying for before they even made this movie.
And they even mention specifically that they had no crew. So its not like they had to prepare a big snack time or something. They went out, shot guerrilla style and then afterwards probably went and picked up some hamburgers and messed with stuff on their computers and added in the voice overs for that walkie talkie part. By the way I loved the noise the walkie talkie made at the end. Straight from the game.
I just think everyone here needs to lay off their backs about the price and stuff, just because you don’t know how to spend your own money. I’ve gone out and made films in the past and never spent more money then it cost for the lighting equipment I needed (and that was only one time) and the outfits (though we can usually make do with what we all already have) the software we bought once (we all pitched in and that was months before we even made a film or even had an idea for one) and this time we bought a cheap car and wrecked it (not while driving it, through the use of a few camera tricks, some smoke and a couple of hammers its easy to make it look like two cars collide). The less money you have, the more you learn to stretch it. $500 can be like $1000.