Additionally,
the DVD talks about the intelligence of smart web design,
marketing, and film promotion to get people to take
notice of your feature and start making a real buzz.
(Considering they managed to get a quote from Roger
Ebert for their cover, they know from where they speak.)
Attention
Captivation
Attention captivation was assisted by the fact that
there were so many concepts from different people's
roles and points of view. In addition to the requisite
information from the director's point of view, there
were segments from the producer's point of view, the
cinematographer's point of view, the special effects
artist's
point of view, and even the makeup artist's point of
view. Plus there's enough crew related camaraderie and
humor to keep things amusing.
Of
course, in the desire to be thorough, there are places
that are a bit overly redundant, with different takes
of people saying the same things in very slightly different
ways. However, each of these sections also has new information,
so careful watching will allow you to glean the most
information from these tutorials.
Reusability
I've shown this to a variety of different reviewers
on my staff and found this material to be very reusable
as each person who sees it takes away something different.
Some of it you'll watch once and not come back to it
again because it doesn't apply to your niche or because
you remember what you need from it, but most of it,
you'll return to as you play and replicate things yourself.
If nothing else, it will be something that will inspire
you to keep pushing the envelope and never buy into
the myths that are too often a part of old Hollywood
culture about what things "cost."
Value
vs. Cost
Nearly three hours of how-to information for $19.99
is pretty darn impressive. For the amount of stuff that
you will undoubtedly try based on this DVD, it's one
of the simplest investments you can make.
Overall
Comment
While some of the training in this DVD should have been
broken down to a more step-by-step approach for true
newcomers to filmmaking and effects, the things that
Ferrari and Rodriguez bring to the table are truly impressive
and inspiring. If you can watch through all the features
in this DVD and not get ideas for how to make your own
films even better, then you might not be alive.
