Film Making Contest

Project Greenlight Gets Another Green Light
The Wanna-Be Newsletter
August 5, 2002

Miramax, HBO, and LivePlanet today announced the launch of the second installment of Project Greenlight, the filmmaking contest, feature film and warts-and-all behind-the-scenes filmmaking documentary TV series that chronicles the challenges of a first-time-filmmaker living the dream of a lifetime by directing their own film.

The film and series will be executive produced by Live Planet partners Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Sean Bailey and Chris Moore and the film will be released by Miramax Films with the series to air on HBO.

This year's filmmaking contest is scheduled to begin on Sept. 19. Further details are available at projectgreenlight.com.

"We were incredibly proud of the results of the first Project Greenlight and we're thrilled that our partners at HBO and LivePlanet continue to share our passion for the project," said Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein. "Matt, Ben, Sean, Chris and the teams at Miramax TV and HBO delivered a compelling, dramatic insiders view of the filmmaking process while giving something back to the community. And Pete Jones did a great job of proving, once and for all, that there are undiscovered filmmakers out there who deserve to be heard and will dazzle all of us if given the chance."

While the original contest selected only one writer/director to bring his or her vision to the screen, the new contest will be open to both writers and directors individually with two winners – an amateur screenwriter and an amateur director – to be selected to partner in making the winning film.

"Project Greenlight owes a lot of our early success to our community – people who wanted to enter the contest, took the contest seriously and were loyal to the TV show on HBO. We expanded the contest because we think this format is more in line with the roles of a screenwriter and director working on a film," said Chris Moore, CEO of LivePlanet and Executive Producer of Project Greenlight. "A great number of filmmakers who would have liked to participate in the first Project Greenlight contest told us they didn't enter because they were either writers or directors – but not both. With this revision we hope to give even more aspiring filmmakers a chance. Contestants can enter as writers only, as directors only – or they can enter both contests."

The two contests – one for writers who will submit screenplays and one for directors who will submit three-minute directorial samples – will kick off the second Project Greenlight and will run concurrently with submissions to be accepted through Oct. 2. As with the first contest, Miramax will release the picture and guarantee a minimum budget of $1 million with Affleck, Damon, Bailey and Moore on board as Executive Producers.

As with the first contest and in keeping with the democratic spirit of the project, entrants will be obliged to read and review fellow contestants' submissions to narrow the pool and participate in the selection of the winners.

The first contest began in September 2000, the Emmy-nominated series chronicling Jones' trials and tribulations premiered in December 2001 on HBO. A 4-disk DVD box-set featuring the 12 original Project Greenlight episodes as well as the film "Stolen Summer" and over six hours of never-before-seen bonus material will be released on Sept.24.

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it's better to have loved and lost
than to live with the psycho
for the rest of your life

I'd enter it if I were an American.
I was planning on entering last year's until that little rule stopped me in my tracks.

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www.esotericrabbit.com

i would enter if i could write, direct, or do anything like that, also being 15 doesnt help

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"Who comes at 12:00 on a Sunday night to rent Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid?"
-Hollywood Video rental guy to me

You don't tell them you're fifteen. How on Earth do you think I get around telling people I'm a filmmaker? I just choose not to drop my age at all. We're entering Oblivion at Sundance, and if it gets in and does anything, anything at all, well...

...when some sixteen-year-olds get up and claim to be the producers, then we shall see.

So, don't tell them you're fifteen.

being a 16 year old film maker really does suck. Most of all for lack of respect. You really need to show up with an XL-1, a cherry-picker, or a huge crew if you want to be taken seriously. EVen worse than all of that, is that I'm young looking, so holding auditions for parts is out of the question, people would think it was a joke, luckily, most of my friends are actors. Young filmmakers definitley take a lot of hits though.

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"We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow-worm."
--Winston Churchill

Once again I'm going to dispute this. It's just the attitude, definitely not an attitude without basis, but the thing is if you think clearly enough and you just go out and do it the stigma soon disappears. For Oblivion Austin e-mailed D.O.Ps and found a man who has proven to be a gem [the shots from Oblivion are beautiful, I'm telling you] and he also held auditions which received a fair amount of attention and produced a stellar little Indy cast.

If you just laugh in the face of stigma and just forget your age [I constantly find myself forgetting mine, for example I had a wake up call this morning when I started having to think about my school subject choices for next year] all attempts at making it will produce some fruits.

We may take a lot of hits, but we sure as Hell don't have to.
Depends on whether the glass if half empty or half full...

Screw that, I'm orderin' a cheeseburger.

Nice speech, though, Gummly...attitude is half the battle.

Indeed it is. I like to think that myself and Austin are perfect examples of how a little bit of defiant and arrogant dreaming can go a long way.

Sb you could say your me and enter....

ehhh..I lucked out on a lot of my productions becuase I have a good friend who is the best DP a boy could hope for, but on the subject of auditions... I tried to hold an auditon at my local theater company, one that was full of pretentious hard-ons who wouldnt give a person the time of day (this is an opinion that I held even before the auditions). When the day came, I was less than surprised to see that none of the Theater companies actors tried out, some even came to heckle the local actors that did. I was distraught. Through a good load of threats, I managed to dispose of the hecklers, and actually came out with some taalented actors showing up.

I'm trying to relate that even with the best confidence, some people just aren't willing to let a youth excell beyond their "matured" potential. It's other peoples mindsets that hold me down most often, and thusly I have to work extremely hard to gain their respect in order to achieve what I need to. So age does affect the relative ease of production, and this is the point I was trying to make earlier.


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"I was trying to set A mailbox on fire, possession is merely a tool of the capitalist oppressors."

Well, I must say, especially in Oblivion and more recently with pre-production for my short film The Cow Hunters of the South Seas I have never found the stigma regarding my age truly affecting the ease of getting a film off the ground and getting made.

I've had people donating boats and all sorts of stuff for Cow Hunters and I've got a few actors who are quite readily going to act in it for nothing. I really do find that asking is all it takes.