From the beginning, I got the feeling that the film was trying to reclaim the feel of the first three (or middle three) films. The menacing death star, the overwhelming power and commanding presence of Darth Vader, the innocence of Luke, and the everyday life of living on what seems to be a wild frontier. It tried, but it failed. I mean it had glimpses of the right juice but just as it was about to find it's way the director threw in terrible dialogue, questionable characters with no direction and off the wall things like cute little beings or droids reacting to situations with innocent indignation.
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What not to do in an Audition
I have been to a few auditions, and I have held quite a few auditions. One thing that I know is what not to do.
When I was eighteen, I saw an ad in the paper (yes, the paper, that’s all we had and stop judging) soliciting for actors to be in a film. It was in the basement of a church in Fayetteville. I was suspicious about it and unsure about what I was walking into. I thought about all the news stories I had heard over my youth about abductions and the like. It made sense to me to feel that way; after all, it was Arkansas in the ’90s. No one around here made movies, at least not ones you could show to the public. But, I am pretty much not afraid of anything, so I went anyway.
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Making short films always seems to turn into something bigger.
I love making films. If you didn’t know that already, well, now you do. Sometimes we have a fleshed-out script, and sometimes we don’t. The real fun of making films sometimes comes from not knowing what I am going to film and figuring it out as we go. I know that sounds dumb, but it always seems to work out.
This last weekend, we did exactly that. We had outlined a few scenes and practiced some stunts with the actors. It worked out alright; it was one of those times when working on a wing and a prayer just felt right.
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On The Set of
The “Tech Files” by Joseph Hitchcock
On the set; A film that took six years to make.
As you know, I love filmmaking. The one thing that always brings a smile to my face is when a project is finished, and the world gets to see.
Read MoreI accidentally wrote a movie.
I actually sat down to write a ten page short that I could fund and shoot myself (by fun I meant it actually doesn’t cost anything other than time), I knew what I wanted, I knew what I needed to get there. Yet, I still held fast to the burnt in rules of screenwriting. I didn’t mean to, but I did it anyway. Like I say in my podcast all the time, I plotted it out, found the turns and went in for the kill, but ten pages just isn’t enough time.
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New podcast from me! Listen and subscribe.
Read MoreReview of Thor Ragnarok
I do have to applaud the movie for trying to stay true to its roots in the 1970's, 1980's motif that the first one had with its cheesy subtitles and crummy music but even that left me rolling my eyes because of the recent phenomena of the Netflix Stranger Things. It actually cheapened it for me because I hate pandering, especially in film where the movie has to hold its own for the sake of itself. Even though, I must admit that no movie seems to do that these days. A practice that I believe should still be first and foremost in the minds of the creators of any film yet has seemed to fall out of favor.
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