On the Lot

ON THE LOT GONE!

jes61356 — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:48:47 +0000

It is kind of bittersweet to me that OTL is finally gone.Because of my experiences with it I had wanted it to be gone but now that it has actually happened I am experiencing mixed feelings.

Today I went to where that web site was and saw the red notice and felt a tinge of sadness. I watched as so many other filmmakers got booted off the site for speaking their minds. At that time I was silenced by my Rep from speaking outright but I did get some words in there.

It was from the mistakes of the OTL web site that this group sprung and I'm greatful for that. Meeting other filmmakers when you live in such as small town as I do is a miracle in itself. There was a time when I almost believed that I was the only one.

Like so many others I wish that OTl had been more filmmaker friendly. It served its purpose and like the phoenix that rises from the ashes a new web site was born. KARMACRITIC!

We are still here and making films and thats what its all about. My best to all of you.
John

Hammer

DawnAkemi — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:12:37 +0000

A woman plots revenge against her unfaithful ex.

Will Bigham

OnSetChicago — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:16:00 +0000

Congratulations to Will Bigham on winning the $1 million contract. His win gives me hope that good guys can indeed finish first. He was my fav of the finalists from the beginning and remained my fav to the end. Yes, the process was flawed, but what in life isn't? I think he is the best fit for Dream Works and I sincerely wish him well.

Ode to Zach Lipovsky

FableForge — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:23:59 +0000

I still havent watched any On The Lot episode since the premiere, not a boycott, I simply forget its on (for instance I was playing STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl last tuesday). But I read the reviews. I heard they canned Zach, and that he cried.

That, to me, represents absolutely everything On The Lot has ever been, in many levels, that's their true colors. Dont blame America's vote for this one. Here's my guess instead:

http://www.dingorue.com/2007/06/14/on-the-lot-zach-lipovsky-paradise-redrawn/

[quote=DingoRue]

At this point he doesn’t even need to win On The Lot to prove how talented he is. The two short films he has debuted thus far have gone a long way to prove his worth in the film industry. So much so that his own project, Paradise Redrawn, has been picked up by Chris Ferguson Productions and is scheduled to begin filming in Vancouver in 2008.

Zach Lipovsky himself will be manning the helm on the project as director, while Chris Ferguson will take on the role of producer.

Paradise Redrawn was written by James Dai and is about a Catholic school girl named Sophie who gets bored with her classes and begins to doodle in her notebook. As she doodles, her creations come to life and lift off the page. Two separate nations form in her notebook, both of which consider her to be a god. Both nations end up going to war and Sophie is forced to come to terms and deal with the events and outcome.[/quote]

So, Zach already has a feature deal, in fact, according to the website, it has been in Post since march 2006! Heck, "Paradise Redrawn" has its own promo website!

Now its the time for my wacky conspiracy theory: OTL canned him for the ratings. They wanted to get "America" talking. The message board at thelot.com had been dead for weeks, hardly a blip after every episode. Now we have a lot of new threads mourning Zach's early demise. Same in the blogosphere, that they were bribing just weeks before. ("On the Lot with Ford in LA"? Phwfeeease). Have you heard the story of the chicken that laid golden eggs? The eggs were worth a fortune, but the people got greedy, and they figured that if they killed the chicken, all of the golden eggs inside it would be theirs at once. Of course, that wasnt so, and they lost the chicken. Keep in that mind, and then remember Zach has been on board for "Paradise Redrawn" since last year. Remember also that as a reality TV contestant he was sequestered inside a mansion, kinda like a juror for OJ's trial. Thats no way to get a film made.

So why did he cry? He knew he had been robbed. Every review I've read, notably my favorite at EW concedes Zach "should have won 8 weeks ago". Concessions made for the argument that his films lacked story (personally I think its just human "instinct" to compensate and try to find flaws in anything that seems too perfect, just like we find virtues in anything that seems too shitty), he was giving that show golden egg after golden egg. But OTL sacrificed him to the altar of the Nielsen Gods, and he teared up. Man, I have not a single ounce of pity for the producers of that show. In my point of view, they represent every nasty stereotype about hollywood, in the flesh.

Zach, if you ever read this, I want you to know I saw your potential since the early days, as my review of Crazy Late on February 24th testifies, before I even became sour on OTL and started KC.

Wipe those tears, make kickass films, screw OTL.

On The Lot and KarmaCritic: our story

FableForge — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:47:44 +0000

Even though this story is familiar with everyone who has been with us from the beginning, we've recently gotten some exposure at AMNY, or the LAT, so I just wished to create this article, as they say, for the record, on what was my experience with On The Lot, and how KarmaCritic came to be.

Here goes:

I was one of the almost 16 thousand wide-eyed contestants from around the world who saw Spielberg's face on the screen in On The Lot's main page, telling us things would be really cool, and I went for it. I knew it was a reality contest, I knew it was from FOX. But somehow seeing Spielberg casted a "these are not the droids you're looking for" kind of spell on me, and I genuinely believed this would be a wonderful, legit experience.

It was, at first. I was able to get great feedback on my film, I met wonderful people, talented, really bright people. On the road to a reality tv show, FOX had stumbled, it seems by accident, upon the single greatest gathering of indie filmmaking talent EVER seen online.

And then it started hacking at it.

That was about February or so. There was a lot of tension, a lot of speculation about who would get "the call" and when. Its equal parts funny and sad to contemplate how many people stared at their phone those halcyon days, waiting for a voice on the line.. some intern in california who would validate their dreams, who would make all that effort and time worth it, who would validate their selves. Of course, this is one of those cases where the victim deserves part of the blame for placing such high hopes on.... a reality TV show from FOX? I mean... what were we -thinking-? But I digress. The truth, which leaked on the boards many times and was promptly stamped out like emotional whack-a-mole, was that FOX had -already- chosen the semifinalists BEFORE round 1 was even over. We know this now, because so many semifinalists have spoken and said they got their calls and made their round 2 "assignments" in early January. Way before the deadline for round 1 submissions of Feb 16th. Hold on to this thought, because I'll recall it again when I get to the part of the actual OTL episodes following the ill-fated premiere.

Things marched on, and moderation at thelot.com became increasingly draconian. Orwellian is another big word that gets dropped around all the time, odd not to be overused nor cliche in this particular case. If it wasn't such trivial matter (a silly TV show) I might even throw "fascist" to the pile. You see, its one thing to moderate to prevent foul language. Its understandable to moderate for copyright violations too, for example, if someone copies verbatim a news article. But to turn the word "youtube" into "BLEEP" automatically? To ban anyone who even displayed the least suspicion on the show's prospects, to continuously delete threads and blogs that questioned the widsom of Saint Burnett in the tiniest way? The irony is that at the same time, vote abuse and spam abuse on our precious baby films was rampant, and hardly fought at all by the Powers that Were. It wasn't long before the list of banned people read like a virtual Who's Who On The Lot.

We knew each other. After a certain period of coexistence, we learned how to see one another past the BS, and when we stopped trying to impress the world, we discovered a tight network of talented people; many movies got made and many partnerships started -despite- FOX's Big Brother ways.

By my birthday on April 21st, things had gotten ridiculous. Stewie had been banned yet one more time, and so had another couple friends like Reincarnut, etc (irony note: when the show premiered, thelot.com featured Stewie's blog on their main page even though his account was still banned! Talk about one hand not knowing what the other does). When I asked the moderator what exactly was the official criteria for deleting threads and blogs left and right, she went legal on me, and quoted the Terms of Use that say, basically, that FOX reserves the right to delete anything and anyone for any reason. That did it. I started to code this place, KarmaCritic, right that moment. It was done by the weekend, because I worked like a banshee, sustained only by cheetos and faygo like geeks of lore always have. In our opening day, we had 20 or so of the best people from OTL, exiles most of them, but glad to feel the freedom in this place, and the ability to do anything we could do in thelot.com, plus a little more, minus the Big Brother aspect.

Every talented voice silenced from OTL became their loss and our gain. And that's how karmacritic.com became thelot.com's public enemy number 1. Even to this day, if anybody, no matter how established or respected, posts the words "karmacritic" over there... the words first turn automatically into "BLEEP". Within 5 minutes the post is deleted, within 10 minutes the user's account is banned, and in 15 minutes his whole IP is banned (so he wont make new accounts). Then all the posts that person EVER made, go byebye too. That has been my experience.

Things got surreal when Mr. Jeff King, Vicepresident of FOX's Branded Media got personally involved. Here is how it happened: someone (not me) posted in Wikipedia about karmacritic in the entry for ON THE LOT. At first it was a just a throwaway sentence, but as more people got banned, I guess they started venting a little bit over there, talking about how the "worldwide search" for the 50 semifinalists turned up 21 from Los Angeles, and 48 lived in the US, or how Canada had contributed 30% of the submissions and gotten 4% of the spots, etc etc. And of course, talking about how a bunch of exiles had left for KarmaCritic. Well, one day all of that was just gone. As you know, Wikipedia records the IP address of whoever edits it anonymously, so it was simple for me to track it to 20th Century Fox. I posted about it in my blog, and I guess the person saw it, and the next wikipedia revert was done using an account: "jeffkingla". Of course, if you google that, you'll land in the myspace account of Jeff King, and he says there, he's the VP of FOX's Branded Media. So thats when I knew they really had it for us.

Anyway, KarmaCritic has kept on going. Thanks to connections and friends of friends, mostly thanks to Ezequiel, we got now Jon Brown, the manager of STEVEN DE SOUZA and Tova Laiter, the producer of DIE HARD 3, EVITA, and others, to be judges for OUR OWN CONTEST.

Our Screenwriting development contest, SUBLIM, is not a typical contest where you just submit and forget about it until they call you. Round 1 is a one-page synopsis, a video pitch, and the first five pages of the script. Round 2 is a treatment, and the first 30 pages. Round 3 is the whole shebang and the prize is to get repped by Jon Brown and hopefully shopped around town by Tova Laiter.

Karmacritic represents a lot of things that are good about filmmaking. It wasn't just standing up to "the Man", as much as it was creating a place, a community of talented people who want to collaborate and just create cool-ass films.

Thank you for reading. It may not solve this Summer's Greatest Mystery, thanks to the LA Times for listing us on it, but its our story. We hope you like what you see and stay for the ride.

Summer's Biggest Mystery (or.. why I love Google)

FableForge — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:11:51 +0000

You know, Google kinda deserves the success it has. I like google lately. Thanks to Victor's very generous contribution, we can afford to mount a month-long adwords campaign for SUBLIM, and lately I've started using Google Analytics to track usage of the site. It rules peoples. But my favorite part is when I search for "karmacritic".

This is what came up today:

http://www.amny.com/entertainment/ny-etbiggestmystery0712-pg,0,3831432.photogallery?coll=am-entertainment-promo&index=7

Hahaha. We are number 7 (hey! 7 again!) of the Summer's Biggest Mysteries for AM New York magazine. Man, its fun :)

I recommend reading the other mysteries too, they're fun. In fact, I'm kinda involved in the one about 1-18-8 too, as is most of AICN :)

Evolutionary Love

OuchMouth — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:33:18 +0000

This was my On The Lot submission. But, apparantly, I entered too late as I didn't submit it until the last minute (I didn't even hear about the contest until Jan.)

I had made this back in film school. I think it's pretty cute. Just your typical romantic comedy...with a twist.

KarmaCritic coalesces cinematographers to counter corporate caper

ChrisJediKnight — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:49:30 +0000

(Originally posted at The Knight Shift blog on July 2nd, 2007)

I'm not watching Fox's On The Lot anymore, even though I made a film to enter into the competition. It's not out of "sour grapes" or anything: when the show premiered I was eager and excited about its potential, and I was glad for whoever it was that made it all the way to the Hollywood round even when I didn't.

And then the show... failed to meet my expectations. Worse than that: it became readily apparent in the first episode that the art and skill of film-making would not be what this show would be about. Before the first installment was up, I was already wondering how much of a chance my entry had, considering that the attitude I conveyed in my intro video wasn't the combative/aggressive that the On The Lot producers seemed intent on having from the show's cast. More time and effort was spent on creating and exploiting conflict than was on the actual creativity and craft of film-making. Which is what I wanted to see and learn from.

But how much skill can it be said that anyone can pick up from watching your typical Mark Burnett production? Why should we have expected On The Lot to be any different?

I don't regret trying out for the show though. For one thing, it led me to make Schrodinger's Bedroom, and I'm very proud to have come up with the premise, to have produced it in so short a time and especially for the wonderful people that I got to meet and work with in making it happen. Schrodinger's Bedroom is still one of the best highlights of this year so far. And I'm glad that I got to meet a lot of fellow film-makers through On The Lot's forums: people who I really could learn a lot from and better my skill as a film-maker.

Those are the kinds of people that I want to associate with professionally. Because to them it is the film that matters, and not how old we are or what sex we are or where we live or how much we are arrogant (a trait that I have not seen from the ones I'm most talking about here).

Well, long story short: in the past few weeks the shenanigans coming out of On The Lot have almost strained belief. I've heard that Fox is so outdone at how lousy On The Lot is doing in the ratings, that it held back on the money it was going to dole out to the contestants to make their weekly films and instead forced them to use the films they made for the second and third rounds of the selection process! You can read more about it at Ain't It Cool News, in a story that directed me to the topic of this lil' blog post...

Some of those who also competed in On The Lot, disillusioned by what Fox has done with the show, have started their own film-makers forum called KarmaCritic. And for something that just started up, it shows a lot of promise: enough so that I signed-up with them this morning, after seeing several familiar and trusted faces from the On The Lot forums already over there. That my friend Phillip Arthur alerted me about KarmaCritic just before I went to its registration page was even more a good sign that this was something I should associate with. And KarmaCritic already has its first contest for those who would like to have at go at a serious film-making competition. I'm going to be spending the next few days working on an entry for this one.

So if you also are earnestly interested in film-making and want the benefit of a community of fellows that you can both learn from and enjoy your trade with, give KarmaCritic a shot. In more ways than I know to comment about right now, I think this could be a huge success.

Aint it cool??

FableForge — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:18:24 +0000

This morning, I woke up and there was a bunch of new accounts ready for review. All of them were good, peoples. Good films, good scripts, good people. In just a few hours, since Harry Knowles of http://www.aintitcool.com published my letter on KarmaCritic:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33198

I feel I owe him, I always enjoyed reading his movie reviews because they had a very primal -life- to them, not like the more "professional" ones in Variety or The New York Times, Harry's reviews were like ... your buddy chatting you up while you walk back to the car after seeing the movie. They felt "human", real, coming from someone with geek values like my own. I knew it was the right thing to do to let him know of what happened to us in OTL and how KC came to be.

To tell you the truth, I look up to him. May KC one day be as successful as AICN, and may AICN's good karma last Harry for three generations.

OTL What could Have Been

jes61356 — Wed, 30 May 2007 05:05:27 +0000

You know I am reading all the disasterous comments about On the Lot on the internet and I think if I were the producer right now I would want to hide my head in shame. What really pisses me off is that I really know down deep that I could have made this show work.

The audience turned off in droves when they saw how badly the filmmakers were being treated. Watching something like that is not entertainment its sadisitc. They were torturing those people. Using sleep deprivation to bring out their anger. They didn't try those tactics on American Idol contestants why do it with us? It just shows me how low we rate with those producers.

I know that with my health it is a God send that I did not get picked. I would have ended up in a hospital or worse before the end of the show. Anyway I'm over 40 so I didn't have a chance.

They should have led that show off with showing the films that got those people onto the show and letting us get to know those filmmakers. That is what the audience was interested and curius about. Not watching sleep deprived filmmakers crash and burn.

I would never have shown demeaning footage that showed a filmmaker crying or slapping his belt. That was pathetic. They had a ready made audience after American Idol hungry for their show and they blew it. People aren't as stupid and those producers think and they started turning off the show in droves by the end of the first half hour.

I have what was shown so far on dvd as a reminder to me not to submit a film or try to be on a Mark Burnett Show ever.

Best Wishes, John