With its highly publicized on-set snafus of “Real
World” proportions, it was a surprise that anything
marketable came out of the HBO television series “Project
Greenlight.”
Nevertheless, as part of a grassroots campaign to promote the
reprise of their screenplay competition, this time dubbed
“Project Greenlight 2.0″ and to boost sales for the new
DVD boxed set for the first season of “Project
Greenlight,” LivePlanet and Miramax Films have chosen UCLA to
screen the recently released independent flick, “Stolen
Summer.”
The film, which will have a free screening at the James Bridges
Theater tonight at 7:30 p.m., was the product of amateur
screenwriter, Peter Jones, winner of the first competition last
year.
Although “Stolen Summer” was made with a budget of
one million dollars and was directed by Jones, the project was also
backed by producers Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris Moore, not
to mention an HBO TV show.
According to Daniel Fishman, managing director for Universal
Consulting Group, which is promoting “Stolen Summer,”
the competition among the screenplay submissions was fierce.
According to Fishman, Miramax and LivePlanet narrowed down 7000
screenplays to the top 250. The top 250 entrants were asked to
shoot a three minute home video to demonstrate their abilities as
well as to tell more about themselves, their visions, as well as
their desire to be filmmakers. After hours of video viewing, Matt
Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris Moore narrowed the field down from 250
to 30, which were again narrowed by Miramax and LivePlanet to 10
finalists.
The 13-week HBO documentary series recorded the entire process
of “Stolen Summer’s” production all the way from
the arguments between the director and producers to the
actors’ inability to play their scenes according to plan.
Set in the 1970s, “Stolen Summer” follows the
friendship between two boys, played by Adi Stein and Mike Weinberg.
After learning that one boy is dying of a terminal illness, the
other tries to convert his Jewish friend to Catholicism to go to
Heaven.
Although the film appeared to be promising, the press has
described the project as everything from “the world’s
slowest car wreck,” according to the St. Petersburg Times, to
“not quite the train wreck that the documentary
suggested,” according to Hollywood.com. These quotes are even
on the “Project Greenlight” Web site, reflecting the
unflatteringly candid tone that the documentary series took in
revealing what happened behind the camera during the production of
“Stolen Summer.”
Despite the film’s poor reviews, Miramax and LivePlanet
still hope to profit from the movie through sales of a new DVD
boxed set, released earlier last week. The $70 set bundles
“Stolen Summer” with the twelve episodes of HBO’s
“Project Greenlight” along with other special features
and commentary on the four disk set.
To learn about the submission process for the competition,
students are strongly encouraged to attend the screening
tonight.
“The screening is open to all the students and we hope
that everyone who has a screenplay in his drawer will show
up,” said Dagmar Spira, events manager for the UCLA School of
Theater, Film and Television.
Unfortunately, the deadline is midnight tonight for
“Project Greenlight 2.0,” which gives students
attending the screening tonight little time to whip up the 80-140
page screenplay that the eligibility rules require. Students hoping
to run the next “green light” will have to yield for
another year.
For more information, log onto www.projectgreenlight.com.