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Project Greenlight in the Media

David T. Cole

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calliope1975

calliope1975

(edited)

He is a piece of work in that EW interview. HBO didn't want to show a stunt potentially going wrong. Okay, except I've seen tons of behind-the-scenes dangerous stunt work on other movies. It's impossible to make a low-budget studio film because you have to follow so many rules. Except, I'm pretty sure it's totally possible. 

 

One thing these interviews are proving to me is that the Jason I saw on PG is exactly who Jason is. 

Edited by calliope1975
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Zuleikha

Zuleikha

It is so clear from that interview that, as suspected, Jason Mann heard what he wanted to hear whenever Effie tried to talk to him about budget, choices, and production. This also makes me suspicious about Effie's enthusiasm for his perfect house and how feasible the house really was. I would completely believe that Effie knew that house wasn't going to work out and was trying to tell him the whole time, but he wasn't hearing her because he didn't want to. 

 

His selection as the contest winner illustrates the way current structures reward overconfidence and white male entitlement. It should have been (and was) obvious that Mann was only the best candidate on merit if merit is restricted to a narrow definition of technical competence (and even that seems subjective to me after having watched the shorts. His was very good from a technical perspective, but it also seemed very simple compared to what some of the other submissions did). All of the communication, compromise, and perspective issues were obvious.

 

If the show was sincere about finding a quality director, you'd think the continuous failure of their picks would make the show's TPTB re-evaluate their selection process. But it won't.

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Stinamaia

Stinamaia

Thanks for that interview.

I agree with Effie that her big mistake was in not taking another line with Farraley(or however it's spelled). I did think she was too defensive and she alienated someone who could really have helped her. That's speculation of course, but it did look like he was more on her side and just trying to jolly Mann along. If she had been more open and approached it from a standpoint of "let me tell you my problems for a second" she might have gotten further. I understood by she reacted even at the time I saw the episode, but I thought it was a mistake.

I don't think Effie or anyone should worry about giving racists ammunition.. Racists ar perfectly capable of making all the ammunition they need -- sometimes even out of thin air.

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blixie

blixie

 

His selection as the contest winner illustrates the way current structures reward overconfidence and white male entitlement. It should have been (and was) obvious that Mann was only the best candidate on merit if merit is restricted to a narrow definition of technical competence

 

Well said, that was my feeling when they picked him, was that it LOOKED slick, not that his short(s) were the most competent example of storytelling.

 

I'm loving the schadenfreud of Jason making a "slight" comedy of manners that isn't even FUNNY. 

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Julia

Julia

From her Cosmo (of all places) interview, about the phantom $200k:

 

I was looking for some sort of acknowledgment that I never, ever got. Nobody said, "God, great job! You did awesome. You saved us how much money?" On time, and on budget. No one said that. I was saving pennies to make sure that we could go back and do reshoots. "Once Craig [Hayes, the editor,] cuts it together, you are going to see we are going to need some corrective tissue. I just know it." And so I wound up saving some money that was enough to do a day of reshoots and visual effects, and it became so contentious. I didn't [stay for] the reshoots.

 

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jenrising

jenrising

Really good Buzzfeed interview. I think it's very telling that in post-show interviews Effie is thoughtful and admitting that she saw less than wonderful sides of her personality, and didn't make excuses for them. You know, like an adult. 

 

Meanwhile, Jason is all about how the magic of television made him look bad, while engaging in the same exact behaviors that make him look bad. 

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Empress1

Empress1

jenrising, I was impressed by that interview too. I cracked up when she was like "I love myself, but sometimes the mirror lied." I was also glad W. Kamau Bell got a shout out in that interview because he's the reason I watched the show.

 

She does come across very adult in that interview - as well she should. She's very candid, including about her own behavior.

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Julia

Julia

Slate article calls Effie a "line producer" in the first sentence. Not accurate.

She pointed out in one of her interviews (for Cosmopolitan, I think?) that the show erased her actual line producer, but Affleck did refer to her as one.

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STOPSHOUTING

STOPSHOUTING

(edited)

Really good Buzzfeed interview. I think it's very telling that in post-show interviews Effie is thoughtful and admitting that she saw less than wonderful sides of her personality, and didn't make excuses for them. You know, like an adult. 

 

Meanwhile, Jason is all about how the magic of television made him look bad, while engaging in the same exact behaviors that make him look bad. 

 

Yeah, while I wavered during the Farrley incident, which I still say she handled incredibly poorly, if somewhat emotionally understandably, I was definitely Team Effie again by the end, and her post-Greenlight interviews have presented her as a smart, and capable person, who, unlike Mann, has that glimmer of self-awareness you need to be an actual human being.

 

The thing about all this stuff is ... OK, I've had like one, one-thousandth of a brush with "Hollywood life," but even I know that while the idea that "entertainment people" are assholes is a firmly established one, in actual fact pretty much everyone you meet in "showbiz" is extremely nice and highly complimentary ... To your face. They love your idea! They are so happy to see you! They totally agree with your every inclination with a why-didn't-I-think-of-that head slap! 'You're so right!' 'You're a genius.' Etc. Etc. It's really freaking annoying. But that's the world. You don't publicly slam the one who, five years from now, you may be dying to hire, or have hire you.

 

I would bet you Ben Affleck's Batman salary that what was said about Jason Mann, as a director, and about his steaming crap heap of a movie in private by HBO, Affleck, Damon, et. al. was a lot more like what you're reading here than the "he has a vision" pablum they all spouted when they knew they were on camera. They're pros. They work. They know the drill. But, damn, I would have loved to be Damon's or Affleck's assistant as they sat in a room with them watching rough cuts of The Leisure Class. I have a feeling those observations were gold.

 

That Mann can't see past the smoke being blown up his Jack Skellington-ass (maybe he thinks it's a character-appropriate prop?) says more about him, than those blowing it.

Edited by STOPSHOUTING
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Julia

Julia

(edited)

Indiewire has a conversation between a reviewer who watched the series and one who just watched the movie.

 

And, data point: apparently Not A Pretty Woman was written by a story editor for Family Guy, so this may be the soft scenario we're in now.

Edited by Julia
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film noire

film noire

(edited)

Indiewire has a conversation between a reviewer who watched the series and one who just watched the movie.

 

And, data point: apparently Not A Pretty Woman was written by a story editor for Family Guy, so this may be the soft scenario we're in now.

 

Ricky Blitt -- interesting -- Blitt was involved in a dust-up ten years ago about "The Ringer", a cluster fuck between Blitt, the Farrelly Bros, Matt Stone & Trey Parker as to who thought of a premise first:

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2005/12/16/did-ringer-rip-south-park-or-vice-versa

 

"Blitt, who has also written for Family Guy, says that he first hatched the idea of a loser who feigns a mental disability to scam the prize money from the Special Olympics more than a decade ago. And indeed, The Ringer has been in development with the Farrelly brothers at Fox since at least 2000.

 

But adding a whole other level of intrigue to the he-said/they-said dispute is that Blitt alleges his Special Olympics story was actually pitched to someone at Stone and Parker’s company (although not to Stone and Parker themselves) via independent producer Robert Kosberg in 1999 — five years before their Cartman episode aired. Kosberg, who is no longer involved with The Ringer, backs Blitt’s claim."

Edited by film noire
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STOPSHOUTING

STOPSHOUTING

(edited)

Wow. They're fighting over ownership of THAT idea.

 

If you ever want to see a really interesting inside-baseball argument check out the lawsuit Paul Hogan filed against the actual writers of Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (a.k.a. Croc 3). The guy, Michael Berry, that had to end up fighting for credit on a film that won Razzie awards and he admits he was embarrassed about while he was writing it, talked about the entire adventure of writing the script to begin with, and why he had to fight to protect his credit. It's a wild, funny story, which he discusses at length in the How Did Get This Made podcast episode about that bomb of a film.

Edited by STOPSHOUTING
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film noire

film noire

(edited)

Wow. They're fighting over ownership of THAT idea.

 

I know  you have to protect your intellectual property, but still, I'd want to play hot turdtato with that one -- this info changes my perspective on the Effie /Farrelly exchange. I'm pretty sure script replacement is a big part of the reason Farrelly walked. Blitt's script wasn't being shot (and in need of any protection from a newbie director) so why stay in? Easier to blame it on a black woman being "difficult" rather than admit his skin in the game had disappeared, and he wasn't at all interested in being a real mentor.

 

Fun fact: from the date on this Variety piece, looks like the rejected script has been alive & kicking since 2002.

 

http://variety.com/2002/film/news/dreamworks-in-business-1117858903/

 

"Blitt is best known for writing “The Ringer,” which until recently was set up at 20th Century Fox though it has since gone into turnaround, and is also the scribe behind “Not a Pretty Woman” — both projects with the Farrelly brothers and Jacobs producing."

Edited by film noire
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Stinamaia

Stinamaia

I harken back to one of the first episodes where Jason says to the people doing the selection that he isn't sure he wants to do the film and this isn't really his thing. If a woman had said things like that, it would have been taken as a lack of confidence and Indoubt that she would have been selected. Yet a man who does that sort of thing is for some uncanny reason seen as desirable, I have seen this happen in executive employment decisions. A cannidate makes demands for a certain car, a certain office, other perks, and suddenly he is a "must have" when I'm thinking the guy is gonna be trouble, and then he is trouble.

I would have given anything if someone had said to Jason, " That's totally understandable. This isn't for everybody. Thanks so much for your time and for bringing us that marvelous short film." Shake. His hand and opened the door. I would have loved to have seen the back tracking. But no. They loved Jason's whole "I'm too good for this" attitude. And it was that exact thing that led to problems from the beginning through the end.

And thanks to the person who posted that conversation between those two women. I loved the one who hadn't seen the series saying that by the end of the movie she was "actively angry and annoyed." Yes. That was how I was watching the series!

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film noire

film noire

(edited)

Here is Effie's professional website/blog: http://www.dulynotedinc.com/

 

She tweeted that the statement that she left the project was "revisionist history." She says she did not participate in pick-ups but that she was still on the project.

 

Effie also said in another interview that the Farrellys never left the project: 

 

"The other thing that was a lie is the Farrellys never left. The Farrellys were at the premiere, we all hugged and everything was fine. [Peter] just didn't come to set. And I have a feeling he didn't [ever] want to, and I think I was a convenient excuse for him to sort of be like, "Whatever, peace out!" Who knows? He said he didn't feel like he could be himself, and he didn't feel comfortable around me, and I had to say, "I often don't feel comfortable. I often don't feel like I can be myself — but that's not enough to relieve me from a contract."

 

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/a48597/effie-brown-project-greenlight/

 

So Farrelly quitting -- because he wasn't able to "be himself" (btw,  Farrelly, not being yourself is a step in the right direction) -- and all Joubert's White Man's Tears over Effie being rough and tough and scary  (as if Brown spent her working day acting like a friggin' blaxploitation star) all that chow chow was an out and out lie to defame Brown's professionalism. A complete fabrication meant to try to turn her into an ABW caricature, for their own little sexist, white-man-entitlement-on-parade shit-show. What pigs they are.

Edited by film noire
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Julia

Julia

It's funny. There are a few articles out there saying that Jason was targeted from the beginning to take the fall, and I don't see it at all. What I see is that this was assembled by people who thought that the audience would jump on the Effie as SJW who lives to crush Jason's dreams narrative. Because the only place that the people making those decisions didn't completely back Jason and fail to back Effie is when he directly defied that nice Mr. Amato who pays the bills right at the end.

 

Because I think that's the story they think they told, and I think they drastically misread their audience. And I think that happened because, well, Effie has a pretty good theory.

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Milburn Stone

Milburn Stone

(edited)

 

Wow. There are a couple of revelations here that do seem significant to me. One works against Jason and the other works (slightly) for him.

 

Against Jason: He didn't direct the short version of The Leisure Class. He wrote it, but he didn't direct it. So, many of those things about the tonality of the short film that seemed to bode well for Jason's direction of the long film--not really relevant.

 

For Jason: He didn't wait until the eleventh hour to say yes to a house. He had one he liked that they were negotiating for, but it fell through. Now, it would have been sensible for him to have a backup well in advance, rather than pin all his hopes and dreams to negotiations working out on his favorite (especially because the details make it sound like those negotiations were never going to work out), but it apparently took him until the eleventh hour to find a backup he could live with. Not quite the same as indecisively dawdling.

Edited by Milburn Stone
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Julia

Julia

(edited)

Wow. There are a couple of revelations here that do seem significant to me. One works against Jason and the other works (slightly) for him.

 

Against Jason: He didn't direct the short version of The Leisure Class. He wrote it, but he didn't direct it. So, many of those things about the tonality of the short film that seemed to bode well for Jason's direction of the long film--not really relevant.

 

For Jason: He didn't wait until the eleventh hour to say yes to a house. He had one he liked that they were negotiating for, but it fell through. Now, it would have been sensible for him to have a backup well in advance, rather than pin all his hopes and dreams to negotiations working out on his favorite (especially because the details make it sound like those negotiations were never going to work out), but it apparently took him until the eleventh hour to find a backup he could live with. Not quite the same as indecisively dawdling.

 

He was one of five credited writers of the short film. 

 

And I kind of feel as if digging his heels in on the house he says he chose, if the rest of the story is as he reported it in the Washington Post, was a constructive refusal to choose. As you say, he was never going to get that house, and he opened with the fact that he was still trying to film in CT. To me, that speaks to the ongoing refusal to accede to reality which hobbled him throughout this.

Edited by Julia
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STOPSHOUTING

STOPSHOUTING

The whole it's not a documentary it's a reality show is true, but only up to a point. If anyone thinks that a documentary isn't also edited to be interesting then, well, I've got a condo to sell them on some really great Florida property that may or may not be swampland. The difference between the two is, I believe, whether scenes were created or staged, which is now accepted reality show procedure, and conversations scripted. If that occurred then, yeah, it's a flat out reality show with zero credibility towards real life ... But I don't get that impression. There are the talking head interviews, where an unseen producer is guiding participants towards the sound bites they want/need, but the day-to-day action we see. Is that scripted? Are they having Effie and Jason re-enact arguments and disagreements for the camera? Maybe. But, if so, they're certainly not saying that, and given what we've heard about how they were/were not paid, they wouldn't seem to have a lot of loyalty to the process and keep that quiet, if it occurred.

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lidarose9

lidarose9

"Jason Mann is an arrogant lima bean who Matt Damon and Ben Affleck hired to “direct” a “movie” because the producers of Project Greenlight knew that he would be entertaining on television. The jig has been up on Project Greenlight for a minute now, but the inclusion of Jason Mann proved that they weren’t even trying to hide it anymore: make good TV first, slap together something resembling a movie second.

 

"Mann ended up being a perfectly, remarkably accurate and unsurprising personification of a mediocre white man in Hollywood who steamrolls others with his staggering mediocrity and ends up creating trite, un-entertaining work that will eventually be forgotten by the world."

 

from http://jezebel.com/2015-in-fuckboys-and-their-fuck-shit-1746279096

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Irlandesa

Irlandesa

I'm a little bummed by this because the last season was so fascinating.  And I would love to see them commit to hiring a non-white male because if the movie is going to be shit anyway, why not give someone a chance?

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