We've been saying for a while now that something is brewing in Chile and that the South American nation is on the brink of an explosion of genre film. Well, it looks like that explosion may be coming sooner rather than later. At a recent film festival in the city of Lebu three of Chile's leading lights in the current genre wave - Ernesto Diaz Espinoza (Mirageman, Kiltro), Jorge Olguin (Descendents) and Miguel Angel Vidaurre (Oscuro/Iluminado) threw down the gauntlet for their countrymen, releasing a film making manifesto they call New Blood. Obviously inspired by Lars von Trier's Dogme manifesto and the huge impact that had on Scandinavian film making the trio have written up a list of thirteen rules that must be adhered to to create a New Blood film and will be creating a three part anthology film together guided by the rules of their manifesto once all three have completed their current projects. To be considered a New Blood film, projects must follow these rules:
1. The films will be made with no script, just a visual guide and a three pages treatment.
2. The films must be in the Horror or Fantastic genre.
3. The fantastic fact must not be rationally explained.
4. You must shoot the movie in a maximum of twenty days.
5. The maximum crew must be ten people.
6. The films must include a minimum of five graphic murders and one of them must occur in the first three minutes of the film.
7. You cannot use more than three lamps to light the scenes.
8. The film's duration must be between seventy and ninety minutes.
9. The movies must be shot in digital formats and never be blown up to 35mm.
10. The soundtrack must include a song from Chilean musicians.
11. Post-production must be up to DVD distribution standards, i.e. proper 5.1 sound etc.
12. The film must be screened in a film festival.
13. The film must include some sort of on screen tribute to an acknowledged horror film master director.
Which would you say were dumb? I was emailing with Ernesto about the manifesto earlier today and they're quite well thought out on these. It's designed to lay out a frame work that will help film makers work fast and cheap, yet come out with something saleable at the end while also having fun doing it. The goal is to encourage more film makers to experiment with stuff, which can only be a good thing.
"It’s designed to lay out a frame work that will help film makers work fast and cheap, yet come out with something saleable at the end while also having fun doing it."
That's exactly the feeling I got when reading through it.
I like how they are strict and definite like Dogma was, but they replaced the strict film purity with something more Corman-esque. This should be interesting!
well the whole Dogme thing was also only a commercial tool. if it wasn't, this new 'rulebook' might be called a parody :) I hope it helps to get some money to fresh talent and gets discarded after that; but without talent these rules alone won't make a very good film I think...
It's just that the rules make it way too easy to fall into boring formula.
I'll admit that all I know about it is the list of rules, but at first blush some of them just seem odd and/or counterproductive.
1) I think this is potentially the coolest
6) THIS is the one I have the most problem with. So they're encouraging young filmmakers to "experiment" by basically encouraging them to do gory splatter/slasher movies?
9) So, if one of the films turns out to be amazing and an American distributor wants to pick it up and release it nationally, a la Haute Tension, or send it to some of the more prestigious festivals, it can't be blown up to 35? So...if it's REALLY successful and gets blown up, it loses its New Blood tag? Seems like a chance to shoot yourself in the foot as a 'movement', no? Taking away any association from a successful movie?
13) I REALLY dislike this one. I mean, really, so every movie is either going to have a Texas Chain Saw Massacre ass shot, or a Halloween poster or Ernesto Romero is going to have to vanquish the ghost of Jorge Carpenter who is haunting Cronenberg Hall on the Campus of Hooper State Univeristy? I can't be the only genre fan who rolls his eyes every time some jackass hangs his camera from a clothesline and tries to do a Sam Raimi/Evil Dead shot, can I? Or maybe they can do a steadicam POV murder that hasn't been imitated a billion times already...
OK, so obviously I'm blowing this out of proportion and clearly should be doing soemthing more productive than this, but honestly, this seems like they're trying to do little more than creative movies that Lionsgate can pick up, slap a generic title and misleading cover on and stock Blockbuster shelves with alongside their ever-expanding library of Uli Lommell movies.
Lastly...I'm guessing it's not a coincidence that there are 13 rules for this...
Agreed with Garth.