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List Price: $39.99 | | Label: Miramax Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 36263
Released: July 13, 2004 |
| Our Price: $27.67 |
| Used Price: $18.99 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Miramax Home Entertainment along with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Chris Moore present PROJECT GREENLIGHT ... a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the Hollywood filmmaking process that documents all the hurdles and pitfalls encountered by first-time filmmakers as they bring their labor of love to the big screen! This special three-disc collection includes the complete second season of the acclaimed HBO series, extensive bonus material, and the finished theatrically released project THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS -- starring Shia LaBeouf and Amy Smart.
Description of Project Greenlight 2 (The Complete Second Series Plus Film The Battle of Shaker Heights):
Anyone contemplating a career as a screenwriter or film director--or anyone who simply wonders how movies get made--would do well to watch Project Greenlight 2 from beginning to end. The second season of the HBO reality series, co-created by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and producer Alex Keledjian, follows the creation of Miramax feature The Battle of Shaker Heights from unknown screenplay through various levels of Greenlight competition to first-run theatrical feature with a big, Hollywood premiere. The road to completion, however, runs through hell many times over. Shaker Heights writer Erica Beeney, having survived Greenlight's script contest and intimidating meetings with Affleck, Damon, and various producers and executives from Miramax and elsewhere, is matched with the directing team of Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin, who have undergone similar trials. With little time to celebrate, the winners moves into production offices in Los Angeles and confront a stark reality: A lot of people are involved in getting a movie made, and very often a writer or director is just one voice among many.
The most interesting backstage dramas in the series take place during pre-production for Shaker Heights, when casting proves to be a nightmare, time runs short, and Miramax starts insisting that Potelle and Rankin take the actors they're told to take. Part of the problem is that the team, new to the big leagues, often look like startled deer. They don't know how to talk to stars or make decisions quickly, they question the need for vital crew members, and they don't understand that in the absence of leadership a panicked studio will take over. Still, everyone gets through intact, and after a couple of episodes detailing Shaker Heights' actual shoot (with stars Shia LaBeouf, Kathleen Quinlan, William Sadler, and Amy Smart), the editing and marketing processes become a new kind of misery, threatening to destroy the film and end careers. It's all very engrossing, and its good to have a DVD of the highly enjoyable The Battle of Shaker Heights (which comes with this set and offers a "jump-to" feature linking select scenes to Project Greenlight background info) to prove, in the end, that all that matters are results. --Tom Keogh
Project Greenlight 2 (The Complete Second Series Plus Film The Battle of Shaker Heights) Reviews:
Green Light gives new insight into Hollywood makes movies, the movie? well.... 
2008-02-02 - First let me say I was disappointed in the show which was project Greenlight 1, but liked the movie by the winning writer/director Pete Jones, STOLEN SUMMER very much. I would watch STOLEN SUMMER again. The show, on the other hand, with what seemed to me phony senseless bickering between producers Jeff Balis and Chris Moore seemed to lack the insight into the movie making I would have liked. Come on, Chris Moore fussing because Jeff and Pete postponed the lake swim because the water was too cold for the child stars, made Moore look like an idiot. And made careful thinking about what you'll need to get the movie done seem bad. I do want to point out that Jones went on to make other movies.
Project Greenlight 2, was an inversion. I loved the show, and found the movie, BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS lacking.
Now I have made a feature film. I made my feature KNAPTID for $6,000 and wrote about how in my How to Make a Low-Budget Digital Movie short. Even though I had some bad actors I think Knaptid--4 Days After The First Abduction is a better movie than BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS. So my comments here are those of an experienced low-budget filmmaker.
Project Greenlight 2 does give you some real insight into how a Hollywood film is made, and what all happens. The way in which the parent company tried to change the movie after it went before a test audience is a lesson by itself for the would-be filmmaker. The casting problems which I experienced myself--though not with stars, struck home, and the list goes on. What might really be of value to the independent filmmaker here is watching the problems develop.
Greenlight 2 makes producers Balis and Moore look good, and the winning directors look like idiots, while the writer, Erica Beeney is treated sympathetically. The question is: did the show treat Potelle and Rankin fairly or just make them look bad? (One does wonder after watching the show if the winner had been the director candidate who said she would only make SHAKER HEIGHTS or the one who actually did the best job on his directorial sample, the one with the crazy person in the psych ward, whether the end product would have been better. )
How bad are the directors? Here is an example. We see them filming at a church. They need the church for outside shots of Shia LaBeouf as Kelly at his best friend's sister's (Amy Smart) wedding. So what do the directors do. They spend way to much time filming LaBeouf in a Limo talking to Smart in a scene they never get right, and then have to set up lights to fake daylight in a scene that has to be outdoors. In the final movie there is a shot of LaBeouf riding away from the church before the daytime service starts, while cars on the street have their headlights on because it is actually dusk. They only had the church for a day. LaBeouf did okay, but Smart never got the 'in limo scene' right. We never get the idea that she is being confronted just before her wedding by a guy she may have made love to while on the outs with her fiance. (Want to see the surprised bride done right watch THE GRADUATE.) The thing is there was no background in focus, so they could have shot the 'in the limo shot' anywhere after spending a little time directing Smart.
When the movie making was beginning, I can't believe the directors didn't ask the casting director right up front 'who can we reasonably get? LaBeouf was a bad choice here for example. LaBeouf may be great in comedy, but he did not always deliver here. Example, the bully.
The bully picks on LaBeouf because LaBeouf harasses the bully's father who is a history teacher. But the bully's demeanor and LaBeouf's is cartoonish. The fact that the bully has motive to hate LaBeouf is important as LaBeouf later regrets the trick he pulls on the bully. The interaction of the two characters comprise some of the worst, most wooden acting in the movie. In fact, LaBeouf barely seems bothered by the bully, emotionally detached.
Speaking of emotion to really show it in a movie you need close-ups. This movie seems shot entirely in medium shots. In fact, one extreme close up is of a tiny doll held by LaBeouf's best friend's father. The problem is instead of a real character the friend's father is a caricature.
Directing the actors: Didn't these people ever rehearse? Kathleen Quinlan does this scene that ends where her saying 'because' she loves her husband. This is an emotional scene yet she doesn't seem real because she goes from smiling to serious without really being the character.
Some of the problems could be placed on Beeney the writer. But if you watch the show you'll see the directors tried to rewrite her. And the studio heads redid the movie edit. So who is to blame for some of the movie's problems is up in the air, for example: Why LaBeouf hates his father is not revealed until the end of the movie. Meanwhile we go through the movie finding his 'I hate you Dad' attitude unbelievable enough to make him unsympathetic.
Here the directors made mistakes, the writer may have, the studio heads obviously did, and so what was in Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's heads when they actually said the fiasco that was THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS was better than STOLEN SUMMER.
(By the way: The directors and the writer here have not gone on as Pete Jones has. At the time of this writing the SHAKER directing gang has one movie of their own they are working on. Beeney has no further credits. Pete Jones seems to have done a few things.)
This all makes for an educating show. They show these guys making mistakes people can learn from. So enjoy the show, endure the movie and learn.
NICE SERIES FOR A [...] MOVIE. 
2006-06-28 - As with the first PROJECT GREENLIGHT the series is great but the movie produced by the series is a peice of [...]. I loved both seasons of PGL but the second was more insteresting. I liked the bonus section with the submitted films much better than the SHAKER HEIGHTS film. There's a film maker named OTTING who made a creepy film about a man with a cross in a mental hospital. I thought that film rocked. If I had been the judge they would have had him as the film maker instead the two guys they picked and the screenplay would have been PRISONER which was written by the weird guy who sat on a couch for five days and did nothing but stare. I don't know anything about the PRISONER script but I figure if the guy's that strange then the screenplay was probably much better than shaker heights. I fill bad saying that the movie sucked because the girl who wrote it seemed nice but she was a bit over emotional. What's funny is they finally made a descent movie with a great director in PGL3 (FEAST with JOHN G.) and PGL3 was the best of the three seasons and it hasn't been released. It almost makes me think that PGL was a Hollywood conspiracy meant to make it look to the rest of the world like people outside of the Hollywood system could only make crappy movies. When some guy showed up and made a good film they didn't release it.
Project Greenlight 2
2005-07-24 - I must say that the second season of Project Greenlight was some of the most engrossing viewing I've enjoyed in years.I'm not a person who watches much television at all so for me to actually purchase the dvd set is saying much.
As an aspiring filmmaker I felt this dvd set was the next best thing to an actual internship.A really educational and insp
iring television series.
I wasn't crazy about the film and thought it was actually mediocre.I don't blame the directors for this and if you watch the episodes detailing the day to day process you'll understand why.
I can't recommend this product highly enough.A must for aspiring filmmakers.
I LOVE THIS SERIES!!!!
2004-09-08 - Here's why:
1)From the beginning, they set up the filmmakers to fail by allotting a comparitively meager budget and ridiculously short timeframe to produce a "Hollywood" feature. They go way over-budget by spending most of the dough on bloated production costs for a supposedly low-budget picture. It's a big enough crew to work on Braveheart. If they are going to have that kind of staff, they should increase the production costs so that the movie can compete with multi-million dollar blockbusters. Otherwise, get rid of half the staff, and spend more time and money working on the script.
Watch the "making of" featurette on the Citizen Toxie bonus dvd. THAT'S low-budget filmaking. And Toxie is a movie that's watchable, too.
2)The producers constantly bad-mouth their last Project Greenlight film, Stolen Summer. "It's a REAL MOVIE this year," says Affleck.
3)The directors show their dismay for allowing Chris Balis, the awful producer of the last project, to produce their movie. Cut to Balis wolfing down a bagel. Its obvious Chris Moore brought him on so he could have someone under his thumb. When Balis wisely suggests that there should be another editor on the movie other than the directors, to allow for a diffent point of view, Moore responds,"I see producing as supporting the directors' process, not subverting it!". Balis is left impotent for the rest of the production. (Balis was right. The directors end up cutting the film and the movie is awful.).
4)Moore blames everyone else for the faults of the movie, yet its his hands-off approach (read: he's never there), allowing the directors to do whatever they want, that in large part is what's responsible for the movie's failure. When he asks the writer on the set how she could allow the directors to run roughshod over her script, after giving her no power at all to prevent it, she rightly responds,"F-You, Dude!"
5)The only time EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Ben Affleck arrives on the set, its with superstar girlfriend J-Lo. Not too disruptive to a production, is it? Reminds me of when Elizabeth Taylor would show up to Richard Burton's set with her whole entourage.
6)We see Good ol' Matt Damon at the beginning of the series, when they choose the winners, and then at the end, when filming is finished. He doesn't even show up at the premeire, but cuts a ten second closing comment for the series from another location. However, he's wearing a Project Greenlight hat, so he must have been deeply involved. HAW!! I want to be an EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, too!
Can't wait for Season Three!!
Better than the series but not true to the winners
2004-07-15 - The time and budgets are shortened and the stress levels are high on all of the winners of the PGL contest. But let's face it. that makes for some good reality TV.
The Battle of Shaker Heights has as much class as any movie in it's genre. It has heart and humor, well balanced and does the three project winners proud. The DVD, yes I actually bought and watched it BEFORE writing my review, has a little more of a glimpse into what really went on behind the scenes and not just the good for Reality TV stuff. These are some great talents that were put in a situation to make them look bad. It is good TV but not good business for the PGL Executives.
I recommend you get the DVD, watch the movie with commentary, and see a glimpse of some of the stuff that was cut from the series. These items shed a little more light on the fun the cast and crew had making the film and the dedication that was much more dramatic than blowing a few conflicts out of proportion.
To all the players in PGL, I commend the effort, and hope that those who put the show together can try not to use shock value in the future and show us why these people really do have a reason to love their work.
