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List Price: $69.99 | | Label: Miramax Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 51159
Released: September 24, 2002 |
| Our Price: $6.19 |
| Used Price: $5.88 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Miramax Home Entertainment's Project Greenlight is a 4-Disc collector's series that includes the 12-part HBO hit documentary series, the unveiling of the movie Stolen Summer and more than 6-hours of bonus materials. Project Greenlight began as an Internet competition (staged by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Chris Moore) held to find a script to produce. Out of more than 10,000 entries, former insurance salesman Pete Jones was selected. Jones not only got to direct the film, but was also given a $1 million budget from Miramax Films and a guaranteed theatrical release. The series chronicled how Jones, a first-time director, had to manage the difficulties involved in making his movie.
Description of Project Greenlight (Complete Series Plus Film Stolen Summer):
For all of its controversial manipulations of reality, Project Greenlight offers a revealing, pragmatic look at the pressure cooker of film production. Originally broadcast during the HBO 2001 to 2002 season, this 12- part series chronicles the premiere contest--conceived by coproducers Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Chris Moore--that resulted in 30-year-old Pete Jones being plucked from obscurity, out of 10,000 contestants, to direct his winning screenplay, Stolen Summer, as a professionally crewed feature film distributed by Miramax Films (included in this set; see separate review). The series gained notoriety for emphasizing the negative (backstabbing, budgetary battles, onset crises, etc.), but it's also a definitive nuts-and-bolts exposé of the filmmaking process--stripped of glamour, emotionally intense, and daunting to anyone without a steel-plated constitution.
Key personnel emerge as admirably tenacious in their given roles, from the commanding presence of Chris Moore; the frictional yet ultimately cooperative dynamic between executive producer Pat Peach and coproducer Jeff Balis; the rally-the-troops efficiency of 1st Assistant Director Bruce Terris; and many other crucial crew members. Through it all, Jones shows his inexperience but rises to the occasion, earning the respect of those who could easily have dismissed him as a lucky amateur. The series' editorial weaknesses are readily apparent, and the postproduction process (especially the creation of a musical score) is woefully underrepresented, but Project Greenlight is a riveting and altogether encouraging primer for anyone who shares Pete Jones's dream. --Jeff Shannon
Project Greenlight (Complete Series Plus Film Stolen Summer) Reviews:
Great Greenlight 
2007-11-07 - There are times after I have seen a movie, I say to myself "I wonder how could they have made this film?", "Who the producer who took a risk on this script?", "Why didn't they get such and such an actor for that role?" or "Why did they have such a down ending?". After viewing the first season of HBO's Project Greenlight on four dvds, I have a better concept of filmmaking nad the process involved behind the scenes.
I have read Jerry Lewis's theThe Total Film-Maker.and understand the basic concepts of how the film starts from the script to final production. If you find a copy, read it!
Here in this documentary DVD set is director Pete Jones's filmmaking odyssey from being a novice screen writer (selected from an on line script contest) to selection of his script Stolen Summer (with producers Ben Affleck, Chris Moore & Matt Damon) greenlighted by Miramax. Then Jones had to make a budget and rewriting his script to fit his budget and not lose his cinematic vision. After that, there was the process of locations, casting actors, filming, to editing his final print. Jones's film education is well documented in this mini series.
To see it on DVD, you have a better chance to digest this series and Jones's filmmaking expierences...because you are with him for the journey as camera is on him personally and his cinematic vision. It is not always a positive or happy expierence. Sometimes you see the deals and the compromises you make, when making a movie
There are guests along the way like Jay Leno, Kevin Smith, Harvey Weinstein, and many others filling the twelve week series.
Included in this four disk DVD package is Pete Jones's final released cut of his film Stolen Summer with his audio commentary.
This DVD set shows what it takes to make films. since this is a small budget film, you can picture the bigger hassles that the large multi million dollar epic must go through...What an eduction this DVD series really is.
This is worth viewing for the filmmaker, the film student, the film buff and those people who like to understand better the process of filmmaking. However, it is also amazing journey for those who like reality television.
To watch the process is something that we all should view and this is a first rate showcase. This DVD set shows the real HOLLYWOOD from the hype that it usually shows
The extra features of the fourth disk shows the producers can poke fun at themselves and well as educate, So watch and learn
Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD
Conspiracy?
2007-09-07 - After the first two seasons I formed a conspiracy theory about project greenlight which I no longer support. For some time I believed digital cameras and video editing software might be seen as a threat to the film industry and that Project Greenlight was a propaganda tool devised by the Hollywood community to be used to discourage competition. This sounds absurd now but really the show does look like that. I remember reading scripts during the contest and every single one of the scripts I reviewed were better than the ones that made it to the finals. I couldn't understand how Stolen Summer was picked as the winner of the contest. But that's okay because the show itself is the movie, as far as I'm concerned. I hate the movie Stolen Summer but I LOVE the series. I've watched this entire series 4 times since I bought it but only suffered through the actual movie once and then I watched it with the commentary track so it would be worth my time. I think Pete Jones and the others are better characters than any he wrote for the film. Pete kind of reminded me of a character like Barney from the Andy Griffith show. He seemed like someone who thought he was cooler and more important than he really was. Great set, just skip the bad movie.
One of most offensive movies ever made 
2007-03-16 - This was an amateur film competition which produced one of the most offensive films ever made. Let's go over the list.
Ben Affleck, a Catholic from Boston. Pete Jones, a Catholic from Chicago, whose older brother is a Catholic priest working in Catholic-Jewish relations for the Vatican.
What's the subject of Pete's script?
A young Catholic boy decides he has to help a non-Catholic get into heaven, so he announces a plan to go to a synagogue, find a poor Jewish boy who isn't going to heaven, and allow him the good fortune of converting to Catholicism.
That's a great plan - if you're Catholic and don't understand much outside of your own narrow framework of the universe.
If you're Jewish... all you want to do is pretend this film never happened.
Great for Movie Business Enthusiasts/Aspiring Directors
2006-01-16 - This is a worthy series for aspiring movie directors/screenwriters, it shows the in and outs of the business and how much sway some have (Affleck, Damon) and others do not (all involved w/o recognizable faces). It is a crude business and I suppose you have to be crude to play the game, but I found myself often peeved at the winner, Pete, because he was so instantly cocky and self-assured, and maybe he did have to fight to make his "vision" (which ultimately bombed), and I'm thrilled that they would even give the opportunity to someone, but in the end, I wished it wasn't this gentleman who had won such an amazing opportunity.
Project Greenlight 1 
2005-07-24 - I saw season two before I saw this one.The movie "Stolen Summer" is actually a superior film to that of "The Battle of Shaker Heights",but the reality series detailing the filmmaking process is strangely lacking.I still would recommend this dvd package for any aspiring filmmakers who want to understand the process of filmmaking, I just thought the second season made better viewing.
