10 ms·
Uganda’s Tarantino and his $200 action movies (2015)
- starpilot 8y ago(2015)
- dang 8y agoAdded. Thanks!
- yters 8y agoWhy have I been wasting my life?
- teakdust 8y agoGet to doing what you love! You have the power and the tools
- muzani 8y agoSame thoughts here. This just looks fun! It reminds me of when I started programming. I had a cheap laptop that took half an hour just to start. There were few co-working spaces, so I just camped out on the stairs of a goverment building for free internet. But it was a productive, fun time. Now with all the high end resources and tools I have, it's not as fun and surprisingly, less productive.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y agoWhy is it less productive now? Doesn't make any sense. Even just the available tools and libraries today make every thinkable workflow orders of magnitude more productive.
- jacquesm 8y agoOne factor likely is the fact that to produce a working website to today's standards is a team effort when a few years ago you could hack out something that worked in a day or two by yourself. Team communications add overhead and that in turn slows you down. A similar thing has happened to game development, it is rare to see a monetizable game made by a single individual.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y agoThis is not about productivity, this is just about quality of content. You can still make a game of the same standard as way back, by one person. It's just that games of today are objectively so much better and more complex and intricate.
- ohithereyou 8y agoObjectively better? I don't think you can say that. Objectively different, more complex, and intricate? Absolutely.
- muzani 8y agoArguably, games like Fallout 4 have a huge world but it's not complex at all. It looks more realistic, but the storyline is simpler and far less memorable than Fallout 2. I'd also argue the most complex games are something like Dwarf Fortress or Ultima Ratio Regum. Both of which were made by 1-2 people. The way of writing "use cases" for dwarf fortress is also a lot of fun and probably doesn't scale up with a large insustrial team: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_story.html http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_story.html There are games like Rimworld which try to imitate DF's charm, but go further with a team, professionalism, and better funding. But while it's more polished and "balanced", it doesn't come to the same level of craftsmanship. You also don't get the same goofiness as a necromancer who slices off your finger, animates it, then pokes you in the eye with your undead finger.
- hutzlibu 8y ago"You also don't get the same goofiness as a necromancer who slices off your finger, animates it, then pokes you in the eye with your undead finger." Where does that happen? Ultima ratio regum?
- muzani 8y agoI think moving further down the path, you learn to drop passion and focus more on professionalism. Passion is a lot harder to control and manage, often replaced with a cold mechanical professionalism. I remember when I swapped out flip flops at the office for proper shoes. It felt painful, like a part of my soul died.
- hutzlibu 8y ago"replaced with a cold mechanical professionalism" And thats when the spirit dies and you get a soulless product which sells, but does not satisfy. It is about balance. Enthusiasm alone gets you nowhere, but mixed with skills ...
- coldtea 8y agoYes, but the end target now is some social media BS, big data BS, or social app BS, or some similar BS, your corporate overlord has you make... So, it's like making those Ugandan movies with fun and passion for $200 with a compact camera, and making the 1000th Hollywood BS superhero movie with $300 million budget.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y agoBuild it in a cave with a box of scraps... and you'll see how productive you have to be.
- rchaud 8y agoThe answer is (partially) provided in the article: "But he admits that this [use of sewage in the film] puts off distributors, whom he has accused of "trying to copy exactly what is done in the West and exactly what is done in Bollywood and Hollywood". "I'm going to show the world the kind of life we enjoy or we grew up in," Nabwana said in an interview for the 2012 documentary Wakaliwood. "It's called a ghetto life but you know it's good… and it's hostile." In a sense, you, and perhaps we as well, are the directors being referred to here. We're trying to build something that could become a global juggernaut, so we can be prone to making the product excessively complex, because that's the way it seems like things should be. Nabwana on the other hand is of the '1000 true fans' variety. As long as the he continues to deliver what entertains them, it doesn't matter if the movie was made for $200. With each additional movie, he improves upon his craft.
- subjectHarold 8y agoLink to trailer (I think) mentioned in article - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXqkgFegLQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXqkgFegLQ Lalalala....ACTION! Supa Kicker! The passion is inspiring. EDIT: Vice also did something on these guys (it seems all the BBC does these days is recycle content) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy0OOVTmsJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy0OOVTmsJI
- smacktoward 8y agoForget the trailer, you can watch Who Killed Captain Alex? in its entirety on the official Wakaliwood YouTube channel, complete with hilarious running commentary by VJ Emmie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEoGrbKAyKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEoGrbKAyKE
- krapp 8y agoThe thing about movies like this is, as low budget and low quality as they are, effects wise, they're consistently so. The result is almost a comic-book aesthetic, and something like a helicopter pasted in to the scene doesn't seem out of place, because everything is ridiculous. Bigger budget movies, meanwhile, can spend millions of dollars on CG and break immersion entirely.
- kgwxd 8y agoI hope at least $1 from Vim donations somehow made it's way to supporting this directly. And I hope that snake lady doesn't suffer the same fate as the original Tin Man.
- smacktoward 8y agoIf anyone wants to support them directly, they have a Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/wakaliwood https://www.patreon.com/wakaliwood
- damontal 8y agoRelevant Reply All episode: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/114-apocalypse-soon https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/114-apocalypse-soon
- brianprovost 8y agoThis sounds fun: "Watching a movie can be a raucous affair - films are translated into local languages such as Luganda by VJs, or video jokers, who add their own jokes and improvised commentary, live."
- lostgame 8y agoMystery Science Theatre 3000, anyone? :)
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoHadn’t read of that one, sounds good will check it out. Have you seen Hercules Returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Returns
- rukuu001 8y agoI first saw the Indian film PK with very dodgy fan-supplied English subtitles. Rewatching with official subtitles was a disappointment :)
- _Codemonkeyism 8y agoMost Bud Spencer movies in the 70s and 80s, as most series were synchronized very "freely" in Germany and had often different stories.
- alxlaz 8y agoIt really is, and it's a very enriching way of experiencing art. For a long time, this is how stories propagated -- they were told and retold by various people, who sometimes added details or even entire story twists of their own. Improvisation was a natural part of storytelling which movies rendered somewhat unnecessary, but to which they do lend themselves to some degree.
- shivo 8y agoNo its not. Not when a lot of those improvising don't understand the storyline or the setup and culture of the movies origin.
- smnscu 8y agoWell known in the YouTube community https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUtiVL6z8wE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUtiVL6z8wE
- Flow 8y agoThe package he got was very funny. PR material for the movie "Cannibal mama - I hope to meat you" cracked me up. :-D I feel this is a subculture that could be interesting and funny.
- MordodeMaru 8y agoAnother good example of good stuff from Wakaliwood, Cuchillo de Fuego’s Nocturno clip: https://youtu.be/grOK2PdDAow https://youtu.be/grOK2PdDAow
- freakynit 8y agoDamn man!!! I loved it
- MordodeMaru 8y agoY'all should listen to Cuchillo de Fuego, btw.
- glangdale 8y agoWell worth checking out. "Bad Black" looks like a ton of fun. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6044414/?ref_=nv_sr_2 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6044414/?ref_=nv_sr_2 Trailer here: https://vimeo.com/120747455 https://vimeo.com/120747455
- mrob 8y ago"Who Killed Captain Alex?" exceeded my expectations more than any other movie I've watched. I got the impression that everyone involved was genuinely passionate about making the best movie they could, which more than made up for the budget limitations. I'd rather watch something like this than a >$100M movie where it's all designed by committee for the broadest appeal possible. Even the VJ commentary, which I at first thought would be annoying, turned out to be entertaining.
- m0zg 8y agoEven this is better than Netflix shows. At least you don't expect much, so it exceeds expectations.
- drinkcrudeoil 8y agoBack in a day ZF Skurcz from Poland made a few great amateur kung-fu comedies https://youtu.be/EyumZCv1vD8 https://youtu.be/EyumZCv1vD8 Unfortunately there are no subtitles
- xorand 8y agoNot Tarantino, more like Peter Jackson Bad Taste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgCnCri2cTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgCnCri2cTU
- lb1lf 8y agoSpeaking of Tarantino and low budgets, Tarantino apprentice (I say this tongue-in-cheek) Robert Rodriguez did his first feature film El Mariachi on a $10k budget. I distinctly recall that he for instance had only one guitar case on hand, so if you pay close attention, you'll notice that our protagonist (an innocent mariachi with a guitar in his case) and the bad guys chasing him (sporting lots of guns in their case) use the same guitar case! Now that's props on the cheap...
- pjc50 8y agoThe director's commentary on the DVD is amazing, because it's mostly about all the shortcuts taken to get the film made. Most of the extras are people who provided locations in exchange for appearing in the film. There are short loops of frames of gunfire because they didn't have the right kind guns to film automatic fire with blanks. And so on.
- foobar1962 8y agoThe prison guards early in the movie are the real guards in the real prison.
- goto11 8y agoI should be noted that the only way to keep budgets that low is if most people in front of and behind the camera work for free. This is in no way sustainable in a professional industry.
- bitL 8y agoI remember when I first saw Peter Jackson's Braindead - from the first 5 minutes I wasn't sure if it was an amateur movie or a total parody. Glad I kept watching. Some of the scenes were templates for some LOTR scenes, polished to perfection there. This strikingly resembles it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJmyhrnLYBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJmyhrnLYBU
- daniel_iversen 8y agoThis is a link to the guy's first movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEoGrbKAyKE&t=145s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEoGrbKAyKE&t=145s ... simply awesome! :)
- duncanawoods 8y agoI wish there were a lot more movies like Primer. $7k budget. I'm not so interested in time travel but I have an unlimited appetite for normal people inventing things in garages. I don't need super-stars, exotic locations or special effects, just good ideas and good dialogue.
- goto11 8y agoEverybody knows about the big blockbuster movies because half the budget is marketing. There a lots and independent movies getting produces all around the world. But you will have to seek them out yourself to some extent.
- ada1981 8y agoCould you imagine a Hollywood film where the marketing scheme was “all the actors work for free but get to keep half the money they make selling copies of the film”.
- coldtea 8y agoThere are things like actors working for free with a percentage of the box office profit. Some top actors made more this way than if they actually got a salary.
- gamblor956 8y agoSAGAFTRA rules do not permit actors to work for free, even if they get a percentage. (Despite claims that actors worked on the re-shoots for All the Money in the World for free, all of them except Mark Wahlberg were contractually obligated to participate in re-shoots, so they were already paid for their work. Marky Mark was not contractually obligated to participate in re-shoots, and collected roughly $5 million for his...efforts.) They can work for minimum scale, and get a percentage of profits (Sandra Bullock and Gravity). The trick with Hollywood accounting is to know to ask for a percentage of the rights-owning entity, since the production entity is a loss vehicle that earns no income, and the licensing entity only earns a small markup for its "work" licensing the movie. The distribution entity is frequently a third-party company or parent company. Distribution entities might get paid a % of revenue (most common if third-party distributor), a fixed or calculated fee for distributing the movie (i.e., Fox and Star Wars), or it might effectively own the rights altogether and get all of the revenues (Disney and other parent-company distributors, otherwise unncommon). In rare situations, the rights-holding entity is the distribution entity (i.e. Blumhouse).
- ada1981 8y agoThis is awesome. Netflix ought to give these guys a budget and let them run wild.
- donretag 8y ago"As one of the few white men around, he's in demand as an actor." A few years ago, I traveled around Africa, including Uganda, using public buses (an adventure in itself) and they would frequently show movies or music videos. Many of the music videos were local hip hop artists, rap music often blended with local traditions. The music videos were no different form the bling-bling videos in the US and you can tell they all needed at least one white girl. Obviously, there were must not have been many options, so for the majority it was some girl that I would not label as "music video" attractive. My assumption was that they must have been the local Peace Core volunteer. Kampala, like most African cities, is incredibly hectic. Not sure how he found someone randomly.
- golemotron 8y agoReminds of the movie 'Be Kind Rewind.' Low budget film making is great fun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Kind_Rewind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Kind_Rewind
- zokier 8y agoThe one thing that annoys me in these sorts of articles/titles is that they do not really reflect the true costs of production (be it games or film or anything else). Sure it is easy to make a movie with no budget if you don't pay anything for peoples time, equipment, locations, or any other resources. But that does not mean that those are free, or without value.
- DesiLurker 8y agoreminds me of the jack black movie called 'Be Kind Rewind'!
- hutzlibu 8y ago"He then taught himself how to use editing packages such as Premiere Pro and After Effects, and borrowed a camera from a neighbour. "And with that I started"" But how was he able to afford the expensive adobe products? Joking ... probably the same way most of his audience sees his work.