IMDB, Henry Rollins & Indie 103.1

These aren't massively related, I just don't really have a definite subject for this post.

For the first time since I started my dangerous obsession with the IMDB user comments on Ten Dead Men there has been no further activity. No new comments, nothing on the discussion board since last week, nothing. I'm guessing people who download all their films just pick up the new releases as soon as they turn up, regardless of what they are. So now it's old news no one's interested. This is good, but I hope the proper release of the film doesn't go the same way. Under a week to go!

Speaking of which I badly need to e-mail my American friends about it (that's a note for myself so I'll see it later and hopefully do something about it).

But speaking of American folk (and their shiny new president) I have just added Henry Rollins' blog to the links on the right. I've been a huge fan for years - always loved his music (and he was ace when I saw him live in Norwich once), it's cool when he turns up in films, and his stand-up was pretty good too. I'd kind of forgotten about him of late, then Brother Pete bought me the second season of The Henry Rollins Show on DVD. It's a bit odd seeing Rollins present a talk show, but there's an honesty and integrity to the way he interviews his guests, plus a genuine interest in what they're doing that makes it really fascinating.

He's also an excellent writer and I recommend picking up any of his books if you come across them. That's why I wanted to link to the blog. Although in doing so I discovered that LA radio station Indie 103.1 has gone off the air. I only download the podcasts so I guess it won't make that much difference to me, but it's a shame. And I don't see Jonesy's name in the list of DJs who are going to carry on broadcasting online - if he's not doing his show anymore that will be a real tragedy.

More Ten Dead Men comment stuff...

I was typing a reply to Geraint in the comments section of the previous post, then realised I'd written about a billion words so thought I'd sort out the spelling and post it here too.

Gez wrote:

'There is more to the illegal viewing point to be made though: How have they seen the film, have they seen it in its entirety, or out of sequence? That in itself is an important issue. You can't review a book by reading chapter three and the last page and hoping that it will all make sense. I stand by my review, it is not wholly glowing, it is fair and I was not involved in the making of it. I never even read a draft of the script.'

My overlong reply:

'Yeah, unfortunately it's not too hard to see the film illegally. I'm not going to detail how here, but one day it was unreleased and unavailable, the next it was a couple of clicks away. Pretty shocking at the time - now I kind of take it for granted.

Good point about whether people are watching the whole thing. I'm pretty sure most people haven't been. I know from the feedback we got that it's pretty hard to get into for the first 10-20 minutes as the narration and jumbled narrative are a bit jarring. In all honesty I think it's more like an art film than an action film, but people don't approach it like an art film, so 15 minutes in and they're struggling, they didn't pay for it so they switch it off. Then go complain about it.

You remember when we watched Driller Killer at uni? We sat in a big group all expecting it to be this ultra gory slasher film. But it's not, it's more interesting than that. And while the two of us realised that the rest of the room were chatting and complaining about the film. I think that's probably how this will go - 80% of people will give up when it's not super slick and the plot requires a bit of work. But that 20% will hopefully embrace it. I can but hope.

But yeah, from the people I know who watch films in this fashion, they'll watch the first ten minutes, skip through to see if anything interesting is happening and then quit.

I think all the ten positive reviews are really good - none of them are gushing and none of them are wholly positive. Everyone did what I asked them to do, which was be honest. Even better, they're all intelligent criticisms of the film as a whole, including the characters and story as well as the effects and action.

One thing I regret is that I reported the two scathing reviews that started this whole thing to imdb and they removed them - they were in breach of several of the guidelines so I thought why not? But suddenly there were a load of good reviews and nothing to balance it. And I think that's contributed to some of the reactions we've had since because people have suspected some kind of foul play. Anyone looking closely at those reviews that are there now, or even finding their way here to this blog, will see that there is none. And although I'm not going to go on the forums and argue the point, I can say with full confidence that not one of the people who've written those comments were involved with the making of the film in any way.

One final point - I think the thing that's really working against us is not being able to say how much we made the film for. The reasons for not saying it make sense, but a film like El Mariachi really played on the fact that it had a super low budget and I think we could've used that to our advantage. Then again, I guess all it would really mean is we could respond to people saying 'you make a better film on this much money then' which is exactly what we've avoided so far.

Anyway, I'm sure this will carry on. I hope some of the people who see the film when it's released approach it with the same open outlook that the people who responded to my comment appeal have done.'

Maybe people aren't so bad after all...

There's been an ongoing discussion at the forums on the Ten Dead Men imdb page that was started by people who hated the film. A couple of people came to our defence then the director and producer posted their responses and I thought that would mean a load of comments like 'I can't believe the filmmakers are so bothered by our comments that they posted a response' which I've seen on other forums when the filmmakers have responded (and I am fully aware that I'm probably one of the people most bothered by the negative comments which is why I'm not getting involved on the forums). Anyway, you can read the full exchange on the forum if you're interested, but it has ultimately led to this:

'Thanks for being so cool about the negative feedback and review I posted, I'm not sure I would of been so diplomatic when replying about something so personal. But I can assure you I was just being frankly honest in sharing my opinion and I wasn't being a troll. I think what irked me the most about the reviews on here was the fact there didn't seem to be any that said "Hey this movie sucks...a lot" and loads that said "This film is brilliant for X and Y reason" like the review authors had seen a totally different film. I concede that critiquing a movie behind keyboard takes little or no skill, with minimal effort, and I appreciate that making a movie(whether good, bad or so-so) is a huge and time consuming undertaking made even more difficult by a limited/non existent budget. I do stand by my review but I do feel in hindsight I could of been more constructive and less scathing. I wish you all the best with your next project, and sincerely hope you raise the bar in originality and that it has a more "brit flick" feel to it rather than 10DM's odd mix of US and International influences. '

This has made me realise that perhaps by encouraging people to post reviews I may have been asking for the negative ones, but I was aware of that at the time and was careful to word my appeal in a way that clearly wasn't just asking people to say how cool the film was whether they liked it or not. I think the full spectrum of reviews on there now actually paints a fair picture of what the film is actually like - I don't think any of them have mentioned only the positive aspects and no one is pretending it's something grander that it is. And there is still the point that the negative reviewers have watched the film illegally.

But I'm rambling - the point is maybe people who post their opinions on the Internet aren't all bad, which means there's hope for the rest of us.

Ten Dead Men IMDB User Comment Update

I was going to wrap this up a while ago - I have a lengthy post all drafted up and ready to go, with philosophical musings on the nature of the people who so hate a film they will spend time writing about how much they hate it. But every time I go to post it there are more developments on the imdb page and I'm reminded of the real issue here - the film hasn't been released yet! I'm not completely against people posting their opinions, I'm not overtly attacking people downloading films - it's the cheekiness of the two combined that bothers me. So I've decided that until the official US release date of 27/01/09 I'll continue to provide updates and rally for support on this issue. At that point I will post my final rant on the subject and hopefully say no more about it.

So the scores are currently:

9 positive user comments
2 negative user comments (one of which is perfectly reasonable - see my previous post for my thoughts on what is reasonable and what is not)
2 external reviews
A few spiteful remarks in the forums. I'm not too bothered about these, as long as people ignore them and don't start replying. If The Grin of the Dark taught me anything it's that the internet looneys should be left alone and not encouraged.

Ten Dead Men IMDB User Comment Appeal

So we got our first negative IMDB comment before the DVD has been released, from someone in Greece (where I'm not even sure it's legitimately available) who only watched ten minutes of the film. This was inevitable - everyone is entitled to an opinion and the internet gives everyone the chance to publish their opinions, like this blog. Unfortunately not all those opinions are positive. However, I was hoping the film would actually make it to the US release date before this happened.

I do sometimes comment on IMDB titles, and when I do it's to point out the films I really like and that may otherwise be missed because of comments from people who couldn't get through the first ten minutes. I've made a point of doing it for low budget genre films that I've enjoyed - films like Soul Searcher, Infestation, Dead Wood, and Contour that should be seen but won't get the exposure they deserve due to incredibly low budgets. I've never commented on a film that I didn't like - I don't have the time and I don't see the point. But as I've seen so often on IMDB, other people clearly do. Sometimes it seems that IMDB exists solely for the enjoyment of people who would like publicly express their dislike of the films they see.

At the same time it is an important resource for film-makers, particularly for low budget films that won't get the usual press coverage. I often check the IMDB user comments when choosing a film to watch if I don't know anything about it. And it doesn't matter if there are a hundred 'worst film ever reviews' - as long as there are one or two intelligent views of the film that suggest there is at least something to enjoy, then I'll watch the film. 

A film like Ten Dead Men is one that people are likely to want to check out first before taking the risk. This is why what I'm about to ask is important.

We need more user comments. So far we have two - one bad one from our friend in Greece, the other posted by our producer (admittedly it is a reprint of a review from an outside source, but it has still been posted by the producer of the film, which makes it almost useless). We need user comments from independent viewers who have no direct involvement with the film but have attended one of the various screenings we've done over the past year. If this is you, then keep reading. If you were directly involved with the film that obviously rules you out, but please do refer this on to friends, family...anyone you know who came to see it.

I'm asking for as many people as possible who have seen the film to add a user comment to the IMDB page here. I realise this is a big ask and may take a chunk of time - there are guidelines you have follow and the comments have to be coherent and be a certain length. I'll put full instructions below. But once it's done they stay on there and you need have no further involvement.

Also, I'm not telling you what you have to say about the film, or suggesting that everyone goes on there and says it's the best film ever. Please do be honest otherwise there's no point. Feel free to point out its flaws, don't pretend the film is something it isn't and if you really didn't like it then please criticise in full. What I want is intelligent criticism - otherwise we'll be overrun by people saying it's the worst film ever because they watched ten minutes and it wasn't anything like the last Michael Bay film they saw and loved. Perhaps that sounds unfair, but people do seem to have a hard time giving low budget genre films a chance and I don't want to let those people stop our film from being seen before it's even been released.

If I can make one suggestion it's that at some point in the comment you mention where you saw the film, just to give it a bit of legitimacy (and to make it look less like the writer of the film begged everyone to do it!).

At the risk of sounding desperate, the reason for this appeal is that a great number of people (myself included) gave up a lot of free time and more importantly put a lot of hard work into getting this film out there. That doesn't automatically make it brilliant, or even any good, but it does deserve a fair chance to be seen. If we get too many comments like the one we have so far then it won't get that chance.

Here's how you can help.

First off, you will need to be registered on IMDB. Just go to www.imdb.com and click 'Register' in the top right-hand corner. It won't take long and they pretty much leave you alone once you've registered - you won't start getting loads of junk mail or anything. Once you've registered you need to do the following:

1) Go to the Ten Dead Men page by either searching for the title or clicking this link.

2) Scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says 'User Comments' and click the link in brackets next to it where it says (Comment on this title).

3) Tick the 'Contains spoilers box' if you're giving away any plot points in your review.

4) Give your review a title in the 'Summary' box.

5) Give the film a score out of ten in the 'Vote' drop-down menu.

6) Write your comment. The comment must be a minimum of ten lines long within the box provided and can't be any longer than 1000 words. There are further guidelines here but most of it's pretty obvious - no swearing etc.

7) Click 'Preview' at the bottom of the page and you get to see what your comment will look like, plus any spelling errors will be flagged (apologies if this is really patronising but I don't want to take any chances).

8) Click 'Submit' and you're done!

You should then receive an e-mail in the next day or two letting you know whether your comment has been approved or not.

For everyone who does this, thank you very much in advance. I shall try to track the progress of the user comments on here and will also endeavor to create some kind of Facebook group. Be warned, I will also probably be sending out e-mails to people I know have seen the film.

Also, if anyone reading has made or been involved with a low budget film that is available in the UK and would like me to add a user comment on IMDB let me know and I will rent it and return the favour.