Sasha Grey: "The Girlfriend Experience" Available TODAY?

[Greg M]

I missed the showing last night in New Orleans, but several guys from the office went and had a great time. Soderbergh did a Q&A after and discussed his Red workflow and how he shot the film. He used only one light in the entire film.

He spoke very highly of DVS Clipster.

FROM MAX (Avid Editor at Digital FX):
The film was gorgeous looking - a real testament to the Red's capabilities in low-light situations. He also talked about the post workflow and how when cutting Che he had to use Final Cut (a system he wasn't as comfortable with as he is with the Avid). As I am, he is looking forward to a much more streamlined and ideal workflow from the Red to the Avid.
Still, all in all the film was very interesting from a technical filmmaking standpoint (the overall look, story structure and performances).

 

[Tom Lowe]

It's in pirateland already.

Yep. There is a 1.54GB DVD-quality rip on bit torrents right now. This goes to illustrate the problem. People are stuck with having to play the movie on some crappy, buggy, DRM-restricted "Amazon Player" or paying 11 bucks to watch the movie for "24 hours" via OnDemand, with presumably no ability to DVR it. Why not offer a nice, fast 1080p AVI or MKV download for 11 bucks? Or better yet, 5 bucks. This would kill a lot of piracy, and offer viewers what they really want -- a hassle-free, fast, legal download that pays the artist and gives them maximum flexibility to enjoy the film.

The massive drop in price to 5 bucks would probably increase sales not only 2 fold to make up for the price difference, but 5 fold or more.

 

[Mitch Gross]

He used only one light in the entire film.

Well that's not true. I visited the set. There was certainly a lot more than one light up & running.

 

[Stacey Spears]

Not sure if it has been posted, but it has been announced for Blu-ray: http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/s.../Girlfriend_Experience_Coming_to_Blu-ray/2775

 

[jpp]

Well that's not true. I visited the set. There was certainly a lot more than one light up & running.

In other words, the whole "available light" thing is just a marketing strategy, like the Dogme 95 proclamation, the terms of which the Dogme filmmakers didn't even bother to observe.

Should've known....

 

[I Bloom]

Just another flick I dont know about, is it interesting or is just controversy around it more interesting than flick itself?

Brown bunny is a great movie. The bj scene is earned.

 

[Greg M]

Well that's not true. I visited the set. There was certainly a lot more than one light up & running.

On GFE?
I was just reporting what he said at the theater. He said it was all existing light except one scene....maybe you saw that scene.

 

[Tom Lowe]

In another interview, SS said he only used one light, one time, if I recall.

 

[jpp]

In another interview, SS said he only used one light, one time, if I recall.

That or something like it has been repeated in the press for months, coming directly from S.S., and otherwise.

This is horrifying, when you think about it. Movies like TGFE are marketed not to general audiences, but to people who wanna make movies. And it takes the form of a very rich and very privileged filmmaker pretending to be poor, just like folks.

This has been the indie marketing model for years -- half the audience at an indie film screening is doing market research -- but now Hollywood has co-opted that model as well. Is nothing sacred?

 

[Tom Lowe]

Let's not jump to conclusions.

 

[jpp]

Even if the truth is somewhere in between, TGFE is still being marketed, as are indies generally, to the wannabe filmmaker class. It's impossible to know the actual numbers, but people these days seem to go to see a distributed indie to see what kind of indie gets distributed. Or they go to see what it looks like (with or without lights).

Does anyone really care about the actual content of this movie? *Should* anyone care? Does a Hollywood filmmaker have anything to tell the world, once the usual attractions that only money can buy are removed? Maybe, maybe not.

 

[Eric Harnden]

He's so ahead of his time!

He's so ahead of his time!

Steven Soderbergh's Girlfriend Experience Released to Amazon before Theaters:
http://www.2-pop.com/Blogs.aspx?id=82512

He's so ahead of his time! First with RED and now this. He's just jumped to the top of my favorite's list.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Yep. There is a 1.54GB DVD-quality rip on bit torrents right now. This goes to illustrate the problem. People are stuck with having to play the movie on some crappy, buggy, DRM-restricted "Amazon Player" or paying 11 bucks to watch the movie for "24 hours" via OnDemand, with presumably no ability to DVR it. Why not offer a nice, fast 1080p AVI or MKV download for 11 bucks? Or better yet, 5 bucks. This would kill a lot of piracy, and offer viewers what they really want -- a hassle-free, fast, legal download that pays the artist and gives them maximum flexibility to enjoy the film.

The massive drop in price to 5 bucks would probably increase sales not only 2 fold to make up for the price difference, but 5 fold or more.

There's a 720p copy too. :sifone:

[No, I am not the uploader and, btw, the uploader seems to be from the US ]

I scanned through it and it looks pretty good, I'm gonna watch it tomorrow.

Lol, and this Sasha Grey creature seems to have pretty decent acting abilities. Omg...

And... she likes to read philosophy... omg... where is this world going to?!...

[runs to amend his worldview]

 

[Tom Lowe]

I saw "The Girlfriend Experience" last night.

The good: Sasha Grey

The bad: Everything else.

The movie was a disappointment. It had no real plot. The film is also edited in a non-linear jumble, ala "Pulp Fiction," but with no actual plot to tie it all together. It just seems like a big, pointless exercise in filming.

Sasha Grey, on the other hand, makes a great debut! Wow. Great acting. Great screen presence. I bet that she will make the transition from porn to indie actress. But she's so dirty, she'll probably still keep shooting some porns on the side just for fun. :hand:

She's the only reason to see this movie.

I'm also sad to report that many of the low-light interior shots suffered from awful digital noise. I will probably be hanged for saying this, but as I was watching it, I was thinking that a better camera for this movie would have been the 5D Mark II. There is nothing in GFE that really even required the Red One - no overcanking or anything. I also wonder why they shot this movie anamorphic instead of shooting it flat with much faster lenses?

 

[Greg M]

could the noise you saw have been due to the broadcast and any additional compression they applied? I didnt see it first hand at the theater, but my staff said the noise wasn't an issue on the print they watched.

 

[Tom Lowe]

it could be. i would be interested in hearing from Rado if his 720p copy shows this noise.

but thing is, the well exposed shots in the copy I saw had no noise and no issues. only the indoor, low-light shots that you would expect to produce this type of ugly digital noise actually had it. to me, it seemed to be camera generated.

 

[Joel Kaye]

The movie was a disappointment. It had no real plot.

Sounds like Bubble. He's gotta get a better writer for this stuff. Just because it's low budget and you don't use lights doesn't mean you're somehow allowed not to have a story. At least with a huge hollywood action movie if there's no story you've still got everything else to look at.

I wonder if this will usher in an era of porn crossover actors.

 

[donatello b]

"Steven Soderbergh's Girlfriend Experience Released to Amazon before Theaters:
http://www.2-pop.com/Blogs.aspx?id=82512
He's so ahead of his time! First with RED and now this."

i'm not so sure SS should get the credit for distribution ... i think that goes to Mark Cuban who's company's -they have 6 picture deal with SS and this is the 2nd movie ..remember Mark owns ( or part owner) in HDNet TV , Magnolia Films, 2929 ?something?, i believe he has something to do with Lions Gate, and he owns Landmark Theater chain ( with alot of 4k projectors)...

 

[jpp]

Sounds like Bubble. He's gotta get a better writer for this stuff. Just because it's low budget and you don't use lights doesn't mean you're somehow allowed not to have a story. At least with a huge hollywood action movie if there's no story you've still got everything else to look at.

It's a deeply satisfying irony of the movie business that any director, including some celebrity's talentless ADD kid, can buy superlative production values (given enough money), but that even great directors, with all the money in the world, can't seem to buy inventive and stimulating material. Whatever happened to Martin Scorsese? Or could it be that all that money makes insight and innovation impossible?

And we've come so far in exhausting marketing models, that S.S. is apparently selling a film based on its lack of production values, the ultimate privilege of a guy who can raise $100 million. Anyway, that appears to be the marketing line, no lights, etc., for the whole Cuban/Soderbergh venture, even though, in indie terms, these films are very generously funded, budgets beyond the dreams of most indies.

But when everything's for sale, and no new ideas, you sell on what basis you can.... No lights. And if you sell in enough markets at the same time, maybe you can get out of town before anyone notices there's nothing much going on.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well... I wouldn't take any marketing campaign too seriously -- whatever sells the movie and gets people to see it.

I don't think Soderberg's motivation was to make a movie with no lighting, even if that's how it is being marketed. That's no different than harping about how it was shot on the RED or something; it's just something journalists like to write about, what is "new", even it is irrelevant actually. Filmmakers take advantage of that.

I don't see a problem with a major director doing a "little" movie with limited means and limited ideas -- if he had been a no-name first-time director, a little movie (let's say something like "Once", which I liked) could be labelled as "charming" and that would be enough. It's only because Soderberg is a major director that the expectations become higher, as if major directors should be swinging for the fences each time, they can't do something small and intimate.

You could say that people will commend a big director for doing the "little indie movie" now and then, but the truth is that just as often the knives come out and the director is castigated for it rather than praised -- for the reasons I said, people expect more from a major director.

But as a DP, I can understand any artist who likes to play around on something small now & then, where the stakes are lower and you feel free to experiment, even free to fail. If knocking off movies like "Bubble" or "Girlfriend Experiment" helps Soderberg explore techniques and ideas that may be incorporated into something bigger and more substantial someday, then why not?