Gaaaa-aaay.
Not really. It was chock-full of awesome! I view it as likely the most professional, certain the most expensive-looking fanfilm of all time. We managed to sneak a camera into the screening and I'll have a pirated copy of the film available for download to everybody in about and hour. In the meantime, check out this story/these pics!
Austin, Shauna, Logan and I piled into the Ecto and left Fort Collins at 4, giving us a whole two hours to get to Denver. I usually leave about 40 minutes prior to Denver goings-on but I figured I'd go the extra mile this time. We ended up being so heavily delayed that we didn't arrive at Brooklyn's (Hanks staging area for the crew's limo) until 6:30, only about 10 minutes ahead of the limo. Jason and I went over how the next half hour would go, and then the Braxtanfilmians climbed into their limo and left for the Mayan. Once on Broadway, we pulled the Ecto in front of the limousine and escorted it through downtown Denver to the theater itself. We arrived to a line that stretched down the sidewalk and around the corner. The red carpet was rolled out for the filmmakers, and every second or third hand that stretched from the throng of ticket-holders contained a camera of one variety or another. We posed for pictures while the big-wigs shook hands. Coincidentally we ran into one of our favorite local artists, and one of our biggest supporters Magic Cyclops. He's a wonky dj who tends to host karaoke and 80s nights, funny running into him. I talked to Zach Helm (the owner of the massive black hearse seen around Denver sporting bat wings, machine guns, and a flame-thrower) for a bit, expressing our excitement for the first showing of ROTGB.
Cool picture of the Ecto and the Mayan…
Another picture, look at the line… jesus balls!
The film was very entertaining. As a film student I followed filmmaking from as ‘early’ as 1998. I started on Studentfilms.com and I was watching when iFilm started up. I watched the evolution of non-budgeted independant and fan-filmmaking on the intertubes take place from TROOPS to 405, American Jedi to Undercut. We are now witnessing the time when the kids with the monstrous 20-pound RCA camcorders back in the 90s are stepping up and laying their cards on the table. These are the guys raised in the 80s who now have the experience, maturity, and (more than anything) know-how/training to really put together some incredible films. These are the guys who are the first to combine prosumer quality video (best example would be anything shot on an XL2) with high-quality homemade CG effects. The result is simply amazing from a budgetary standpoint.
ROTGB does a wonderful job of balancing the campy fanfilm nature with bits of epic struggle mixed in. Each act of the movie is careful to nod graciously to the audience and those whose support made the film possible, and yet Braxtanfilm doesn't let the lip service get in the way of the storytelling. Comparing this movie to others like it (check youtube or ifilm), everything is superbly executed. The acting and writing, while not perfect, certainly represent the next tier of quality for low-budget filmmaking. And although there are scenes that tend to drag, the action portions come right back and demand to be taken seriously. The action scenes are, in my opinion, better than those of the original. While the first two movies kept all but two busts per movie offscreen and chose to focus more on the goddamn baby, I always felt that we were wrongfully teased with the actual process of ghostbusting. In the originals the packs come on three, maybe four times in the entire thing. In ROTGB we are treated to proton packs firing even where there are no ghosts present!
Also, whoever designed and built the remote-controlled turret on top of the Ecto… you f*cking rock!
Photos of the cast and crew receiving massive applause and answering questions about the production…
And standing outside the theater, goofing off with all those present!
The night ended with an awesome party (holy shit, so much cheese!) on the second floor of Brooklyn's by the Pepsi Center.
To those who invited us and made our part in this even possible, thank you!
(^_^)
