Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine of Ask a Ninja fame are bringing a bit of web video’s interactivity to their feature-film debut, a remake of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. The above video runs down the rules for the “Get Cast In Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes Contest,” through which the boys are soliciting videos depicting death by tomato (tomatocide?) through a YouTube channel. The winner will win a role as a “a real tomato fatality” in the film.
It looks like a couple of videos have already been uploaded to the Real Red Menace YouTube channel, where you can also watch a four-episode mini-web series called Tomatocalypse, which I’m assuming is a kind of test drive for the movie, although I can’t find any information on it anywhere.
You might have seen the above video by now––it’s been making the rounds all weekend. Someone took a couple of clips from theInland Empire DVD, of David Lynch railing against the watching of films on cell phones, and set it to the familiar music from Apple commercials. “It’s such a sadness, that you think you’ve seen a film on your fucking telephone!” he cries. “Get real!” Cue the iPhone logo. The End. Cute, right? Harmless.
Not exactly. Kent Nichols, co-creator of the mega-popular web series Ask a Ninja, has written a blog post in response to the clip, titled “David Lynch is a tool.” “Look David Lynch,” Nichols writes. “I respect that you’ve made a career by confusing people and by pretending to be smarter than them.” But…
…you’re getting to be a cranky old man. If someone wants to pay you to watch your weird little films on a cell phone or a DVD or a flipbook, just smile and take the money. Short of inviting every potential viewer to sit and watch it in your personal viewing chamber, there is no “ideal” viewing experience.
There’s just content and people. People want the content, we give it to them.
Though Nichols goes on to concede that “some stuff works better in the cinematic environment,” he concludes by saying that if a filmmaker wants to reach the masses, “You just need to create visuals that will play well on a 320×240 window. If you’re doing anything else, you’re being a cranky old artist.”
Kent Nichols is the creator of Ask a Ninja, a web series produced independently by a crew of three that has become so popular that you can buy a DVD of its first 30 episodes at Urban Outfitters. Nichols is not in the WGA or any other guild, so he’ll be able to continue to work regardless of what happens with a strike. He’s written an interesting post about this at Metroblogging Los Angeles:
The current studio system is based on work for hire — which is fine since it gives predictable income in exchange for ownership of your work. But you end up losing out if you create a hit. Talk to Mike Judge about Beavis and Butthead.
I’ve successfully crafted a show that lives in it’s own channel that I create with a small team (my writing/producing partner and a freelance editor) that is not only popular on the net, but is also financially successful.
I did this by applying principles of Indie Film financing and creating a show that was easy and fun to produce with only two people.
Sure, my site AskANinja.com, doesn’t pull in the sweet dough of Pirates of the Caribbean, but I’ll probably make as much cash over its lifetime as the writers and director on that film did.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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