“What you can imagine depends on what you know"

Sometimes the right compelling indie features, short films, music videos, TV commercials do create a limelight for the aspiring film makers out there, and attract the right people to turn your ideas into a studio feature length film. Funny enough it all started with George Lucas 1967 science fiction short film THX 1138 4EB, which viewing at the National Student Film Festival led to George Lucas meeting Steven Spielberg, David Fincher’s (Vimeo) 1984 Rick Springfield’s Music Videos, which eventually led to the The Beat of the Live Drum Documentary and ‘92 Alien 3, Tim Burton’s 1984 Frankenweenie, which led Stephen King’s recommending it to Paul Reubens, which led again to Tim’s first feature film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, John Lasseter’s 1986 Luxo Jr. which led to Lasseter position of CCO of both Pixar and Disney animation studios and directing Toy Story, Mike Judge’s 1991 Milton which led to Beavis and Butt-Head, Darren Aronofsky’s 1992 Fortune Cookie which led to Pi, Felix Gary Gray’s 1993 It Was A Good Day Music Video, which led to the feature film Friday, Michel Gondry’s 1993 Human Behaviour, which led a collaboration with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman for Human Nature and not to forget Gondry’s most awarded TV Commercial Drugstore" Levi’s 501, Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1993 Cigarettes & Coffee, which led to an invitation of the Sundance filmmakers lab to become’s Cannes 1996 Hard Eight, Lynne Ramsay’s 1996 Small Deaths, which led to Ratcatcher, Wes Anderson’s 1994 Bottle Rocket which producer James Brooks loved and financed funded the feature length version of it, Sofia Coppola’s 1998 Lick The Star, which led to The Virgin Suicides, Stephen Daldry’s 1998 Eight which led to Billy Elliot, Jared Hess 2003 Peluca wich led to Napoleon Dynamite, Ryan Fleck’s 2004 Rowanus, Brooklyn, which led to the 2006 feature film Half Nelson, Neill Blomkamp’s 2005 Alive In Joburg, which let to Peter Jackson offering him $30 million to make the 2009 District 9, Martin McDonagh’s 2006 Academy Award-winning short Six Shooter which led to In Bruges, Benh Zeitlin’s 2008 Glory At Sea, which led to the acclaimed Beasts of the Southern Wild, Denis Villeneuve 2008 short film Next Floor, which let to the feature film Polytechnique, Fede Alvarez’s 2009 Ataque de Pánico! which resulted in a deal with Ghost House Pictures, Patrick Jean’s arcade-inspired 2010 short Pixels (TEASER), which got optioned by Happy Madison and Sony and actually will hit theaters on July 24, but eventually got Directed by Chris Columbus (IMDB) and the feature film is a very different movie then that from the short, with Oscar Nominated Ruairi Robinson’s 2015 concept trailer for ‘The Leviathan’ (TEASER), which was released last week and got picked up by 20th Century Fox, which will have Producer Simon Kinberg (X-Men) and Ex. Producer Neill Blomkamp (Chappie) on board. And yet again with the March 26th Vimeo released mini film ‘Sundays’ (TEASER) (FULL FILM) (Behind the scenes), we can easily say that Hollywood still makes dreams come true. The Studios where again taking by storm this week with ‘Sundays’, a visual dazzling 14-minute short film by Dutch commercial director Mischa Rozema and co-founder of the acclaimed Dutch hybrid film company PostPanic. The film has a haunting feel and could easily become a District 9 meets Matrix film with the right writers on board. After a online media studio battle (Sony Pictures, Fox and Warner Brothers) the mini film was eventually optioned by Warner Bros. to turn into a feature and yes, it will Directed by the first time feature film Director Mischa Rozema. Keep in mind that unlike ‘The Leviathan’, ‘Sundays’ was created with the intent to attract studio offers and took about three years to finish (Kickstarter – June 14, 2012). More and more Kickstarter projects are reaching the studios with these stunning visual effects (’Sundays’ – 119 people credited)….. Regardless of the criticism: “Would love to see more dramatic shorts get attention from studios. Narrative works, with good writing. Not sure the studios have ever been lacking in good VFX-driven vehicles” and “Hollywood buying empty visuals with zero story. It’s depressing.” (DEADLINE) – AskTheRightQuestion supports the dedicated independent filmmakers, animators, VFX’ers that go out there and do simply do it! –  Quote used above in the article comes from American philosopher Dan Dennett. Have a look at the illusion of consciousness TED Talk here. Main Source and inspiration for this article: Noah Pisner’s July 15, 2014 Mic.com article. Photo credit: PostPanic Pictures. Share-to-care!