I guess I should step in and defend myself. Starting Them Young is my film, and I'm proud of it. The quality on youtube is not the quality of the finished product on my computer, Jon is correct I am new to youtube and am working on getting a better quality version uploaded.
A little background I attended film school, worked on a feature film in the art department/set design, have shot my own productions on super 16mm film, have worked on productions in various capacity including script supervisor, 2nd assistant camera, producer and editor. I never could make a career out of it in Seattle (not enough paying productions to sustain a career), and I wasn't willing to move to L.A. or Vancouver, my family and friends are here and they're more important than a career in film.
So in defense of my film or crappy imovie as some say
. I have a dozen or so ideas each year and focus on 1. My son is 2 1/2 and has a pretty amazing memory for Transformers names as well as dinosaur names (approx 30 he can pronounce correctly). I felt if I was going to have some fun with my son and put him in one of my films this would be the time, plus it would be great to show off my amazing kid (even though some would rather not have my child shoved down their throat). I went for the cuteness factor, I have finished 3 out of the 4 previous years, but never achieved first. Competing against people like Dr. Smoove (the first year) and Jon, I felt like I don't have the production values to compete so I go much more loose and cheesey with my films and try to make them silly as possible. Each part of the finished film was planned was half planned half improvised. I put my son in the situation and filmed what he would do. Such as feeding Devastator a plush bananna, was my idea, what he said and did with it was pure Statler. I liked the spontaneous feel of the film and never made him do a second take as I didn't want to "direct" him. In the end I have a film that I will cherish more than any other film I have ever produced, because it was my son being himself. He loved seeing himself on the tv screen. He and my wife attended the year previous, which also happened to be the one year I didn't win a prize, but I didn't feel it would be right to enter this film 2 or more years down the line when they could be in attendance.
Jon's films are MUCH higher quality and I have lost to him every year pretty much, and as far as I'm concerned it's an honor to lose to someone like Jon, he's an amazing guy, friendly and just down right fun to talk to and to accept an award along side him is well... humbling. I actually felt like the response was louder for his films, but he's right the female vocal register is going to play with their volume measure app.
The number of people that came up to me during the Botcon weekend was greater than every year combined, so that says something for what entertained the audience.
These days I focus much more time with music than film, but I still love messing around with it and as long as Botcon continues to have film fest I'm sure I'll continue to enter them. Perhaps teaching grandma about transformers as a sequel, I'll call it Never To Old.
Thank you to all those defending me and my film on this site, I have met many Seibertronians at Botcon and though the main site I post on is tfw, I find the people from Seibertron much more approachable and warmer than those I have met on other sites.
Please continue to critique the film as this is all about expressing opinions. I'm far from a great film maker, but the films I have done seem to entertain some people and that's all I can truly hope for.
Haha!
