Film buffs film analysis of Loose Change

[Undesired Walrus]

There are man film buffs here.

The question is, what do you think of Loose Change as a film? Editing good? Filming good? Direction good?

One thing that bugs me about Dylans direction is his interview scenes. He has no back lighting, the characters have no depth in his direction, Mr Rodriguez is bland and motionless.

Is Dylan any good?

[Bell]

There are man film buffs here.

The question is, what do you think of Loose Change as a film? Editing good? Filming good? Direction good?

One thing that bugs me about Dylans direction is his interview scenes. He has no back lighting, the characters have no depth in his direction, Mr Rodriguez is bland and motionless.

Is Dylan any good?

Are you asking me to watch another version of his movie? :eek:

[~enigma~]

I thought Rodriguez wasn't in LC:FC?

[CptColumbo]

Due to the large amount of archival footage used in the video, it's hard to form an opinion of DA's film technique. However, what there is shows a clear misunderstanding of how to shoot documentaries. The interviews are poorly framed and at odd angles (in relation to eye level), for a realistic look. There is less impact to an interview if the person is too far away from the camera and seemingly superior to the viewer (due to the angle). There is good editing technique, that I've seen in hundreds of other internet videos. The voice over is amateurish, and inappropriate for the mood of the video, but appropriate for the target audience. The quality of the sound should have been cleaned up, before it was finalized. The graphics are spiffy, but there is almost too many of them.

In the end it's a decent internet video. Nothing more.

[JamesB]

There are man film buffs here.

The question is, what do you think of Loose Change as a film? Editing good? Filming good? Direction good?

One thing that bugs me about Dylans direction is his interview scenes. He has no back lighting, the characters have no depth in his direction, Mr Rodriguez is bland and motionless.

Is Dylan any good?

If I recall correctly the only interview they actually did for the first 3 versions of their film was of Marcel Bernard, the flight instructor who said that Hani Hanour could have easily flown into the Pentagon.

Dylan didn't include that quote in the movie of course.

[Gravy]

I think it's a good effort for your average 21-22 year-old, but not for one who had film school aspirations.

[dudalb]

It would get a "C" at best in any beginning level class on filmmaking. A lot of the editing is very sloppy,and the soundtrack is poorly done.

[Undesired Walrus]

But no backlighting!

[defaultdotxbe]

One thing that bugs me about Dylans direction is his interview scenes. He has no back lighting, the characters have no depth in his direction, Mr Rodriguez is bland and motionless.
i noticed that in the interview with marcel bernard, it seemed like he just set the camera on a table and talked to the guy

[Jonnyclueless]

Imagine if Dylan was the new voiceover for all the movie trailers...

[Brainster]

Dylan's problem with interviews is that he doesn't have any sense of what to leave in and what to take out, so he tends to leave it all in. What struck me most about the Marcel Bernard interview was that it didn't back up the CT; he said Hanjour was an average to below-average pilot, when Dylan was hoping for some indication that he was awful. A smart interviewer would simply have asked more questions at that point--"Well, if he was average to below average, why did you refuse to rent him a plane?" "What were the specific negatives with Hanjour's flying ability?"--something that would at least give you a usable sound bite.

The animated sequence of the plane hitting the Pentagon was well-done; of course that it depicted something Dylan claims didn't happen was a little bizarre.

[CptColumbo]

But no backlighting!Wasn't there only one light source for the interview?

[Alferd_Packer]

There are man film buffs here.



Your darn tootin! A few gal film buffs as well. What I want to know is, are there buff gals? or gals in the buff?

{/derail}

[Pardalis]

To paraphrase Popular Mechanic's James Meigs: It's an effective piece of propaganda.

I think it does its job pretty good, that is to get people's attention on details which hint to a complex conspiracy, without ever making sense in general, like most Hollywood movies. So editing wise, it's pretty clever at deception.

As for the bits that were shot by them (like the John Shroeder interview) it's pure amateurish garbage (no sense of framing, lighting, sound is abysmal...).

[60hzxtl]

As a professional film maker, (Discovery, The Learning Channel, National Geographic, PBS, History Channel, and the 3 networks) I can most kindly describe this as a jumble of self importance, and selective conclusions, and at worst, an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of cameras. . .

That's the bad news.

The good news is there is always another version just down the road.

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

The good news is there is always another version just down the road.


Loose Change the Final Cut of the Final Cut of the FINAL (we really mean it) Cut of the FINAL Cut: XIII Freddy vs Jason.

[Sabrina]

Don't you mean Dylan versus the NWO?

[negativ]

Imagine if Dylan was the new voiceover for all the movie trailers...

I can hear it now:

"In a world controlled by owl-worshipping Masonic crypto-Jews, one man will stop at nothing to uncover the truth -- or LIE TRYING!!!" (Crash! Boom! Fireballs!) "Alex Jones stars in: LIE TRYING -- opens this Friday in theaters everywhere, probably."

Forget it. Don LaFontaine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_LaFontaine)'s voice can do things that Chuck Norris only dreams of in his most private, bed-wetting nightmares. Don LaFontaine once recited the list of ingredients on a box of Twinkies - the Twinkies spontaneously began reenacting car chases, explosions, and karate fight sequences from Jackie Chan movies. Don LaFontaine has juggled bowling balls -- without ever touching them -- just by modulating the sound energy of his voice.

[gumboot]

Well as far as Dylan Avery's role goes it's almost exclusively editing, and the most important aspect of editing is structure. The film has no structure.

It flits about the place from theory to theory, rather than telling us a story that develops and gradually sucks us into the conspiracy. Starting with the beginning quotes for example, without ever linking them to anything. In this way it's much like Alex Jones' films and many other conspiracy theory films. It's preaching to the converted. Only the conspiracy-minded or the young and ignorant actually fall for it, because to anyone else it does a poor job of building the conspiracy story.

-Gumboot

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

I can hear it now:

"In a world controlled by owl-worshipping Masonic crypto-Jews, one man will stop at nothing to uncover the truth -- or LIE TRYING!!!" (Crash! Boom! Fireballs!) "Alex Jones stars in: LIE TRYING -- opens this Friday in theaters everywhere, probably."

I just came up with the new title for the next final final cut of Loose Change.

Loose Change: LIE HARD

[60hzxtl]

The new title seems to be Buddy Can You Spare Some Change.

[JamesB]

I just came up with the new title for the next final final cut of Loose Change.

Loose Change: LIE HARD

Aren't we up to Loose Change 3: Lie Harder?

[Drs_Res]

2 was Lie Harder
3 is Lie Hard With a Vengeance

[Bell]

Dylan should do a musical version. All (??) the troofers should get out their umbrella's and start dancing in the rain around Ground Zero.

Oh noes, they don't come out in the rain. My bad.

[Nim Chimpsky]

Well as far as Dylan Avery's role goes it's almost exclusively editing, and the most important aspect of editing is structure. The film has no structure.

Well stated gumboot. That's exactly what I thought when I first watched it, meaning that I watched it like I was watching a documentary instead of listening and looking for woo.

A good documentary really doesn't need all those graphics and the soundtrack. That totally detracts from the real "meat" of a documentary which is either the people or persons it's about or the "point" they are trying to make.

It's more or less a jumble of clips and questions. And the questions, unfortunately, are what all those young impressionable mush minds took from it. They never had a "point", just questions. As if asking questions about a topic somehow reinforces your argument.

[jrray]

As a former film student, I can safely say that "Loose Change" is a very, very poor documentary. Let's start with its best aspects, and then move on down (I'm going with 2E here).

Narrative arc - "Loose Change" actually has a passable narrative arc - it knows where it's going. However, by "passable," I mean "barely passable" - it's a juvenile set-up, a standard chronological rendition of events from 1962 forward. And, of course, it skips around, especially when talking about its revisionist version of Osama bin Laden's history. Its storyboard must've looked like a 4th-grade presentation on the order of planets. Overall: C (75).

Soundtrack - "Loose Change" knows that it's pandering to the herd, to people who already believe there's a conspiracy. Therefore, the music must reflect its pre-established low-brow audience. Each of its tracks carries either a childish sense of urgency (DUN DUN DUN DUN) or a "tragedy"-esque, melancholy piano, as if to say, "how sad, that 99% of people aren't as stupid as we are, or else they'd believe us!" It was composed by an infant, but by an infant composing FOR infants. C- (70).

Continuity - though the narrative works, the transitions between each of the chronological units is a complete mess. Why would you even start with Operation Northwoods, when its conclusion - that the military is supposedly "willing to murder the innocent" - should've been tossed in at the end, to be 'icing on the cake' rather than a 'bombshell first point?' The structure quickly devolves into unintelligibility and their mishmash of arguments centered around the pilots' supposed flying abilities scrubs any sense of internal coherence. In short, this is where we start to realize that Dylan Avery has no idea what he's talking about. D- (60).

Cinematography - PEEEEYUUW! What a mess. It's a good thing Avery relies mostly on stolen footage; for the brief minutes he gets a camera, your spine freezes and your brain makes a concerted effort to pull itself in half, slide out of your ears, and cover your eyes so that you don't have to feel the pain anymore. From watching his laughably tactless interview of the flight coach, you gain a better understanding of why Dylan Avery was rejected from art school - twice. I can only imagine what his portfolio was like, back in his "trainee days." F (50).

Production value - Appalling. This might as well have been a PowerPoint presentation. Most of his stolen footage is grainy or needs serious color-correction (without even getting into his dishonest use of quotes throughout). When he has pictures, the director doesn't even take the time to reformat them in Photoshop or something so that they don't look so grainy. You can recalibrate pixelation, Dylan. It's the first thing I learned how to do with Photoshop. F (40).

Voice-over - Appalling. Beyond appalling. This is a constant problem with conspiracy theory videos, even with independent documentaries in general (and, even more generally, videos released on YouTube or Google Video exclusively). It's understandable that Dylan Avery was not working with any technical know-how, a budget, a sense of direction, coherency of thought, a sense of moral and intellectual honesty, basic comprehension skills of the English language, etc., but he seems actively interested in infuriating his audience by mumbling, stammering, and suffering from an acute case of Dictionarrhea throughout. Unparalleled (20 ; at least it was probably in English).

Overall: 75 + 70 + 60 + 50 + 40 + 20 = 315/6 = 52.5 = F.