SCABs

Sharks in a what ?  – By @maxatyler

By Max Tyler

 

Sharks in a what ? 

 

Time is one thing we can’t get back. It is in essence the most valuable thing we have control of as human beings. We were asked to watch a film you wouldn’t normally watch or one you wouldn’t like so we can write a SCAB about it. I thought this was quite a cool little brief for a scab, maybe this can be a chance to learn a bit more about some different styles of films or some different art direction. Choosing what film to watch was quite easy, I have avoided this series of movies on Netflix for a while because I thought they weren’t worth my time. Well this is the best opportunity I thought I might get to potentially gain something out of wasting my time.

 

The film I decided to watch was ‘Sharknado’

 

Starting with the name Sharknado is already really not credible but to be fair it is intriguing, also the visuals on the covers leave a lot to be desired. So there are now five follow on films from Sharknado and the worst part of this is that the first one isn’t actually on Netflix. 

I thought is might have either been some sick joke or a clever way of hooking people in making them think ‘oh I missed the first one and they got recommissioned to make a second, this must be a good film’ the second option is optimistic but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Let get into the film now, within the first 2 minutes I got a good feeling of what I was in for. The opening scene is in an aircraft and their plane goes through a Sharknado storm which is exactly what it sounds like, this scene should have been about 3 minutes but it lasted about 10 leaving me not knowing what the fuck is happening or if the film had actually started yet. I was dropped straight into the deep end and to be fair I think it did the film some justice. The fact I didn’t really know what was happening let me just sit there and take it in. 

They obviously forked out a lot of their budget for this opening scene in the aircraft and felt they need to open the film with a 10 minute disaster scene. It was like a bad dream that you couldn’t wake up from. The plane was filled with cheap and shitty extras alongside with cheap and shitty main actors. It really is clear how detrimental to your work cutting corners can have on the way a story is told. There are a lot of ways they could have used the small budget and filmed things in a different way to make the actors and storytelling seem more credible but they decided to try and force feed the scenes with cheap props and unbelievable situations. I understand the premise of this film is constantly on the verge of a meme but money is being spent on this at the end of the day. 

I give the people who decided to make this film some credit, they have made something out of nothing which is admirable and shows some kind of organisational talent to get content made with this many people involved. 

They got a few laughs from me if I’m completely honest, they clearly did whatever the fuck they wanted with the script and scenes and even if the budget couldn’t clearly make this scene possible they did everything they could to make it happen. This is brave as some of the scenes really depended on some imagination input from the viewer, this is a hard ask in this day and age. Peoples time is important and expecting them to use their imagination whilst watching a film isn’t too common any more. We are defaulted now to being thrown into hyper realistic imagination wonderlands where the scenes are crafted to perfection. So no matter how not credible the scene is, the viewer is  chucked into a believable way of being inside the scene. 

I take away from this film two things that might help me in my work.

One, if spending and extra £15000 on an idea will make it understood easier don’t be afraid to suggest it. (Make an idea bigger than the budget) 

Two, be brave with how capable people are to imagine (people can draw a picture if there are enough dots to join together) 

That’s my review of Sharknado 

Don’t waste your time is what I’d say but I’m sure a lot of you already have as our curiosity always gets the better of us. 

Sharknado, they had us all from the title.

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