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Jeff Balis - The Project Greenlight Experiment
Growing up in Tampa, Florida, I was a loyal Buccaneers fan despite the worst draught in professional sports history. The Bucs were terrible year after year, and these were the formative years of my childhood. We'd put a couple extra tickets on a car window before a game and come back afterwards to find five more. Since it was generally only Tampa folk who owned--let alone wore--Bucs regalia, when I spotted a guy in a Bucs jersey in Venice Beach, CA, I asked him if he was from Tampa. He said 'no'; he just liked the Bucs. The Bucs had been improving and were finally winning games, so apparently people were hopping on the bandwagon. Was I pissed at this new crop of "fair weather" Bucs fans who had been conspicuously absent during the lean years? Hell, no. We were finally getting respect. I was flattered that people actually cared.
What does any of this have to do with Project Greenlight? Absolutely nothing. But shortly after "Stolen Summer" premiered at Sundance, I experienced a pleasure similar to the one I had in Venice Beach: people who had written us off after seeing the TV show were suddenly coming around. The show depicts a movie-making train wreck, and it seems most people were expecting carnage. But the reality, whether you like the film or not, is that it stands on its own. The Project Greenlight connection will hopefully get viewers into theaters, but "Stolen Summer" has elevated itself from its "experimental" roots to a bona fide, legitimate movie worthy of presentation, discussion, and appreciation completely separate from the Project Greenlight animal. This is my opinion at least, and the credit is due to Pete and our incredible cast and crew.
As we near the end of the TV show phase of the Project Greenlight Experiment, I can say that my take-away from the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. But I'd be lying if I didn't mention the plethora of scary moments along the way. Movie-making in general is a rollercoaster, but add to that a little "What if I can't get a job?" and "What if my friends won't talk to me again?" paranoia--courtesy of a reality show crew "promising" to make you look "great"-- and it doesn't take much to whip yourself into a lather. When Pete and I would share little nuggets of information we uncovered (we were kept in the dark about the show, so these nuggets were highly prized), that lather became a meringue.
With all of the ups and downs, it's hard to get any perspective on the experience. Were we really as dumb as the show depicts? Or did we overcome difficult odds and triumph? Who knows, but it all comes back to my Venice Beach experience. Immediately after the Sundance premiere, people who had distanced themselves from the movie and espoused the TV show as gospel suddenly pulled out their "Stolen Summer" jerseys and sided with us. In the PGL TV vs. "Stolen Summer" conflict, we suddenly had fans (fair weather though they may be, it's still good to have 'em). Maybe the film wasn't a complete train wreck after all. Maybe Pete did have a vision and did know what he was doing. Maybe the Bucs have a chance of making it to the Superbowl. In all the Sundance hoopla, there was no one more fun to watch than Pete. He was floating six inches off the ground.
This buoyant feeling after so long a period of uncertainty was especially great in light of another pleasantry the TV crew had in store. The day after the Sundance premiere, Episode 7 (a.k.a. the "Pat stabs Jeff in the back and Jeff gets shitcanned" episode) was airing and the cameras were there at a Project Greenlight party to capture the expressions on our faces. This footage never made the TV show, though, so I'll tell you what my face said. It said, "Who gives a shit? The audience loved the movie last night and you don't get that from a clusterfuck." That's a face I'm proud to wear.
Naturally, this begs the question that I've been asking myself since we finished the film: "Does the end justify the means?" Was the process messy, and the end product good just by accident? Personally, I don't think so, but I know that others do. Yeah, parts of it could have been better, but overall, there are very few things I regret about the process. There are many things I would do differently now, but very few that I feel I botched given the information and experience I had at the time. Rest assured, though, that I've learned my share of lessons.
And if we want to talk about the end justifying the means, I get a little chuckle out of the fact that the TV show turned out very well by most accounts, but if you talk to anyone who actually worked on it, they say that that's where the real drama was. Apparently there was more than one clusterfucked production in Chicago in the summer of 2001. So, two quasi-messy processes with two great products. Not bad for a first-time experiment.
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