James’ Blog

Also known as On the Lot. The apprentice-like reality show where wanna-be directors pit their skills against each other until only one remains, the winner, of a Spielberg produced one million dollars movie deal with DreamWorks.

It's a new concept for a TV show, and after a couple of format changes, they settled (for now) on a live show hosted by the beautiful Adrianna Costa. It's a poor format, where we don't get to see how each week's films came to be. The trials and tribulations of the contestants as they struggled to make their films. The breakthroughs, the chokes. That's what we want to see. It's the key to success for this show. And they should be clearer about each week's rules, and they should spend less time on useless banter (which would unfortunately mean less Adrianna, but you can't have everything), and more time showing the real meat of what being a director is all about. The films and the results are only the important and interesting conclusion, and should not be the whole show. Also, they should find a way to involve every contestant each week, and not only 5 of them, and marginally at that.

As it is, each week our contestants try and make the most pitiful movie to see who'll get a hug from Adrianna best movie and move to the next round. Only we never see this. We only see the end result, the short movies, which are judged by a panel of film personalities:

• Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia): She judges according to her personal taste which makes her a poor judge.
• A guest director: Those have been interesting, adding some freshness to the show.
• Gary Marshall (Director of Pretty Woman): He is the best part of the show. His comments are always insightful, he has a command of the language that is a pleasure to witness, always cracking jokes that help make his point. He is a kind person, and knows talent when he sees it.

It seems the show is suffering from poor ratings, and justifiably so. Altough the subject matter is dear to my heart, it is poorly executed.
Meanwhile, we still have 2 Chapman alumni among the 14 contestants left. Here's to them, living the dream.