Making the geek movie
When you know computers pretty well, you start seeing certain things in certain movies as being rather idiotic. A huge amount of pictures scrolling by during a search, 3D graphics exploding out of an old laptop during hacking in HACKERS, people using Microsoft Word as a magical web search engine, etc. That stuff never happens in real life!
To a techie, it’s as realistic as trouts flying by in the background during a romantic love scene in a desert.
The good thing is, things are looking up. Real hacking is being shown in mainstream movies, a good example being the usage of NMap and an old SSH exploit in MATRIX: RELOADED. Sure, the movie wasn’t centered around it, but it was kind of neat. (There’s more such goodness in the original version of the MATRIX script.)
CONTACT was a movie built entirely around physics and technology that wasn’t afraid to use them and it was successful as well.
Do you think there’s room in the amateur movie scene for a movie that not only portrays the hacker subculture, (and by ‘hackers’ we mean ‘really experienced computer users’ not just the ‘evil’ ones) but literally swims in it, twisting and turning around it, weaving in and out of it, wrapping itself around it and being wrapped inside it, like a Klein bottle? I mean, there’s a market for it, yes, but the market consists of, well, people like us. Could a technical movie be a success on film festivals? And what advice would you give us? (Other than “get a life and do something useful.”)
– Elver
Estonia
Great question, and great home country. I only spent about twelve hours in lovely Tallinn, Estonia, but it completely lived up to its over-hype about being the next Prague (but quainter). Doubters, may I direct you to this photo.
Now, on to the matter of your proposed geek opus.
Yes, Elver, yes. There is definitely room in the film universe for a uber-geek movie, be it a thriller, a drama, a comedy or whatever. Film festivals would love it, and even if your film didn’t cross over to become a giant mainstream movie, who cares?
Let me offer proof by way of comparison. Take Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne’s excellent SIDEWAYS, which is overwhelmingly obsessed with wine in ways that no normal audience member could hope to fathom. Even though we don’t really understand the intricacies of what they’re discussing — I dare you to find a topic less cinematic than pinot noir grapes — we believe the characters know what they’re talking about, and that helps make it fascinating. Sideways is a wine-geek movie, and if it hadn’t been brilliant on all its other levels, it still would have had a following among oenophiles.
An even closer comparison is Shane Carruth’s PRIMER. Although it only progressed slightly beyond the festival circuit, it’s certain to do great on DVD. Like Pi before it, Primer consists of geeky people saying a lot of ponderous gibberish without any nod to audience understanding. I loved it.
So by all means, make your geek movie. Hell, shoot it in Tallinn. Just make sure that while you’re being accurate and honest with all the techie details, you’re also being accurate and honest with the human emotions in the story. Do it right, do it well, and I’ll be the first in line.
(Originally posted January 21, 2005.)
Articles
January 21st, 2005 at 8:17 am
Pi, though, was riddled with more errors than a Chick Tract. Its only intellectual intrigue is the examination of insanity, ground well covered by other, less pretentious films.
They didn’t even use the real digits of pi. Come on.
January 22nd, 2005 at 11:37 am
I think there has to be a strong entertainment factor in that uber-geek story. These films may not be along the lines of what you’re thinking and I don’t know the veracity of their science, but “Wargames” and “Sneakers” used technology in an entertaining way. I would be careful about throwing around a lot of tech speak the way the latter-day Star Treks seem to. They never seem to mean much and usually only serve as a convenient catalyst or solution to an even more convoluted crisis.
January 24th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
If you haven’t seen eXistenZ, I suggest you see it. It is beyond geek, it’s retro-geek. Well written and well directed. I have to say that it is a film where you could learn something from it about computers and filmmaking.
February 1st, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Pop-technos have been driven since, well, possibly Tron itself. But by that standard, CGI couldn’t evolve beyond the devices used or the tracking trends in the “domain” of the many geeks, even the specialties. Which is knowledge so precise or uncommonly shared, it boggles a majority rather than the very few.
It’s the mere pace of progress that drags each attempts towards new and actual (I’d insist to the factual). By the time those subjects are covered, it feels like we’re looking back in asynchronous past or decades, centuries long gone.
Considering science and daily contacts we have with the hype soon forgotten, how can one audience attach to a present so finished and obsolete the minute they think of the latest inventions and discoveries made?
You got to anticipate and call ahead. Fully aware of facts based on solid deductions, on context and rational probabilities. Gapping future with the observations and using all the intuitions you can tie with the current reality.
Only then, can you have a sense of a “geek” issue, no matter what it is about.
February 15th, 2005 at 9:41 am
topic less cinematic than grapes: olives (and I’ve been reading a book that dedicates a chapter on olive oil, arguing that it is as complex as wine).
May 20th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
what are you talking about? why don’t you write about something interesting? try researching something like uh… new inventions in Japan? that’s something people would enjoy reading about!
July 31st, 2005 at 4:39 pm
I know I’m a bit late on this but… I’ve considered this for some time myself (being both a tech-head and a writer) but the main problem is that real hacking/sys admin/programming tends to be quite repetitive and boring, and a lot of the stories that immediately spring to my mind have been done. However, one book that I absolutely love is Microserfs by Douglas Coupland, a hilarious take on techie culture both accurate and interesting. I think if you have the imagination then you can make a great story – and hence film – out of any subject matter. Just my two cents.
June 17th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I think the sideways comparison works very well.
–RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
June 18th, 2006 at 12:18 am
Cuckoo’s Egg is another book rife with technical jargon – from the 80’s, in fact! But it manages to be a highly entertaining read, because it’s fueled by excitement over piecing together a mystery, which just happens to revolve around computer and networking jargon. So it can definitely be done!
June 18th, 2006 at 6:31 am
From ‘Anacondas’ (or as I like to call it: ‘Ed Neumeier collects a paycheck’) viewed on DVD a few nights ago:
June 19th, 2006 at 5:29 am
eXistenZ is drivel. It has a completely bizarre idea of games, seemingly purely derived from playing Myst, and a “what is real” plot ripped from Star Trek TNG.
Now Primer! That is genius. I don’t think the time travel stuff actually works out but I didn’t care. Guys in white shirts pointing at chunks of metal and wires talking fast, whiteboard diagrams, and a bit of ear bleeding and death. What more could you want?
June 19th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Nerd alert, nerd alert!!!
(sorry, had to do it)
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:38 am
Gotta agree, Tallinn is a fantastic city! Visited it often when I lived in Helsinki. Gotta love the medieval old town, quaint restaurants, and more amazingly beautiful women than you can shake a stick at.
June 24th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Another movie that had references that most people wouldn’t get but you would really like it because if you did get it, it was ultra relevant was Swingers. They used real locations with their real names. One of the most poignant parts is when Mikey gets the girls number and the guys ask what the area code is. If you live in SoCal, you so get this, and it makes it more real and draws you in so much more if you do get it. It is the SoCal geek movie.
June 27th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
Geek films are a tough sell in this town. Part of the problem is that a lot of Hollywood people are not too tech savvy themselves. I was pitching a tech script I’ve got right now to an exec who was like, “Are you a big nerd? Were you like good in math when you were young?” I was not, in fact, but hey, I like technology so I guess that makes me a nerd. I made a doc short called Dreaming In Code about dot com culture some years ago, and it had a decent festival following. But in terms of tech films going mainstream, they really have to focus on the human angle, rather than the technology…
July 1st, 2006 at 11:05 am
Take a look at the Alfred P. Sloan foundation.
They have programs for both screenplays and features that are science related. Sundance, Tribeca, and the Hamptons film festival all are partnered with them in some way or fashion.
I wrote a screenplay for them and was really pleased at their work to hook me up with producers, the fancy galas, and super nerdy sessions talking about science and film.
If you do write about science or technology, make sure to google them.
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I agree with Leena, about the not-so-tech savvy Hollywoodians. I mean, how much do they know about technology? None. So they produce stuff that they think is correct, but in geek reality, it’s just another mindless prep trying to make money.