Premaking Movies

This would have been a great exercise back in my days of teaching film and video production classes.

A former student sent me a link to a "premake" of the trailer for Raiders of the Lost Ark as a 1951 film. Raiders is an excellent choice for this editing exercise since Spielberg and Lucas were echoing a bevy of those earlier adventure serials.

The person behind these premakes on YouTube (maybe he invented the genre too) is whoiseyevan, who describes himself as "a writer/filmmaker trying to get his big break. The videos on my channel were posted to show-off some of my editing, directing, and art direction skills." (He needs to post more info - full name? website? contact info?)

He has actually grabbed some clips from some of those films that inspired S&L and created enough of a story for a "coming attractions" trailer.

I'm not sure if there are copyright issues in the exercise. It looks like he found trailers and clips that were already on YouTube. If Paramount Pictures or Lucasfilm went after him, I would be disappointed in them.

On Raiders, he lists the sources: The 10 Commandments, Prince Valiant, Naked Jungle, Secret of the Incas, Jungle Queen, Zulu, Look to Lockheed for Leadership, Casablanca, The City of Brass, Mr. Moto takes a Vacation, Star in My Crown, A Pain in the Pullman, On Dangerous Ground, Patton, King Solomon's Mines, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Greatest Show on Earth, David and Bathsheba, The Screaming Skull, When You Know, Mysterious Mr. Moto, Lawrence of Arabia, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and Superman at Bay.

Of course, I HAD to look at his Ghost Busters (1954) because that is a favorite because I watched it MANY times with my sons - especially Justin who had every intention to become a Ghostbuster when he grew up. (We still have the toys in the basement, so that I can introduce grandkids to PK meters and cyclotrons some day.)



I love that Fred MacMurray from the Flubber movies are there. I had quite a fascination as a kid with those Flubber films and the professor's inventions from the garage laboratory during my own mad scientist phase. (I could never bear to watch the remake - sorry Robin Williams.)

There's also another film favorite of mine premade with his Forrest Gump (1949).

He's not the first to do a fanfilm. There are plenty of samples online of people actually remaking favorites frame-by-frame with their friends playing roles and using homemade props, sets and neighborhood locations.

"Eyevan" also has a little frame-by-frame explanation of his own Raiders film.