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| Intensity TV: Episode #109 |
Intense Sci-Fi: Future Tense
(June 16 at 8 p.m.)
Oregon
Rafael Fernandez's first film is an eerie, San Francisco of the future where smoking is illegal and society's enforcers are neither man nor machine but a little of both. Oregon has been screened at numerous film festivals -- including the South by Southwest Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival -- and is a promising debut for Fernandez, a creative writing major with no previous directorial experience.
Today's Life
Armed with a paltry $30,000 budget and unbridled tenacity, USC graduate Noah Kadner set out to make a film that should have cost 10 times that. Using "donated" special effects worth over $300,000 and a 60-piece orchestral score, Kadner made a visually compelling film that chronicles the lonely space-probe existence of a series of clones used for their human qualities then coldly discarded to maintain the longevity of their mission.
Bobby Loves Mangos
Ominous videotape from the future puts the principal of a small town elementary school through a hell of indecision as he seeks to avert a possible tragedy. Native New Yorker Stuart Archer shot this film with "Bar Mitzvah money...I'd invested well." Determined to gain recognition for Bobby Loves Mangos at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, Archer arranged an unofficial "debut" of the film for Roger Ebert -- playing the film on the big screen TV of the restaurant where Ebert was eating! Ebert liked the film, giving it "two thumbs up," and applauded Archer's promotional ingenuity.
Plug
In a world where people live "plugged" into the fantasy life of their choice, what happens when the plug gets pulled? Director Meher Gourjian's first film is an interesting mix of live action and 2D animation similar in style to the effects used in portions of the films Lord of the Rings and Wizards. The award-winning film (Best 2D Computer Animation by an Independent at World Animation Celebration) cost just $16,000 to make due to the generous support of USC and a number of Los Angeles production companies.
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