Can making a movie be this bad?

As HBO's riveting documentary Project Greenlight comes to a close tonight, viewers may well wonder: Who would want to ever make a movie?

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 10, 2002

If you've been keeping up with Project Greenlight, HBO's addictive reality show that trails a first-time director making his first real movie for Miramax studios, you've got one question left as the 12-part series winds up tonight.

How can this film be any good?

That's because Project Greenlight has expertly and relentlessly chronicled the power struggles, missed opportunities, flubbed decisions and backbiting that dogged the making of writer-director Pete Jones' first effort, Stolen Summer.

Jones was chosen from 10,000 hopefuls in a contest created by stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, through their production company Live Planet, and Miramax. He got close to $2-million (once all the budget battles were fought) and a "greenlight" to make the film, snagging stars such as Aidan Quinn, Bonnie Hunt and Kevin Pollak.

The hitch: There also would be a reality TV-style documentary made on the whole process.

Turns out HBO has created one of the best reality TV shows on the tube, crafting a minisoap opera that somehow makes you care about the amazingly technical process of making a movie, while explaining why so many films are so obviously awful.

There was the decision to start the first day of shooting with child actors standing beneath an elevated train platform in Chicago (the noise from passing "El" trains made getting a usable take awfully tough). There was the footage of line producer Pat Peach calling a Miramax executive to undermine another producer, Jeff Balis (Greenlight's crew even got his telephone conversation on tape, despite Peach's apparent attempt to keep it private).

One climactic scene, a Little League baseball game, unraveled as weather forecasts predicting rain came true. Jones had no backup plan, and it didn't help that his young stars really couldn't play baseball.

Another key scene, of a young character floating on his back in Lake Michigan, disintegrated as the crew struggled to assemble a complex crane for the shot and the child actor (who couldn't swim) struggled to float in 50-degree water.

At times, seeing Greenlight can feel like watching the world's slowest car wreck, as the filmmakers lurch to complete a movie with too few shooting days, too little budget and a too inexperienced director.

(If Greenlight were a class, the Los Angeles Times suggested, it would be called: "How to Mess Up Your First Movie and Do It With Every Rookie Mistake Being Immortalized by a Take-No-Prisoners Documentary Crew Eager to Make You Look as Inept as Possible on Nationwide Television.")

But producer Balis has an explanation, one familiar to anyone who has heard a reality TV subject speak on his experience with the cameras:

It wasn't really like that.

"The philosophy of this show (was supposed to be) the exact opposite of a slick and glossy press kit . . . warts and all. But what we got was warts and warts," said Balis, 26, the frizzy-haired producer, who was depicted as indecisive and unassertive before getting fired (briefly) from the production.

"Anybody who has made a movie knows this is a typical movie set," added the producer. "The TV show is incredibly entertaining, but it's not reality. You never see our triumphs."

For Jones, 32, the irony is that strangers across the nation now feel bad for him.

"The weirdest thing for me is to have people come up to me and feel sorry for me, after getting the opportunity of a lifetime," said the director-writer. "I should be talking to people about how much fun I had and how amazed I am that I got paid to be a part of this."

With his down-to-earth, Hollywood-guy-in-the-making attitude (sort of like a wizened frat boy), Balis hardly shows his Tampa roots. Raised in the Temple Terrace area, he graduated from Berkeley Prep in 1993 and headed to Harvard, where he majored in visual and environmental studies.

But his passion for films began in Tampa. Since Jones' grandparents are also based in Tampa, both he and Balis are hoping Miramax gets Stolen Summer into a local theater.

"My mom was very scared," said Balis, whose parents, Gene and Leslie Balis, still live in Tampa. "Before she'd seen the show, I told her about it, and she didn't tell any of her friends. By the end of it, she's yelling at her friends (for not watching)."

When it comes to high-volume discussion, however, nobody does it better on Project Greenlight than producer Chris Moore (American Pie, Good Will Hunting). An experienced filmmaker, Moore comes off in Greenlight as the only guy in the production with a firm grip on the process. (Curiously, he's also the only guy in the production who has a voice in the development of both the TV show and the film.)

Whether in Chicago or Los Angeles, Moore heaps criticism on Peach, Jones and particularly right-hand man Balis. His pungent observations are such a signature that Live Planet has sponsored a contest to find the best Chris Moore impersonation.

"Well, me getting (yelled at) on camera, that's in the brochure. . . . Chris and I have an incendiary relationship, (and) we tend to get each other worked up," said Balis, nursing a collarbone broken while snowboarding last month at the Sundance Festival in Utah. "I knew going into this it wasn't going to come out all rosy."

Still, the producer admitted underestimating the effect Greenlight's cameras would have on the production.

"I didn't want to get caught yelling at someone on camera. . . . With the camera there, anything you say could be taken (badly)," Balis noted. "What I didn't realize is that, because I was never on camera yelling at anyone, they found a bigger character arc for me: I never stand up for anything."

The presence of the cameras brings another suspicion: that Live Planet, Miramax or HBO might have planned some circumstances to ensure they got a contentious, TV-ready documentary.

By any measure, Stolen Summer would have been an ambitious project. Set in '70s-era Chicago, it tells the story of a 7-year-old Irish Catholic boy who wants to help his best friend, who is Jewish, get into heaven. Making the film involved child actors (who work limited hours and may have a tougher time nailing scenes) and recreating 1970s Chi-town on a shoestring budget.

Some might say pairing first-time producer Balis with first-time director Jones in a movie with this many hurdles was a recipe for disaster -- a thought that crossed Balis' mind as Moore was firing him from the movie.

As is outlined in episode eight, Moore decided to pull Balis off because of his conflicts with Peach and his perceived failure to keep Moore informed about on-set mistakes.

But Balis said he also had conflicts with the documentary's production crew over his reluctance to fire someone on camera. Because the documentary never refers to itself in the show, those meetings were not included in Greenlight's episodes.

So Balis couldn't help wondering exactly why Moore was pulling him off the project. (He was hired back the next day, after Moore cooled down.)

"When I got the call to come out, the movie was on schedule, on budget, the actors were happy and the crew was happy," Balis said. "I would be lying to say I didn't have the suspicion (that TV influenced the decision). But I honestly didn't believe that was the case at the time."

Indeed, little in the Stolen Summer production escaped Greenlight's tough eye: Quinn is shown as a nitpicky Method actor (he asks Jones if his character ever went to Vietnam, though it never appears in the movie); Hunt is shown fretting over whether the movie's raw look will make her appear older onscreen; director of photography Pete Biagi is shown jiggling a camera during one shot to make sure the footage isn't used.

Jones, who sometimes comes off on TV as whiny and egocentric, knows that all this protesting sounds like an attempt to salvage the movie with spin. After all, they did say all those things.

"I've seen people from reality TV shows who say they were misquoted, and I never used to believe those people, either," he said. "But I've had a chance to speak to some high schools and colleges, where students who were excited about having a career in film have been turned off. You're not getting the full illustration of how much fun it is to make a movie."

Balis sees a silver lining in all the negativity. "It's lowered expectations tremendously," he said. "People are like, "Oh my God, it's going to be a train wreck.' It's built a buzz among people who want to watch the car accident . . . and they'll see it's a good movie."

That's what Balis and Jones said happened at the Sundance Festival, where notables such as Chicago Sun Times movie critic Roger Ebert pronounced Stolen Summer a success.

Currently, the film is slated for a March 22 release in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. If all goes well, Miramax will give the movie a wider release in smaller cities.

Already, Greenlight's impact seemed to have helped those involved. Jones is working on his next script with help from Balis, who has started his own production company, Wisenheimer Films. (He soon expects to start shooting a film by a screenwriter from Bradenton, Rob McKittrick.)

HBO, Miramax and Live Planet, emboldened by the success of Greenlight, are expected to announce a sequel later this year.

Would Balis sign on for another go-round?

"I have to make that decision, and they have to make that decision," said the producer. "I don't know if they want a whole new cast. And I have to decide if I want to be shown making the same mistakes again."

AT A GLANCE: Project Greenlight concludes at 9:30 tonight on HBO.

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