Fire and loathing in Las Vegas
Bad Ideas from the Big Wide #002
It’s Monday, time for the second in our Bad Ideas from the Big Wide series, where we come up with the bad ideas so you can come up with the better ones.
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FIRE AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
Following young upstarts as they pass through the Las Vegas Fire Academy and into their first few months on the job fighting fires up and down the strip.
💰💰💰 Huge Netflix crew on location for a year. Extremely earnest. DOP’s shooting round the clock, visually infused with the spirit of Fear and Loathing, telling heartfelt stories that ultimately give us a portrait of modern day Vegas. Viewership - minimal. (See also: Firechasers),
💰💰 Classic British ob doc crew on location in Las Vegas for three months. Commissioned before any access officially granted. PD stays behind post shoot after marrying a firefighter, crew goes missing on the strip for multiple days at a time. 1,375 non-reusable bottles of water drunk, every major incident missed as crew and firefighter shifts don’t match up.
💰 TikTok series shot by the firefighters themselves. Generates millions of views and the firefighters become minor celebrities. One quits to enter Love Island USA. Ultimately cancelled and all videos deleted after a minor scandal involving one of the PR team liking unsavoury content on the official TikTok.
TIDBITS
Open AI have come a little closer to allowing every execs vision to be executed exactly as they wanted, whether the footage matches it or not. How? Their new text to video AI called Sora that launched last week. Have a read of our AI for history docs article about some considerations for this and then take a look at their clip of the gold rush to see how effective this could be.
And the Hollywood jobs most at risk from AI (Hollywood Reporter). “At the forefront of the displacement: sound engineers, voice actors, concept artists and employees in entry-level positions, according to the study. Visual effects and other postproduction work stands particularly vulnerable.”
An interesting read about the edit of Netflix’s Beckham.
Faffing around with large gimbals sat on the floor shaking is soon to be a thing of the past if the Osmo Pocket 3 is everything it claims to be.
Political editor of The Sun Harry Cole revealed how they’re producing video content for all their stories, and how 95% of their readers want to consume their political news in a 45 second video as opposed to reading (via Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future podcast)
Behind the scenes of the fast turnaround VFX on Mr Beast’s (original) real life version of Squid Game. 👇
CREWING UP, FROM THE GRAPEVINE 🍇
Blink Films are crewing up for a series that tells the “stories surrounding some of the most mysterious and fascinating objects ever found or created”
Atlantic Productions are crewing up for a worldwide adventure series
Firecracker are filming a new doc series set in a maternity unit near Basildon.
Electric Robin are looking for ‘TikTok native’ runners to shoot, edit and strategise sports content for TikTok (sounds like they actually want at least an AP to us).
Raw Cut’s Police Interceptors is getting back on the road in Northamptonshire from March.
The South Bank centre is looking for someone to help them ‘seek out and build partnerships with broadcasters, streaming platforms and technology partners to take newly generated content to wider audiences and to find models for funding and supporting digital projects.’
Box to Box have two new sports projects in the works (what’s left to make…?)
Fulwell 73 are filming a show “like Love Island, Too Hot To Handle, Mamma Mia and BGT” in Europe this summer.
That’s it for Monday, if you’ve been forwarded this and haven’t yet subscribed click the pink button below.
Later this week we have an article about the video games to unscripted pipeline. Drama has one. Film has one. Why isn’t there one for docs?
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