?

Bullying in schools not just on line is still rampant. Kids in Grade nine dont have to be the target audience. The people that lived in that era are also the ones that have the money to spend now.

I think that's everyone's favorite along with The Fall. Man Akash was hilarious in "BAD FRIEND" and the fall was just so hysterical l it made me laugh for minutes.

I didn't see it. Care to share what you interpreted as harsh?

Glad you think so! We did do our homework on the other teams, I hope people understand the reference to the Granger Bros past works! They are some really fun dudes :P

Hey Kerri! The mission statement asked us to tribute, parody, or throw down a challenge for each of the 9 teams. Obviously we didn't want to challenge everybody because again we don't really like to be critical of the other teams' works, only they know their projects best and have the right vision. We really have been impressed by all of them, as are many of the fans, which is why they made it into the top 10. I really wouldn't want people thinking that we attacked grade nine, please let it be known that we LOVE their project, we just decided to give feed back where we could. Seeing how we are recent high school graduates, we thought we could present a perspective we feel hasn't had much of a voice, we really didn't intend to attack them at all :(. Mr. Rathore gave a nice response to our challenge and I'm glad they have received our feedback well which led to a discussion on the issues we brought up and I think that is exactly what this mission was for.

Trust me we had a tribute in store for them too haha, but again given that this is a great opportunity to directly give some peer-to-peer feedback, we thought we lend some insight to how we've felt as recent graduates to some of their content.

We REALLY did not intend a low blow, honestly we hate playing dirty it's really not our style. Again we were geeks in high school so that's why we feel so strongly on the subject of bullying, and we would never want to bully any of the other teams, even if they are twice our age haha. Personally we don't care too much for the 80s vibe because it's definitely something that we've seen in many different forms (Freaks and Geeks is one of our favourite shows haha, and there's actually an episode where one of the "Freaks" (James Franco) joins the Geeks in playing D&D, and one of the Geeks learns to be more like a Freak), and also there was a whole bunch of movies from that actual decade, like Ferris Bueller's Day Off or The Breakfast Club (basically anything John Hughes haha); sometimes the best nostalgia comes from watching films from the decade itself. Though there is nothing too wrong with overdone styles of films, because the reason they are overdone is because they are so appealing! As younger people we yearn to see ourselves in films that deal with teenage issues (like Perks of Being a Wallflower), so automatically that becomes more important to us than which decade it takes place in, just as long as we can feel a connection. We just wanted to bring up the fact that there is a slight disconnect for us (not a full disconnect, bullying is bullying no matter what form it is done in. Toby gave some great insight below which cleared some things up). But that being said, that's just us, we just thought we'd bring it up because that's our unique perspective. There is a huge audience for their film, we only represent one age group of it so I'm sure they'll have no problem reaching out to many different groups. Jay, Toby, and Seth know we love their project, it's because we love watching movies about high school that we wanted to just get our voice out there to feel safe that our generation will be covered too :P.

As a final comment on what you brought up, I would want the style of our showcase video for grade nine to reflect how much attention we actually pay to their project, and care to see it become even more fleshed out from peer-to-peer feedback, not a direct hit. I think people chose to take it the wrong way because this is technically a competition, however all the filmmakers from every teams agree that we are all winners at this point, so there's no point to try and tank each other because all of our films show promise, and the only way to get further is to focus more on our OWN content rather than attacking the others haha.

Also I love your detailed insight to all the projects Kerri, fans like you really make our experience incredibly more interactive and pleasant! :)

Please tell me how they "Blatantly attacked" grade nine?

Team Uprising didn't really focus on it in their video, but for me, the real issue with Grade Nine is that it is much too similar to Freaks and Geeks (suspiciously similar, if you ask me). The plot of their movie, as it is presented in the trailer, mirrors the Freaks and Geeks episode "Discos and Dragons". Moreover, they are both set in the 80's. Even if the imitation was unintentional, that wouldn't change the fact that it's been done before.

I see people criticizing Uprising because their protagonist's costume looks like "Arrow". However, I personally think replicating the plot, characters, decade, and aesthetic of a copyrighted cult classic is much more severe.

They never intended to be negative and discerning. The intent of the mission was to critique others projects. They never said that the physical bullying was irrelevant but rather less of an issue than cyber bullying in today's society.

Thank you so much Roger, we really appreciate that :)

Yeah we heard them mention in one of their videos that they want to tackle the theme of bullying, but cyber bullying is just so much more sever in today's world, I think they'll get the best impact on today's students if they went with that. But they made it clear to us in a response to our challenge that they are really targeting an older audience. We wish them good luck with whatever approach they take!

Hahaha Yeah while filming I kept bugging Zach he sounded like a leprechaun :P. Though we've encountered people will irish sounding Canadian accents before so it still works!

err...if I remember correctly the internet was not prevalent in 1989!

Great job from your team with this mission as well!

Glad you appreciate the humour! All in good fun :)

Yes, unfortunately we don't have control over the placement ABOVE the videos, however, we should mention that the descriptions are written as so because the biggest thing that stuck out to us in CineCoup's mission write up this week was to give feedback!

Now, I can definitely see how the descriptions can come off wrong, but our intent with this mission was to give feedback in a creative way - we didn't mean to say "hey we like your project but this part is bad" - our intention was to give feedback where we could find it, as both the mission video AND write up asked for it. We LOVE every single top ten project, as well as a lot of the other projects from earlier on in the competition, however we just gave feedback where we could find it - and trust me, we had to look really hard for it because all these projects are so well constructed!!

I hope this clears things up a little for you and others who felt like we might've been looking to cut down other teams, but we're definitely glad to still have your support!

Ah it's alright Allen! To each his own, right? I'm a pretty judgemental moviegoer myself haha, but it's always nice to be surprised with the final product. Cheers!

Right back at you Allen!!

Haha we'd love to grab a drink with you Jason! Thanks so much! Love i90!

Anytime you're in Edmonton let us know and we'll get a pint! I really enjoy what you have going on at i90, keep it coming! Lets all hope for Banff, cheers Jason!

Hey we figure everyone is entitled to say what they wanna say, so we're not complaining! Thanks for your support!

Thanks Laurel! Had fun pulling a Forrest Gump :P

I think by now we are used to it Donal haha, we hugely appreciate the respect you've shown for not only our team, but the other teams as well. Glad to see you on that Superfan leader board my friend :)

Ironic to be criticizing for maturity in the same sentence that you blindly, negatively, and incorrectly generalize a large and diverse fanbase, is it not?

Interesting theory, Allen T, but do note that the top Superfan leaders have enthusiastically embraced Uprising throughout this competition.

Alright you asked for it, so here it goes:

...wait, i can't even dignify this comment with a direct response...nevermind.

Also I just researched the costs these guys might be facing, and they aren't as bad as you think. Check yourself, before you wreck yourself.

Hey! I'm 30 something and I think this is the winner! Obviously you haven't paid attention to this team. I encourage you to review all the missions closely and revise your comments.

Hi, I'm a buddy of Akash's and I'd like you to know I'm voting for these guys every mission because I think what they are doing is amazing for their age. I'm also an employed uncouth youth. You mad?

Interesting how you're making cheap shots on issues that the team has already addressed. Maybe you should research before you make some snap judgmental accusations. I also find it interesting how this doesn't have anything to do with the mission at all.

If you had paid any attention to previous missions, you would have seen that they previously addressed the inspiration behind the protagonist's costume - Robin Hood. This happens to be the same inspiration this so-called "Arrow" character was drawn from (I had never heard of the show until now). The Legend of Robin Hood is not copyrighted and has served as inspiration for numerous successful works.

By the way, only the costume is similar to your beloved Arrow. Did you not think for one second that the true essence of a character is embodied by his actions, personality and circumstances, not just by what he wears? If a costume is enough for you to feel like an entire movie is a "rip off", then I guess the Dementors in Harry Potter were a total rip off of any other cloaked figure ever shown in a film, right (e.g. Ringwraiths in LOTR)?

I'm sure Team Uprising would appreciate your feedback. Unfortunately Allen, you have delivered your feedback in such a rude and childish way. Very disappointing.

Hi Allen! I invite criticism and constructive feedback, and would love to discuss it further because our biggest aim is to make a movie people would want to see.

You've spoken very strongly on the subject of originality. I won't deny any similarities, some that were flukes however, but I give you my word our story is original, otherwise I wouldn't have written it. If you find that hard to believe, think of how we made it into the top 10 which was selected by Cinecoup. They've read the script and they know it's original. I'm someone who has seen next to every movie, and although I draw certain inspiration and utilize intertextuality, nothing is copied or unoriginal. I am not a fan of stories that copy others (like Hunger Games copying Battle Royale), which is why I invite you to know the full story, if I could arrange that would that interest you? Because we are now signed with Cinecoup I'm not sure if you could read the script, but maybe we could just email you a full synopsis. Our email is lonelytomproductions@gmail.com! Please get in touch before you make anymore remarks of that nature. Also we based our costume off Robin Hood not Arrow, ours has a more medieval design if you look closely, the similarity lies in the fact that Arrow too based their costume on Robin Hood, but you can't really copyright a legend and therein lies the homage.

Give us a chance Allen, get in touch with us either via email and Facebook and we'll give you a more personal and in depth look at Uprising if you wish. Also you seem to have great taste with some of the titles you listed above! :)

And I'm the only unemployed one out of my friends :P! I quit my job at Futureshop earlier this year to focus more on our film thing haha (also I hate being a commission salesman). We're grateful for our success in our past missions, and although our immediate fan base helps a bunch, a lot of that is due to unique supporters we do not know. It has actually been very powerful for us to expand and interact with a greater community of film lovers!

Thanks June, we really appreciate your support! :)

I'm glad you appreciate the creativity Don! As we said we recognize some of the stuff we put out with this mission as goofy and we don't see it as a reflection of us as filmmakers, but rather our feelings towards being able to have fun while being competitive.

Lack of maturity? They spoke their minds that's the most mature thing anyone has done. Also look how they respond to the unjustified criticism they get. Go to alien abduction's page and look at Matty G. reply to people, he's like 40 but sounds like a kid. Mr. Sherman here is polite and shows decency. Also check out SCAM's tribute to Uprising, as funny as it was, who is more immature?

Discrimination comes in many forms, in this case it's about age. They fine young MEN have already proven themselves.

If you read the disclaimer. It will help you understand.

Where is this obvious lack of maturity? As a middle aged person I don't agree. Example please?

These guys are some of the most mature filmmakers, are you kidding me? Like the other guy said, SCAM's guys were naked, and i'll add that wolfcop took blatant hits, mill and the mountain took cheap shots, grade nine wasnt that original doing music videos, so why pick on these guys??? Oh wait, you're biased, my bad.

I do not like that you qualify them as lacking maturity because they have chosen to speak their minds and be honest. Most of the teams made gag videos, it seems you are just targeting this team because of their age. This comes across as very discriminatory.

In my opinion, they are one of the few teams that has consistently lived up to CineCoup's motto "Be Bold".

They are way too good of filmmakers for youtube!

Hi Roger! I'm sorry you feel that way, I'll do my best to perhaps clarify on a few details. In all honesty we did start out doing youtube videos, as many younger filmmakers in this new digital era has. In response to your reply below, all of our content released isn't exactly final. As we signed the option agreement with Cinecoup, they intend to help find a development outlet for our project. The visual effects you see in our videos are done by me, I do know they are not perfect, but should our film get made, there's a HUGE chance we'll have a team of adept visual effects artists. That's where part of our budget will go, and getting that financial backing is precisely why we are competing in Cinecoup. This goes for all teams and not just ours, I encourage you to take that into consideration whilst critiquing their content because the reason why we are in the film accelerator is to gain that backing to achieve a better quality with our finished product.

As the writer, I promise you that we strived to create an original story, otherwise I wouldn't want to make a movie because what satisfies me is originality. I do agree there are familiarities with certain other fictional universes, but Uprising will definitely surprise you. I had a great time writing the screenplay, and I'll be honest our trailers don't do it justice at all, but that's only because our original concept trailer was just a proposal, our story has grown so much since then. It's more about our characters now instead of the revolution.

As a final comment pertaining to us being past youtube filmmakers, yes we have that capability but we left all that for a reason. A couple years ago something happened that really pushed us to shape ourselves into better storytellers. In 2011, my grandfather passed away the same week I was assigned my final video project in my Video 30 class in high school. I took those feelings of loss for a loved one and wrote serious script for a short film, not a skit or parody that we were used to. I became so attached to making this short film personal, and investing myself in it, I read countless books on filmmaking, watched many tutorials on lighting and editing, and with Timothy and Zach on board, we made "For Them, For You". Originally a school project, it went on to gain an Official Selection at the Edmonton International Film Festival, and we won Best Narrative and Best of Fest at the Future of Cinema Film Fest in Michigan. Right then, we had made to transition from youtube videos to legitimate film and art. It was a very profound moment in my life and I used it to propel my passion for film. Ever since, we've pushed ourselves to develop out skills in many areas in filmmaking to achieve a higher quality of storytelling. The progress is apparent in a more recent short film of ours, "A Teaching Game" (you can watch the trailer online!), and now we are tackling a feature, Uprising. I know we aren't professional filmmakers by the standard of many, but we are filmmakers. I really do believe we are passed the youtube days, and we want to set our sights bigger :)

Thanks for the comment Roger, I hope I was able to clear some things up.

Roger - curious, do you make films?

No.

Thanks for your last comment Roger! However we are huge fans of Canadian film, love just about anything by Cronenburg, Sarah Polley, Atom Egoyan, Michael Dowse, and many more. Watching movies is the best way to research them! :P And again by being apart of film festivals we've been exposed to a variety of Canadian films of different genres and lengths.

I strongly believe this project can get made in some form or another, even if I'm not directing or producing it, because it has been well received in the industry so far. Again, the film accelerator is more about the film and idea itself, rather than it turning us into filmmakers. As you said yourself we did a great job of branding it, this competition is a mix the art of film and being an entrepreneur. One thing I would really like to see come out of Canada is a film franchise (a widely recognized one too!). New Zealand has Lord of the Rings, it would be so nice for Canada to get that too! Uprising is definitely made for franchising my friend :)

We had a lot of fun with this mission, we didn't want to take it too seriously because I think at this point we don't really feel like we are competing against the other teams, but instead we are all winners for making it this far. We struggled with which approach to take to this mission, we actually started off with all parodies praising the other films (because there truly is a lot of goodwill towards them), but as we read the mission statement more closely, it said to take this as an opportunity to give peer-to-peer feedback. We thought that tackling this in a joking manner would probably be the best route because we don't want to tell the other filmmakers how to make their own film as only they hold the vision for their projects. With that being said, we also wanted to follow the mission statement. I think we found a good line (maybe pushed a few boundaries) between humour, praise, and constructive feedback.

I really sincerely appreciate your honesty Kerri, I do hope your perspective on us hasn't shifted too much. I think the fact that we put a lot of work into making a variety of videos for the other teams, each unique in their own way, shows that we know and care about their projects as well, but also says that we aren't too afraid to speak our minds either!

I didn't see that much disrespect :( I dont think you should think badly of them! I mean the alien abduction, BAD, i90, and The Fall were all decent tributes and parodies, mostly giving praise, there was no bad taste there. The others contained a little more criticism, but nothing too wild, after all this is a competition right? I think these boys were brave to have been more outspoken rather than doing a song like all the other teams.

I'm glad you enjoyed some of them, but I assure you Mital we do have mounds of respect for the other filmmakers! We just decided to be a little more bold with this mission and stir the pot a little bit more, rather than just make a series of music videos (which we enjoyed seeing from the other teams, it was just too common of a trend). Each of parodies/tributes/challenges are specific to the films we talk about in the videos, carefully thought out so we can include comedy yet also deliver some feedback (sometimes more implicitly than other times) on certain weak spots we believe are present in the other films. On top of that, we also do pay tribute to some of their strengths! I hope that clears things up Mital, we really appreciate your comment :)

Don't hate the player, hate the game! And by that I mean these guys just followed the mission statement and made this a showdown, aint no disrespect here!

Satire is something we do best! Great feedback as always Donal, thank you for all your support!

Thanks so much Donal! We do respect all the other filmmakers in the project, however we did take this opportunity to implicitly and explicitly say some thing we thought needed to be said.

I did read the disclaimer. It was the first thing I read actually. In my opinion, they came across as wise guys.

It was all in good fun Joe! I'm sure you'll recognize the same spirit in many of the other videos from other teams, I apologize if you felt we came off as insulting. We have a large amount of respect for the other teams :)

Are you actually serious right now? These guys ARE the spirit of the competition...I will enlighten you.

When this competition started, Cinecoup asked independent filmmakers, EIGHTEEN OR OLDER, to come up with a BRAVE and BOLD idea to develop and package. These boys are 18 and 19 years old from Edmonton, Alberta and they are competing against filmmakers who are way older (some twice their age) and probably more experienced than them (bolstered by living in Vancouver/Toronto), AND THEY KEEP ON PUSHING. Their idea is incredibly bold, it's not so neutral like some of the other films that made it into the top 10. They are the definition of the underdog. With their lack of financing and equipment AND extra hands, they are putting up the biggest fight, and their work progressively gets BETTER AND BETTER. When you were 18 did you ever have that much talent, ambition, and drive? Probably not because frankly I don't know you are, but I know who they are, they've been on the news countless times, have won fan pick 4 times of 8 missions, they respond to both positive and negative feedback well, and are straight up killing it in this competition. Now on the note that their young, it doesn't mean we should automatically have sympathy for them and go "easy" on them, but you know what? They may not have a RED camera or tons of crew from the industry, but their quality is INCREDIBLE. I mean just check out their last Spin Off mission!!! Or their speechless mission, or their off the wall mission, or their cheap tricks, etc.

I will say this again for you sir so you'll be sure to understand, they REPRESENT the spirit of this competition...I know it, the top superfan above knows it, MOST people know it, and Cinecoup knows it.

Apparently you do not, and sir you are WRONG. If what you said above my essay of comment is true, then they would not have made it this far, both my voting rounds and jury chosen rounds. They made it here be cause their film looks incredible, people love them, they are young energetic filmmakers, their content NEVER disappoints (its always either 1st or 2nd in fan ratings), their bold, they have attitude (not the kind you described), and they are brave.

'Nuff Said. To team Uprising, keep it up prove this imbecile wrong.

In regard to your reply down below, this comment is very misleading as to how you feel about this team. Without having seen your other comments, I think it was logical for the fellow below to assume you were a hater (I too felt he was out of line, but he made some good points).

I really don't think this mission demeans the competition at all, I think they rocked it once again :P

Wow Joe you have no Idea. I've watched a majority of all the showcase showdowns and team uprising was the least offenisive team that gave feedback. I'm not sure if your purposely trying to start a little flame war on the internet but if you want to see something more insulting check out SCAM's showcase showndown. Even though they were rough on the other teams they are still respected.

We did have a ton of fun! Thanks Jolene

I don't think the point of this mission was for the teams to go on each others' pages to justify/defend themselves..

Hey Jay!!

Glad to hear your response, and I'm sure a lot of that is justified in the full-length film which I'd love to see! :)

Great work all the way!

Soooo not the place for this.

"This is a direct response to a direct challenge."

Then it would be great to address in your next mission or a Facebook post. Uprising's page is not the place for it. When visiting projects' pages, I'm sure people don't want to see other projects trying to sell themselves, it's super tacky haha - stick to your own page!

Please do whatever you'd like with it (with credit of course!) We love your project and think you're doing an incredible job Glad you like what we've done with your content and best of luck :)

Thanks Joslyn!!

We'll leave that up to you guys :P

Haha I'm glad to hear that! Their film looks great!

Your welcome, we had SO much fun making them!

You guys are awesome man!

Thanks Matty, the Alien Abduction tribute was definitely my favorite to film!

Thanks man! Haha we're really hoping everyone else gets the reference we're making!

Thanks Frances! :)

Their film is so good!! haha

Thanks for the feedback Michelle! It's interesting to see how the other teams made their videos too, I see most of us took it as a chance to laugh at each other and ourselves. To be completely honest, we don't have much critical feedback for the other teams because at this point, we would love to see all their films get made in some form or another, so we weren't so huge on being too aggressive. We thought that we'd make the videos more fun, and the descriptions kind of the black and white version of our feedback, so that way you get both :)

They have no control over where the disclaimer goes.

Thanks so much Lindsey!

Thanks Lindsey! :)

Thanks Allan! Love your film :)