I like the first Urban Legend. And I figured that it probably should be left at that. So you can imagine hoiw intensely skeptical I was of this sequel. Well, now that I've seen the ending (I work at a movie theatre where this is playing), I find that I may watch the rest of the movie after all!
If you've seen both these movies, you know what I'm talking about. >:-)
The ending justifyed the entire rest of the movie. I sure wasn't expecting that. Also I liked all of the film student stuff, because I will be studying film at GA state in the fall.
I recently rewatched this film agian. Now that I am a film student I noticed more of what they got right and what they got wrong in that respect.
In the opening scene they are shooting with a CP16 camera; the same kind of camera that they shot The Blair Witch Project with and an old film school standby; I've got a project comming up where I'm going to use one. I real nice and rugged camera, no problem there. When Amy is shooting her film they are using a Bolex camera, also a film school standby. The problem is they are slating to record sync sound, they even call "speed" meaning that the camera is shooting at excatly 24 frames per second (VERY important when shooting sounds from an external recorder) but that type of bolex is a windup camera. You can set it for 24fps but it is not accurate enough to do sync recording like that and without a crystal sync motor you don't have any indicator that it is rolling at speed, no point in calling speed and in fact no way of knowing if you are at speed. They do make crystal sync motor ad-ons for bolex windups but that camera does not have one, they are easy to spot as they are nearly the same size as the camera itself. To sum it up you could not shoot sync sound with that camera (meaning the clapper, calling "take 21" and all for sync with a sound recorder later.) She could still be using that kind of camera to shoot some of her movie but that would be for parts that don't have any sound recorded on set. She should be using the CP16 that Toby was using for sync work. If she was using the Bolex for that scene she should know that she has to post dub the scene in editing.
In that same scene they have a gag about her calling take 21 or some other high number, making fun of her bimbo actress' inability to scream convincingly. The problem is that no film student would shoot 21 takes of a single scene like that. 16mm color film is expensive and there is no way she would waste that much for one shot no matter how important. That's one of the reasons the acting in student films usually sucks
1. you're using people who will do it for free
2. you can't do many retakes
SPOILER ALERT***********
Professor Solomon says that he hates Amy because her dad broke the faculty tie between him and another student for the Alfred Hitchcock award and because the other guy won Solomon didn't get a career in Hollywood and has been stuck and the university ever since. While grad students who have big plans and never follow through and end up sliding into teaching for the rest of their lives do happen the idea that one award like the would make the diference is rediculous if his film was so good it took an outsider to break the tie. The great thing about student films is that when it's all over you get your film and can submit it to festivals, agents and producers. If his film was that good (and if the faculty couldn't decide between him and 1 other for the prize) her could have used that to get into Hollywood almost as easely as some film-school award. It's just like that old standby where a character is trying to get a sports schollership and it all comes down to the game point in the big game, usually aginst another good player. If the guy's that good he'd get on on his ability all season not game point of the big game. Same thing here.
END SPOILER************
Not a nit but this movie breaks one of the rules that we learned in school, and they have the time and money to do better. Unless you are using really famous actors you want ways for the audience to quickly tell them appart. Several of the guys in the film (Matthew Davis, Joseph Lawrence, Anson Mount) are pretty boys with dark hair who wear dark cloths. On first viewing it makes them hard to tell appart. For example in Scream Wes Craven had dark haired Rose McGowan dye her hair blond and dressed her in bright cloths to contrast her with dark haired Nev Campbell who was dressed in darker cloths.
The first movie was way better.
At least it was based on actual urban legends.