Document your Alien Incidents with an HD Camera & Filmmaker Inspiration

Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson pushed the limits of story-telling and filmmaking with the hand-held style and documentary point-of-view of ‘District 9′.  A vision which began with Blomkamp’s short film ‘Alive in Joburg.’ No doubt that you have a few stories to tell and MovieSet wants to help share your vision with an audience.

Enter for a chance to win one of two HD camcorders to capture your cinematic ideas. Perhaps you’ve got a mad-cap spy caper in mind? Or maybe aliens are invading your backyard? Whatever the plot, win the camcorder, hit “record” and upload to your MovieSet sitelet. Humans and Non-Humans are both encouraged to enter.

Austin Lugar
for MovieSet.com

I already fear that writing a review for District 9 will be like writing a review for The Dark Knight. Everything that has been said has already been said and will be said again several times. If this movie isn’t going to be insanely popular, I’m officially out of touch with society. (Of course that may have already been proven with ALL OF MY FAVORITE TV SHOWS GETTING CANCELED. No, I’m not bitter.)

District 9 is the story about a big ‘ole spaceship hovering over Johannesburg and how we treated the aliens that were on board. The premise is rather ingenious. Surely the creator had to have heard the phrase “illegal aliens” one too many times on the news and thought, “What if they were actual aliens?” So after almost thirty years in this controlled society, a private company named Multi-National United (MNU) is planning the eviction of the aliens from District 9 to an even smaller slum. Yet, of course, it doesn’t go according to plan but not in the way you would think.

What I found the most impressive about this movie is that it’s masterfully constructed. There is not a wasted moment in this very concise thriller that is bold in many aspects. For what is technically a summer action movie, there are a lot of scenes of emotional and political dialog. Yet the gutsiest thing is easily the fact that all of mankind is perceived as rather vile creatures. Even our protagonist, Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlot Copley), spends majority of the first act saying inhumane things with a goofy smile on his face. There are key scenes when I realized I was perfectly okay if Wikus died in some of the action scenes and then in others I sympathized with him. This is not a fault of the movie, but praise.

The movie is preachy, but it doesn’t have condescending sermons. It is very evident what the movie is trying to say about the immigration situation but by having this pseudo-documentary format it is able to be distant from its characters. This allows the audience to decide certain things about the characters. Not whether their actions are right or wrong—For it’s only wrong—but more of how wrong were they. Are some of their poor decisions excusable or even defendable?

Another way the film brings home its message is through the violence. This is a gory movie at times. Several members of my party turned away at gross images and bloody explosions. The movie handled that exactly right. If you want the violence to matter, make it horrifying. The whole film is quite the achievement and is made even greater by the fact that everyone involved are technically amateurs. This is almost everyone’s first feature length film and I know I’m not alone in wondering and anticipating what the director, Neill Blomkamp, and Copley are going to do next. For this is one hell of a debut.

More from District 9

The MovieSet Review of ‘District 9′

‘District 9′ – Scene Selection Review

Comic-Con Content from Sony features Cataclysmic Events and Extraterrestrials Refugees

“Alive in Joburg” short film; Basis for District 9

The Anxiety Rises in District 9 – Full Trailer Released + News

Peter Jackson Presents a film by Neil Blompkamp – District 9

• Summary
• Cast & Crew
• Videos (9 videos)
• Stills (18 photos)
• News
• D-9 Official Site

From the Official District 9 Website here is the:

Synopsis: Thirty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa’s District 9 as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them.

Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. Control over the aliens has been contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens’ welfare – they will receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens’ awesome weaponry work. So far, they have failed; activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA.

The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA.

Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable – he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.

Check out the Official Trailer:

In my Opinion, with names like Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp you can absolutely expect a pioneer extraterrestrial film.

Nothing can compare to the anxiety that I feel after watching this trailer. The riveting footage in the trailer really gives us a peak at what an alien invasion or an attempt to have co-existence with an alien race would be like in the 21st century.

The Viral campaign for District 9 came out of no-where for Sci-Fi Fans like myself, their slow spread viral campaign really enticed some mystery and really made the audience wonder what was going on. It was unreal to see the trailer done with a total sense of originality as well as just revealing the right amount of footage to create the utmost hype.

Watch the Disctrict 9 New Trailer (Above) and tell us what you think. This will be a powerful film exploring some almost scarily realistic problems that would present themselves if earth ever tried to co-exist with an alien race and I personally believe that this will be an overall great Summer Thrill Ride.

Interview and Comparison to other Alien/Extraterrestrial Films and More

Filming an original major motion picture in the sci-fi genre with a budget of only $30 million seems like an effort in futility in this day and age.
Today’s moviegoers are more sophisticated than ever and so is the technology — James Cameron’s Avatar is rumored to have a budget in excess of $200 million.

So, how do you produce a film for that budget and manage to get people to see it? Enter producer Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp. Shot “guerilla style” with a variety of cost-effective film techniques, District 9 has also benefited from an immersive viral website.

With a similar budget and marketing campaign, comparisons to last year’s Cloverfield were inevitable. However, Jackson says that is where the similarities end.

“It’s not somebody running around with a camera, filming everything. We have a mixture of documentary and dramatized scenes.”

Read the full article here.

Peter Jackson presents a film by Neil Blomkamp, the acclaimed director of Stargate SG-1, Dark Angel and Smallville.

It’s called District 9.

It entails an extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.

We don’t know a lot more about the movie, not much information has been released world wide but this summer is looking like a total Blockbuster battle and this film is coming way over the top with its Viral Style Mysteriousness.

The team from MovieSet is extremely exited about this film and we will bring you the latest on Disctrict 9 for you Sci Fans.

Until then, Give the Trailer a Whirl and make sure you check out the Official Site!

Support Non-Human Rights!