Raiders Of The Lost Art Of Filmmaking

We've all seen a bad movie and thought, "I could do better." But imagine the kind of person who sees a good movie and says the same thing. Especially if he hasn't yet hit his teen years.

Eric Zala was ten years old when he decided to remake Raiders of the Lost Ark. Shot for shot, costume for costume, stunt for stunt, Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and Chris Strompolis remade Raiders of the Lost Ark on a completely nonexistant budget. It took seven years, but they did it. Betamax, VHS, low light, no light, they did it all. He finished the project, passed around a few tapes, and mostly forgot about it.

Hard work and determination like that rarely goes without notice, and so fate intervened and Harry Knowles ends up with a copy of the tape. The rest is history in the making.

How will Spielberg react? He is reported to be "astonished at the ingenuity and imagination," but lawyers tend to overlook imagination in favor of enforcing intellectual property laws. As much as I'd like to see this on DVD, I suspect this will go the way of The Phantom Edit, available only in backrooms in dirty deals from people who haven't bathed in months.

Article Author: Phillip Winn

Phillip Winn is the Chief Geek for Blogcritics, and a blogger since 1995. He may currently be found and followed as @pwinn on Twitter.

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