Clocking up over 12K views and selected for the much coveted Vimeo Staff Picks in the first 24 hours of its release, Ryan Koo’s Amateur looks to be a hot property in the world of online video at the moment. For the few of you out there unfamiliar with Koo’s work; as well as being one half of the creative duo behind one of our favourite web series’ The West Side, he’s also the founder of DIY filmmaking site and essential resource nofilmschool.
Raising over $125k on Kickstarter for his feature film Manchild (none of which was spent on the creation of this short), Koo created Amateur as the “lead-in short film” to that feature, hoping to raise greater awareness and support for his lengthier project, whilst also showing exactly what he is capable of.
Dialogue-heavy and character-based, with a truly outstanding lead performance from Curtiss Cook Jr, Amateur’s measured pace won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. This is filmmaking that requires your undivided attention if you’re to fully reap the rewards. Cleverly subverting the cliches you’ll be all too familiar with if you’ve ever watched a basketball movie before, Koo’s short has one of the most satisfying of ends – the kind that actually gives you goosebumps.
“Amateur is a short prequel demonstrating my vision for Manchild, the feature film we’re making next. This short focuses on an encounter between a street agent and a high school basketball player, but as a result of what you see here, the recruiter goes on to pursue younger, more naïve players — including TJ, the 13 year-old protagonist of our feature film Manchild” – Ryan Koo on manchild.com
There is not a single visual effect in this short and it’s basically an eight-minute conversation between two people, so there won’t be a wondrous VFX demo to show – Read more about the making of Amateur on NoFilmSchool
