Lost in La Mancha

Hey all,

Watched Lost in La Mancha for a class this week and I have to say A.) I felt really bad for Gilliam and B.) I hope I never ever get stuck working on a production that poorly planned.

Watching the film you can't quite help but feel bad for Gilliam he's been trying for so long to get his vision of Don Quixote off the ground. The story seems like a really funny adaptation of the classic tale of Don Quixote complete with all the crazy extra stuff Gilliam seems to be known for. But...

Ever since the first day of my first media class the importance of preproduction work has been throughly imprinted in my brain...and this film finally showed me first hand exactly why that is. I mean, its not that hard of a concept to grasp, but theres a huge difference between reading it in a texbook and seeing it actually happen. There is also a HUGE difference between neglecting to properly plan a quick 5 minute newscast in Comm. 215 and failing to carefully plan the production of a multimillion dollar, hour long movie. You just might be able to get away with it in Comm. 215 - big budget movie...eh not so much.

The whole project fell apart because of poor planning and even poorer communication between team members. It does not matter how great your idea is - if you neglect to take care of all the planning ahead of time you're ultimately going to screw yourself over.