Your question not answered below? Please email us at info at ghostswithshitjobs dot com.
Movie
The movie’s out on a variety of digital platforms (iTunes, XBox, Playstation, Amazon, and Vudu) over here. For people looking for DRM-free options, we recommend buying the DVD and then ripping it.
We'd like to screen your film for a festival, who should I contact?
You can drop Jim Munroe, executive producer, a line at info@ghostswithshitjobs.com.
Why are the overlay interactions sometimes visible, and sometimes not?
We decided that unlike Minority Report, people in the future would want better privacy options. Only the person interacting with their overlays can see them -- except in-world, where the interactions are visible (but still obscured by a symbolic encryption). Naturally deciding to go with sound effects rather than visual ones, but we chose it because we preferred the lo-fi approach.
Hey, I really dug the movie! What now?
Glad you liked it! There's lots of stuff you can do actually.
• There's a text adventure videogame where you can play as Toph the Silkgatherer in a prequel to the movie.
• You can dig through the 100+ posts of our production blog to get a sense of how we made it.
• You can write us a letter! We love feedback.
• You could send us links to your favourite lo-fi sci-fi vids!
• You could like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!
• Tell your pals you liked it and that they can watch the first 20 minutes for free.
• If you liked the writing in it, you could buy one of Jim's ebooks, books or graphic novels.
• You could watch an earlier lo-fi sci-fi movie we made -- Infest Wisely. It's free.
How did you make a feature for $4000?
This article goes a long way to explain our approach, and you might also want to poke through the 100+ posts of our production blog. But in a nutshell: everyone was a volunteer, favours were called in, and equipment was borrowed or already owned. It took us 3 years as no one could work on it full time, but we preferred to bootstrap this project than to wait on greenlights.
Why is everyone in the movie white? Where are the people of colour in 2040?
The "Ghosts" in "Ghosts With Shit Jobs" is taken from the real Cantonese slang for white people (Gweilo). We're very conscious of the fact that it's not really reflective of a racially diverse city like Toronto, but the documentarians are catering to what their Chinese audience expects to see. That said, part of why we chose this angle was because the vast majority of acting talent are white folk in their 20s and 30s, and we were working with what we had access to.
Why are all the women characters unlikeable and the men likeable?
Not really sure! It is kind of weird, and isn't a commentary on the Future of Women. The women characters are generally more active and powerful figures than the men, and the world of 2040 is a tough one, so maybe they're tough as a result?
Where have you screened the movie? Where are you going? Can you come to our town?
See our sidebar for previous and upcoming screenings. We are planning some other cities, depending on the interest shown, and we love to do Q&As in person when we can. So if you can help spread the word in your city, drop us a line!
Here's our poster.
Here's a synopsis and some blurbs:
Click on them for full resolution.
Here's a landscape-dimensioned version of the poster:
Here's some stills from the movie, as well as some more review blurbs.
"Excellent... science fiction is not dead. It's just moved from the
cinema to the internet." -Wired
"…sheer delight…" — The Guardian
"Brilliant… will leave you emotionally shaken, your brain teeming with weird new ideas…" — io9
"…outstanding…" — BoingBoing
"Ingenious - a gripping science fictional movie that uses cleverness, not CGI, to paint a vivid and satirical future" -Cory Doctorow
"The Future of Employment Is Bleak in Ghosts with Shit Jobs" -The Atlantic
"immensely successful… undoubtedly a cause for celebration" -Creative Applications
"Is this $4,000 “lo-fi sci-fi” the future of Canadian Filmmaking?" -Art Threat
"An amusing and clever mockumentary...there but for the grace of the stock market go us all."-Twitch Film
Yes -- the English SRT file is here, the French SRT is here, and the Spanish SRT is here. If you do a translation, we'd love to hear about it!