Gonna be honest about this. I really didn't care for Panic Attack. I had no emotional connection what-so-ever. Very boring imo. The more I watched the more ID came to mind. I'm sure good things will come from Alvarez, but his breakthrough short was no where near as awesome as Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg. Again, just my thoughts.

Yeah I agree. I also found it way too similar to what Blomkamp did with his short.

I agree completly. Do we really need another Roland Emmerich or Michael Bay. It seems Alvarez's only goal was to say "oh, look what I can do on a limited budget!" with Blomkamp it was a little more complicated.

Yeah, but look what he could do on a limited budget!

I'm firmly in the "we could always use another Michael Bay/Roland Emmerich" camp.

As a native born over there there's some emotional resonance since they are taking down all the major buildings and later on they came over the monument for the national hero, they secure it only to blow everything else. Everybody hates the 3'17'' building. There's some commentary there I guess.

Never thought about it that way. I can see where you are coming from though.

I completely agree with LoganR. The video was boring, and void of any extra layer that Blomkamp had in his Alive in Joburg. Yes, No more Micheal Bays or Roland Emmerichs.

I'll be honest from what I see and hear what this guy is getting hooked up with, I'm really skeptical about any movie he's going to make...

Say what you may say. But to me this guy is a genius. I've been a filmmaker for over 5 years focusing on story content and still have yet to understand how to break thru. It seems Grand VFX gets the shoe-in. He is not another Blomkamp, however he did sealed the deal. We could only criticize yet he gets the fat check. I thought it was pretty Mind-Blowing for Indie Nobody. Now you definitely know he's somebody. Don't HATE, CONGRATULATE.

Cool. Looks like an awesome movie. Same music from 28 Days Later!

Did not notice that and I loved 28 Days Later. Guess I'm due to re-watch it.

great article.

Looks a little too similar to the superior "Alive in Joberg" but it's still an enjoyable short and a feature film that I would see without hesitation.

Also, the direction here is a little too Danny Boyle for my tastes.

I don't get it. All I see is a bunch of explosions. The thing that differentiates this guy and Blonkamp is an ORIGINAL IDEA. Everyone has done an alien invasion, but they need an idea to seperate it from all the other Independance Day's and Transformers. But the only thing I see is big robots blowing things up. It's style over substance, and so far I'm not convinced it will make the greatest of film.

I agree. The video effects students I went to school with used to make stuff like this all the time -- some were even better in my opinion. I don't see any directing skills at work here. Hollywood would be better hiring people who know how to tell a good story, even for the CGI films.

My thoughts exactly. The technical expertise is there, but where is the originality?

Having been with him in most of his Hollywood meetings, I can tell you there's a LOT more behind it than just a dude who knows effects. His study of explosions, the twin towers falling (anyone catch that similarity?) and the fact that it was all shot from the POV of a person (there's no God POV, no camera following the planes), and not a second of dialogue, makes of Fede a GREAT filmmaker. Do keep in mind as well that never in his (or any other effects guy from the 3rd world for that matter) mind did he think that Hollywood would come knocking. In his own words, "I did this because Hollywood always blows up New York and other American cities. I wanted Montevideo to have it's moment in the spotlight." As far as the man who mentioned aliens . . . what makes you think they're aliens? They're robots. Robots tend to be man made. What if it's a "reverse planet of the apes?"

Cheers.

Hey, thanks for the response. Since you know him, I absolutely hope you're right and he turns out to be terrific. I'm all for that. I was just expressing some skepticism based on the (good, but not mind blowing) footage I saw. But that doesn't mean much, I just don't think I would personally front the money based on Panic Attack alone -- but I've become a bit cynical after going to a special effects/CGI heavy school, so who knows.

Anyway, best of luck to you and Alvarez and I hope his first film proves my first impression completely wrong. :)

Buh. 'Alive in Joburg' made me feel something, this just sort of seemed like an FX exercise.

Still cool, but kinda hollow.

My thoughts exactly. All I could see was Trapcode Particulars "Comet Trail" preset used within AE. No offense to the guy, but it seriously looks like a show reel for his skills. Nothing more.

this doesn't look that impressive compared to "Joberg", well it seems that every concept comes in twos these days (Deep Impact; Armageddon) (Sahara; National Treasure) so I'm suprised it's taken this long for this to happen

Looks very good. It's just well directed destruction and the only things that blows emotion into it is the fantastic music by John Murphy. I don't understand all the hating and bad talking about it, sure it's not as "emotional" as Alive in Joburg was, but the action here is very good.

Alive in Joburg and Panic Attack share one thing though: Ugly Robot-Design.

I wouldn't call it hating -- I think everyone would agree that it's a neat little project -- but the basis for a million dollar scripting paycheck and a forty million dollar feature? That seems extreme, especially considering that this is basically just two or three months worth of after effects and maya on top of some handheld cityscape shots.

While I dug the short, it proves nothing to me except that the guy is a really talented visual effects animator. There's nothing in this to show that he's a director at all.

Speaking of Blomkamp, everyone wants to know what he's doing with his next (science fiction) movie. I understand that last week he submitted a video presentation to the TedX Vancouver conference that wowed the attendees and apparently had a lot to do with the Rare Earth Hypothesis. I'm betting his next film is going to have something to do with that concept.

That would be pretty cool. I wonder what idea he has around the rare earth hypothesis.

This dude is not the next Blomkamp. You know, I do like the idea that major directors like Jackson and Raimi are reaching out to new and unique directors like Blomkamp and perhaps Alvarez. However, I don't think every new indie director will have the smarts that Blomkamp has. Sure, this short from Alavarez is a visual treat, but so was all of Blomkamp's shorts (his short for 'Tempbot' and 'Halo' freakin' DEVOUR Alvarez's 'Panic Attack'). It's just not fair to compare this guy to Neill yet... Neill at least provides clever and intelligent stories to his films.

Neill's Halo shorts had no clever and intelligent story. They were, in all honesty boring.

Halo aside, watch 'Tempbot' and 'Yellow', those stories were definitely intelligent. Besides, Halo has always had a thin story, how exactly can anyone give it more depth? The point I was trying to make was, Neill isn't just an VFX guru, but he knows how to present and intelligent story.

I watched 'Tempbot' and 'Yellow'. I wouldn't call it stories but it uses it's time very good. The point i'm trying to make is: How can we judge Alvarez just after one short film? We can't. We don't know if he can present an interesting story or not.

The 3 HALO shorts were part of an amazing campaign from McCann and Erickson that treated the HALO wars as an ACTUAL EVENT. Complete with interviews of ex-HALO military and a tour of the HALO wars museum. You really have to see the entire campaign across its multiple media landscape to appreciate its brilliance.

I'm not digging this one bit, and it's pretty insulting to compare him to Blomkamp, whose visual style and tone are at least original and unique. This feels like a Michael Bay ripoff (he even rips Bay's signature planes flying overhead/flag flaping shot), but with much weaker FX work. This feels like a bad student film, whereas Blomkamp's shorts and commercials feel like the work of a unique, confident professional.

A bad student film? Are you serious?

I'm a film student/effects artist and the stuff I crank out for my boring classes in a couple weekends with $0 budget looks better than most of this. I don't see what the big deal is.

Well then share it with us. I'd like to see this boring 0 budget films you do that look better than this.

I agree. Please send me your work that is better than this.

Ok, so, lolwhat? Nothing like D-9 other than Aliens. hell, they could even be an army of evil human-built robots and ships. In D-9 the Aliens were awesome and nice. In this, they blow anything they can shoot at sky high. Which is dumb. Save that for Michael Bay and his rag-tag team of Transformers. Please never compare something so shitty to the likes of D-9.

Panic Attack dont care for it at all. it looks like War of the Worlds and Independence Day mix in one not saying its a good thing for Panic Attack.

Why run if you're in your car..? Or do you run faster than your car..?

Not bad. Is very well done.. I don't understand why would these things attack Montevideo. Uruguay is the nicest country in South America! They should bomb Buenos Aires. I live in Buenos Aires but I wasn't born here, so I'm good -- maybe they could scan everyone and say "you wasn't born here -- you're allowed to live".. Cool short.

cool but pointless.

There's really not a lot to like about this.

That said, I'm surprised how firmly you guys are still riding Neill Blomkamp's dick. District 9 was "kinda cool, fairly stupid." Nothing spectacularly intelligent or original about it. Not comparing it to this, which is "not cool, completely retarded," but just saying...

Here are my impressions WITHOUT reading any of the prior comments first:

I want so much to like this short as much as Blomkamp's, but they seem to have two different purposes. Blmkamp's had this story that was interesting and told via interviews, while Alvarez's seemed more about the destruction of Montevideo. I really like the visuals of Panic Attack and considering that blockbusters like Transformers required huge budgets to achieve similar effects, I think Alvarez has the chops to create even more destruction with an even huger budget.

Maybe it's supposed to tell a story without any dialogue, but the only it left me wanting something more. So right now, I'm not just mildly curious as to what Alvarez will come up with while Sam Raimi runs interference with the "suits".

Also, I see where Jackson and Raimi are coming from. They came up making shit on the cheap, and this is the new generation of that sensibility. But rewatching Bad Taste or Evil Dead... where the fuck is the FUN in Panic Attack? Where's the mischief? Where's anything stylistically that sets it apart?

I think the beauty is in the simplicity, the majority of complaints are asinine. You want a rich and deep story in 3 minutes? Just celebrate the guy for doing something cool. "Oh it's unoriginal". I love district 9, but it had almost the same overarching plot as the television show V. Given money, I think this guy could make something spectacular that you no talents would just dissect behind the mask of a blog persona while sitting in your darkened apartment at 3 a.m.

All I saw was a vfx showreel for tracking (the CG wasn't even that good)

I hope this won't turn into a fad, "finding the next Blomkamp".

(I sorta got a bunch of ideas in matter of seconds so I thought I should write them down so I don’t forget it. I’m not very good at writing according to teachers so…)

Just an Idea<-

> They come<, a group of charity volunteers who have good humour (or a group that can’t be disliked by the most of the audience, and there’s like a sequence where the viewer gets to know the characters (I was told I’m awful at introducing characters and using not needed brackets). They find out some secret stuff while being kidnapped in a Robot, they escape through team work and come across some military who were heading to an Extraction point but a lot of their squad was killed (maybe 4 or 7 were killed by a foot) so they have room on a gunship (that was meant for the squad) to save the civilians, they give the read-out or information (or some clue of how these things work) to the military and they only have 20mins (or something is chasing them maybe, anything that will give the journey to the LZ a Action/Thriller pace to it) till the gunship needs to leave because the danger is getting too close. Some of the volunteers are killed on the way (somehow, I haven’t thought that bit out yet) and we are left with one guy and one girl. They get cut off from the squad by a building fell in between them and the guy gets hurt and we see thing from the POV of Guy (yeah sorta cheesy) Guy can’t talk he tries to get up but there is a large spike in his abdomen (that somehow missed every major organ or something else less predictable) Girl pulls the spike out and helps him up and he points. She looks at were he’s pointing and they’re near the Helicopter gunship thingy. We are given a sense of utter exhaustion and Girl practically drags the constantly tripping up Guy who has and mess up sound, he looks to the right sees girl looking away and we heard her acknowledging the presence of the squad that you were cut off from. They carry Guy (still POV-ing him) and strap you into the helicopter thingy. The end they hear reports of military screaming over the radio saying that three larger robot have come together to form a large structure Guy looks up at a screen on the left and out the window on the right which, the screen shows a zoomed up of the horizon and a distinctively made out shape of the structure that looks out of place and futuristic. On the right out the window is that same ‘futuristic looking structure’. Then the ‘futuristic looking structure’ makes a sudden movement like it imploded, the second that that moment started the screen on the left goes out. Radio says it suddenly emitted some radiation. (Now we are finally out of the POV) And now we see a super wide panoramic tracking the helicopter. It becomes super bright and the highlights turn orange as they land. Everyone gets out and runs into this industrial looking hatch going into the ground somewhere… Nothing happens for a few seconds then a shockwave blast hits.
End Credits…

Wow reading through it seems like I was subconsciously inspired by Half-Life 2 and COD4

All of these comments directed towards this guy are the exact same criticism directed towards Blomkampp when he was starting out with the halo movie and even when he started D9 (about him being a vfx guy) Now that D9 has been a success he is getting the praise he deserves. How the hell are you gonna judge this guy on a short? It's not like they are giving him a 150million blockbusterr. He's getting 30-40 million to make a small personal film to showcase his talents. I'm sure a great director like Sam Raimi is better equipped to recognize talent and good direction then those hiding behind the computer.

Thank you.

Panic Attack has no style. It looks like a really fancy car commercial. Alive in Joburg was impressive not becuase of its sfx, but becuase of its IDEAS. No one but Neil Blomkamp could've made Alive in Joburg. Anny student filmmaker with technical know-how could've made Panic Attack.