Net Movie Moguls Mold First Masterpiece

That's the question Netizens can ponder now that AtomFilms has released its first-ever "film by community," a 12-minute live-action short called Talk to Taka. The film stars Pat Morita as a sushi chef who enjoys serving his patrons ridiculous love advice with their wasabi--all to the chagrin of his frustrated boss, played by Mako.

Yet more interesting than the cute, but predictable storyline, and quirky, stylish cinematography is how the movie got made. Taka is written and directed by former University of Southern California film student Richard Kim, and it's the first-ever project created through AtomFilms' MogulMaker program, in which users choose their favorite idea, and then pick out a Regular Joe to become the film's executive producer.

In this case, the Regular Joe was Eel Jin Chae, a Korean photography student who was chosen to oversee the project. By AtomFilms' count, its community of 1.5 million users picked both Jin Chae and Kim for the film--which, by our count, is equaled only by the number of screenwriters who worked on Charlie's Angels.

But unlike Charlie's Angels, Taka was intended to be a populist free-for-all. With a $100,000 budget (a goldmine for a student filmmaker), and the casting services of Internet talent pool Iam.com, they went to work on the flick. Kim also enlisted some big-name talent in Morita (the wax-on, wax-off former Karate Kid guru) and Mako (Seven Years in Tibet), both of whom were willing to work for peanuts to help out the 30-year-old Korean-American filmmaker.

Since its debut two weeks ago, Taka has been viewed 20,000 times and has generated more than 700 referrals, according to Atom. The company premiered the film by screening it at a theater in Santa Monica, making the film eligible for next year's Academy Awards.

Perhaps most importantly, Kim says the high-profile project is helping him get his foot in some doors.

"Already, the feedback has been great," Kim says. "Within 12 hours [of its debut] I got an email from a manager. That was before most of my friends had even seen it."

Of course, not everyone is thrilled with the idea of community-created film projects like MogulMaker. Some have scorned such ideas, saying democratic productions are disasters waiting to happen--undermining a filmmaker's control and vision, and turning a project into an easy-to-digest commercial film for content-thirsty dot-coms.

"I had my fears at first," Kim admits. He says many young filmmakers are skeptical of fly-by-night companies hoping to score some cheap content. "So many Internet companies--some that aren't even around anymore--would come in and have afternoon seminars for film students. Some were so hungry for content, it just had us on edge."

But Kim says both AtomFilms and his executive producer, Eel Jin Chae, were trustworthy partners in the project. Jin Chae didn't have a superb grasp on the English language, but Kim says he made an ideal executive producer--one who didn't have to bite his fingernails over money concerns. "He just wanted to have a fun story, and having somebody I could trust that way was really cool," Kim says.

With its first democratically controlled experiment out of the way, AtomFilms has already embarked on another contest, Animation Showdown, in which users will pick a flash-animated pilot to green-light.

Kim, meanwhile, can't help but wonder whether his brush with community-controlled filmmaking was just a fluke.

"Atom's been great," he says, adding that he's glad voters picked his partner wisely: "He didn't end up being an a-hole."

And with election day nearing, that's something we can all get behind.