Film, Film, Film

A Soviet animated film (1968) directed by Fyodor Hitruk, chronicling creation of a movie from script to premiere.

Can be seen on YouTube with English subtitles here.


 * Alien Geometries: the movie studio looks trippy.
 * Big Bouncy Breasts: Clapperboard lady
 * Camera Tricks: The cameraman is quite fond of these. The first time we see him, he is filming a fish bowl while upside down. Later, we see him filming a horse chase, while being right under the stampede.
 * Development Hell: Parodied in-universe.
 * Doing It for The Art: The director will make as many takes as needed until the actors will get it just right, no matter how dangerous it is.
 * Epic Film: Parodied. The characters are trying to produce a grandiose historical drama.
 * Executive Meddling: It starts during pre-production with the director having to drop and rewrite entire pages of the script to get the movie approved by officials and continues during the production.
 * Face Palm: The director does this, when the Powers That Be made him retool a funeral scene into a wedding scene.
 * Lighter and Softer: In-universe. After Executive Meddling kicks in, the director is forced to reshoot an "overly depressing" funeral and mourning scene as a bright and joyful wedding scene.
 * The Muse: She comes and goes to the scriptwriter as she pleases.
 * Never Work With Children or Animals
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: The director in the short suspiciously looks like Sergei Eisenstein (even if the author himself says that the director was modeled after another person) and the movie they're filming looks too much like a certain historical flick set in medieval Russia.
 * Reality Is Unrealistic: Lampshaded in the short. They have to use a water hose to film a rain scene, and when the real rain starts they stop shooting.
 * Speaking Simlish: The entire cast.
 * Special Effects Failure: Played for Laughs in-universe.
 * Thunder Equals Downpour
 * Troubled Production: Also Played for Laughs in-universe.
 * When It Rains, It Pours
 * Weird Sun: A bright red one.
 * Writers Block: The scriptwriter suffers from one, but is saved by a muse.
 * Writers Suck: The writer is a suicidal neurotic mess, and one can see why.