Project Greenlight is an ambitious and unique reality program. The series was a joint venture of Miramax, HBO, Sam Adams, and LivePlanet. The executive producers of the series and the subsequent feature film,
Stolen Summer, were actor/screenwriters
Matt Damon and
Ben Affleck and producer Chris Moore (
American Pie), who are co-founders of LivePlanet. The first season aired on HBO beginning in December of 2001, but it all began with a screenwriting contest announced in September of 2000. The winner of the contest would be able to direct their film, with a one-million-dollar budget and theatrical distribution supplied by Miramax. Over 7,000 entries were received through the
Project Greenlight website. Using a peer review process, the entries were narrowed down to 250. These 250 contestants were each asked to make a three-minute personal video to pitch their project and themselves. These tapes were reviewed by Damon, Affleck, Moore, and executives from Miramax, who narrowed the field down to the top 30. The 30 screenplays were read and evaluated, and ten were selected to move on to the next stage. Each of these ten contestants was given digital equipment to shoot and edit a three-minute scene from their screenplay. They were then flown to Los Angeles, where their scenes were publicly screened, and then Damon and Affleck announced the three finalists. After interviewing the finalists about their scripts, and debating amongst themselves about the relative merits of each project, Pete Jones was selected as the contest winner for his script,
Stolen Summer. All of this was shown in the first episode of
Project Greenlight. The television series then went on to follow Jones through the preproduction process. The novice director immediately runs into trouble because he's written a period film, set in Chicago, with two young boys in the lead. Producer Chris Moore repeatedly runs down the problems with doing such a complicated shoot on such a small budget, while fighting alongside Jones to get more money from Miramax. Eventually, they get enough money to shoot a period film on location in Chicago, but they're on a very tight schedule. Jones offers key roles in the film to
Sean Penn and
Emma Thompson, who turn it down. Eventually,
Aidan Quinn and
Bonnie Hunt are cast instead, with
Kevin Pollak in an important supporting role. The series captures the grind of low-budget filmmaking as the production begins. Jones' inexperience, combined with the reluctance of co-producer Jeff Balis and line producer Pat Peach to interfere with the director's vision, leads to a lot of stress on the set, as poorly conceived and elaborate shots lead to several long, disastrous days. There's a tremendous amount of pressure on the production team to "make the day" -- shoot every shot scheduled for every given day -- because the production is on such a tight budget and can't afford overruns. Jones is often forced to cut dialogue and simplify scenes, not just to save time, but to get the performances he wants from his two young actors, Adi Stein and
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