fyre festival is going well

would watch

ferris bueller's flesh off

21 stump feet

Feral Dog Day Afternoon.

a wild pack of fyre fest dogs

it's wild hogs that live there, for that irl Lord of the Flies connection.

but saying you are chased by wild dogs (and possibly wolves!) def sounds tougher, you a real man now dog.

I only get chased by artisanal untamed dogs

Indeed?

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/festivals/8476448/ja-rule-fyre-festival-failure-interview-drink-champs-video

I don't think I've ever wanted the death penalty for anyone. There's a first time for everything, I'd reckon.

lol he is now talking about the allegations as if they're true.

sorry wrong thread :)

he's looking trim at least

If the courts buy this then who’s going to be the intrepid mental health expert that breaks the tender news to literally all of Silicon Valley

(btw very proud to have a reason for posting in this legendary thread)

Six years, not nearly enough but even so. (He's pled guilty to other charges he's not been sentenced for yet.)

https://www.businessinsider.com/fyre-festival-founder-sentenced-to-6-years-in-prison-2018-10

ja rule skates, sad to see

(six years is quite a long time ned! i know this guy was a villain and a dick as well as a legend but don't let's let carceral fever consume us!)

I had missed this.

https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcfarland-apologizes-from-prison-im-devastated-but-accepting-1203021236/

Oh yeah.

Get your exclusive first look at FYRE — a revealing new doc about the insanity and rapid unraveling of Fyre Festival: the greatest party that never happened. Premieres January 18. #NetflixNewsWeek pic.twitter.com/B4iaR3UJwM

— See What's Next (@seewhatsnext) December 10, 2018

Quick note that this is separate from the Hulu documentary series. I will happily watch both.

stoked for the madness babee

so looking forward to that
also I first had this thought when watching the Amy Winehouse documentary is that the documentary is really different now that -- if you can get in touch with people -- literally every second of every event has been recorded or photographed by someone on their phone

Schadenfyred

I’m mostly looking forward to a movie not so much a documentary.

"It's Jonestown all over again!"

a producers-esque scheme to stage a failed festival in order to be immortalized in multiple documentaries

let’s just do it and be legends immortalized in multiple documentaries

I Am The God Of Hell Fyre

A week and a day to go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ0KNVU2fV0

Again, Hulu documentary series following later in the year.

Hahaha or rather, NOW. Hulu clearly thought "Yeah, about that," and their own documentary -- a standalone move in the end, not a series -- is now live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljkaq_he-BU

Scott Tobias with some good reporting on some of the differences between the two documentaries:

https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/1/15/18183308/fyre-festival-documentary-netflix-hulu-billy-mcfarland-pay

Borrowing a comment of mine elsewhere: Neither will tell the whole story, so I’ll enjoy both. And I very much enjoyed the Hulu one last night, a few clunky moments aside (generational assumptions/explanations are far less interesting than reflections on the eternal nature of scamming, and more of those would have been nice). It was fairly obvious that McFarland was getting trashed by everyone and everything — including the evidence — throughout the Hulu one and it was worth it to see his multiple moments of flopsweat and freezing in the headlights — also willing to bet whatever money he got was immediately eaten up by legal fees. (And I mean, dude then pled guilty, is in prison now and has been ordered to repay an amount in the millions.) If the Netflix one does a similarly good job at trashing the Fuck Jerry squad then I’m fine and perhaps they might; how they present themselves in the film could be just as self-owning. If their film paints a ‘we were but innocents’ picture then nah. (FJ specifically put the blame on an ex-employee of theirs who is in the Hulu documentary and clearly wasn't having it; given all the still-pending lawsuits across the board I'm partially surprised there's as much on the record as there is.)

Also, the Hulu one gave some time to a number of Bahamian voices, including workers who were never paid, and a local reporter who got in a slew of well-observed points re economic dynamics and the tourism industrial complex as the film went along -- vitally important and nothing to sneeze at. The Netflix one has to at least match that.

footage of feral dogs or gtfo

"A dramatic reenactment."

GTFO

Ned got all the smart-people points about the Hulu doc in, so I’d just like to add a detail that everyone in this thread probably would’ve been salivating over earlier on: according to McFarland in his interview here the reason they couldn’t get the attendees to their luxury villas (which he claims, who knows how truthfully, that they’d actually rented some of) is because someone lost the box with all the luxury villa keys in it.
Even if the documentary didn’t pay him $250,000 for an interview I think gems like that would’ve been worth it.

If you watch both Fyre Fest docs at the same time they sync up like the new Wizard of Oz / Dark Side of the Moon.

is because someone lost the box with all the luxury villa keys in it.

We loved that. Also I had a realization that these docs -- in terms of featuring its principals spouting off idiocies that they don't realize are ridiculous -- means we have the American equivalent to the Bros doc.

Do either of these docs have "dramatic reenactments" or is it all talking witnesses? While I generally hate when there's some dude dressed as King Tut or Howard Taft or whatever in TV documentaries, low-rung actors miming out low-rung lifestyle influencers could be excellent.

Talking witnesses but also tons of footage, since we're at the technological state now where you don't need to do reenactments with an event like this -- the whole point was that people were recording themselves online. There's also enough photos from McFarland's earlier ventures, a video of his goofy early demo presentation, etc.

Licensing all that cell phone footage from attendees must have been a real bear of a job...

so which fyre fest doc is the prestige and which is the illusionist

— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) January 15, 2019

Okay, the Netflix one is definitely good too. More concrete thoughts tomorrow.

I’ve been watching the Netflix doc tonight, as I putter around the house. I won’t say much (don’t wanna upstage Ned), other than that it’s well-produced... and man, what a story.

the Evian moment in the Netflix doc is one hell of a *record scratch*

OMG, I just got to that part

netflix doc gave me anxiety

I might be just sick of the whole story now, but I liked the Hulu one a lot more. Netflix had too many dudes trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility... and what was with that one attendee talking about beating up the tents around him because him and his friends didn't want neighbors. That just zipped by - really gross. Turns out making fun of influencer interviewees >>> trying to take the attendees seriously.

^^yeah, that moment was weird... or at least made me wish the doc had spent a little more time on the actual “event.” Although I’m also not sure how much I’d really want to dwell on those disturbing details. (I haven’t seen the Hulu doc to compare how they handle it.)

What’s the background of the balding guy who ended up filing the joint lawsuit (after tweeting the “you’ll hear from my lawyer”’parting shot), and whom they interviewed a lot? I didn’t look him up, but was curious.

A few North Carolina folks I know are not impressed with him and his apparent attempt to milk the 15-tweets-of-fame moment into something lasting.

Maffew12 correct re that one test-destroying guy, who apparently is getting destroyed himself now online, appropriately.

There's a fundraiser going for the Bahamian caterer in the Netflix doc who has the pretty heavy breakdown near the end.

https://www.gofundme.com/exuma-point-fyre-fest-debt

So yeah, tying together some of my random thoughts from Facebook/elsewhere:

There's a moment halfway through the Netflix Fyre documentary that is probably the most "WTF DID I JUST SEE" moment on TV since the Red Wedding. (aka the Evian moment) I think both documentaries are good in different ways, though I'd say the Netflix one has a striking visual approach which works well, as well as a great soundtrack -- lots of atmospheric Reznor/Ross stuff from various sources -- and more Bahamian voices, not that there were none in the Hulu one. Both have plenty of footage of Billy McFarland but Hulu got him for the interview and it's just amazing watching him bluff and fail throughout. Probably more likely I'll rewatch the Netflix one, though.

Jeff Treppel said elsewhere the Netflix one is a great horror movie and he's right -- the fact that nobody (that we know of) got hurt there, or actually died, means you can enjoy it for those tropes being applied in documentary style. You KNOW there's impending doom, you know it's all going to go bad somehow, and again the use of music throughout quietly underscored that. Very clever.

Building on maffew's point a bit: the implied shade re the end of the Hulu one noting Fuck Jerry was going to do their own documentary (aka the Netflix one) plays out because there is a slight air of exculpation going on when they interview the one Fuck Jerry dude there. But then again, he almost hangs himself on his own rope, and the comments from the exFJ guy in the Hulu one -- that FJ knew damn well things were fucked up well in advance, instead of the Netflix one making it seem like they were surprised when they got there -- can't be ignored. (Said exFJ guy does show up briefly in the footage on Exuma but is not identified or called out as such.)

Grant Margolin, that weird little toady/co-operator, isn't interviewed in either, but only in the Netflix one do you have all those clips of him talking. Just background shots or photos in the Hulu one. Though he wasn't willing to sit for an interview in either, the Ja Rule footage in the Hulu one makes him seem like an annoying dope. In the Netflix one, he's more stupid, malicious and abusive. Also seen prominently in both, more in the Netflix one: Carola Jain. I have questions about that -- on the one hand there were clearly other funders that McFarland rooked in as well, so the focus on her solely aside from aside mentions in the Hulu one is a bit 'hmm.' At the same time, she clearly was a major player, as the Netflix film clips of her in the office and all showed, and just as clearly she didn't want to have to go on camera in either film and basically say "Yes I completely fell for this swindle."

When it comes to McFarland, the Hulu doc was good in showing that McFarland's enabling started early. That grotesque statement from his mom! (I did like the computerized voiceovers in that part.) But something that the Netflix one had was more about his post-Fyre pre-sentencing attempt to launch a further scam from that penthouse. Absolutely had a Morbsian moment of "Burn them all" when the caption came up on the one guy who was (is?) a press secretary for Chuck Schumer. Wonder if they'd know each other when younger or something. And that Frank clown! The photo of him in the Magnises/Fyre gear, I hope he never escapes from that. But documentaries have things the others do not. Example: the Hulu one gets a couple of actual ‘influencers’ to sit on camera and talk about what they do, and in doing so show the line between scamming others and scamming yourself is pretty thin. “Positivity!”

It’s a bit of a pity that neither doc got the person on camera who wrote in her piece last year about being one of the NYC-based organizers who were desperately hired to fix things. She’s the one who passed on the must legenrday line from the whole debacle: “Let’s just do it and be legends, man.”

And as a last thought, just the amount of people featured in both documentaries, but I think more damningly in the Netflix one, who read Billy's attitude/approach in general as...acceptable? Which says a lot about power dynamics etc but it's also just weird to see Silicon Valley 'we're changing the world!' lifehack/savior complex culture in NYC, and you got a lot of that from the Fyre programmers and types, even the one woman programmer to a degree. Like, how was any of this attractive to start with? I said this before when the whole fiasco happened but everything about Fyre and its marketing was so singularly unappealing to me -- which, sure, given my age and attitudes and all, but even if I was the target age I wouldn't've seen the point of it. Absolutely aiming at a mindset I feel nothing in common with. And even almost to the end with McFarland, you get random comments from people like "he was fun to be around" and I'm all "Your idea of fun sucks and you are dumb."

XP - I hope that little Lord Of The Flies mf and his buddies get a taste, he was so blase about being an awful human being.