Dig (Short Critique)

Posted by Jeremy T. Hanke on Nov 7, 2011 | 0 comments

Short Critique
DigDirector: Joshua Caldwell
Expected Rating: PG-13 due to violence and some profanity
Distribution: None
Budget: $35,000
Genre: Drama
Release Date: 7/23/2011 (LA Shorts Fest)
Official Website: Click Here
Trailer: Click Here
Running Time: 26 minutes
Critique Issue: Issue #71 (November 2011)
Critiqued By: Jeremy Hanke
Final Score: 10 out of 10

“The man who seeks vengeance must start by digging two graves.” -Old Native American Proverb

“The tragedy of humanity is that we’re far quicker to define ourselves by what we hate, than by what we love.” -Gavin Hesterdale

David (Aaron Himelstein) appears to be an average college student in 1962. He spends most of his waking hours debating philosophy with his friends in a local coffee shop and questioning how morality is subject to perspective. However, one day, as David is chatting with Marie (Tiffany Brouwer) and a few of his collegiate friends about Nietsche, his theory of the ubermensche (“superman” or “overman”), and how his viewpoints can justify many of the most horrific acts between human beings, the discussion goes from abstract to personal for David when a man from his past walks into the shop. Upon seeing the man, David knows he has no choice but to do something he’s never done before. What this is, why he feels this compulsion, and how he intends to carry it out is what makes Dig such a powerful film.

Content

There is a limit to how much I wish to give away about this film, because the storyline and its conclusion are so intertwined. I limit spoilers when possible unless there are serious errors with the storyline. With that said, as critiques are designed to educate filmmakers who may not have seen the film, some use of spoilers will be necessary. Before we get into that, I do want to give a few overarching concepts. First off the, acting in this film is amazing and powerful. Both of the lead actors have very impressive resumés with Aaron Himelstein having acted in Austin Powers, Joan of Arcadia, and House while his antagonist is played by Mark Margolis, who has appeared in Scarface, Pi, and Breaking Bad. The writing from Caldwell and Travis Oberlander (based on a play by JD Smith) is tight and, although the tale that is told isn’t perhaps the most unexpected, this is appropriate to the type of story it is and lends a cohesive feeling of familiarity that actually pulls you further into the narrative, rather than pushing you out of it. From a storytelling perspective, everything from the editing to the pacing are right on the money. With that said, we’ll get now get into some more specifics in the following spoilers section. (If you’re already planning to watch this film in an official venue, I would highly encourage you to skip ahead to the Visual Look area until after you’ve seen the film yourself.)

Warning! Spoilers Ahead! The main issue that David struggles with is this: what happens when you have grown up hating someone for who and what they were, but had no way to exercise your revenge? And, then, what happens when you run into that person later, when you now have the opportunity to gain vengeance? The title of the film is inspired due to the fact that David decides that he must kill this man and takes him out into the desert to do so. However, to build up his own courage to execute the older man after he’s forced him out of the car, he requires him to excavate his own grave at gun point. “Dig. Just dig.”

(Before David works up the courage to even get out of the car, however, there’s a brilliant scene where he fumbles with a battered 1911 pistol, clearly unused to guns in general, much less a .45. This awkwardness as he works to check the gun’s magazine and release the safeties—punctuated by all the accented sounds of the gun’s mechanisms—is a marvelous way to showcase how much killing is completely foreign to this young man and, at the same time, to illustrate how far we as people are willing to go when hate is involved. Again, hats off to the acting from Aaron Himelstein and the awesome pacing and direction!)

As the grave digging progresses, comments from both men lead to arguments which finally allow the audience to fully understand why David has such a hatred for this man. And, as the biplay continues, it becomes apparent what the true consequences of will be if he goes along with his plan. Having seen Caldwell’s other films and having had the chance to critique The Beautiful Lie, I’ve noted that his fascination with sociology has led him to continue to explore concepts of alienation, moral assumptions, and how situational ethics can destroy society, which I think is really an excellent concept to explore.

(In this fascination, he and I are very similar. My most recent film, Depleted: Day 419, also explores these same sorts of themes from the perspective of a disenfranchised survivor. Strangely enough, both of our films include references to Nietsche and his Ubermensche in the introductory scene!)

I was really impressed with the polished way he concluded this film, which intentionally leaves the audience feeling unsettled, with music, camera, and color grading all lending their combined force to the last scene! (Very reminiscent of Breaking Bad and the ending of The Social Network!)

Visual Look

Some people think that if you shoot with a great camera that your movie will look gorgeous. This isn’t the case at all. (Especially since Caldwell’s last film was shot with a prosumer Canon video camera with a P+S Technik lens adapter kit, yet still looked really beautiful!) However, I have noted that people are rarely willing to drop the cash to rent something like the RED MX (the interim camera between the REDOne and the Epic, which this film was shot on), unless they really know how to use it properly (or are going to hire someone who is) and are willing to make sure their audio is as good as their visuals. (I’ve noted a similar care when people shoot 35mm film on a low budget. Because the cost is so high to make the film, they make sure they do things well!)

All that to say, Dig looks really incredible. Making use of a lot of over-exposure (until the very end), the look of Dig blends the bleakness of the desert with the stripped down sparity of David’s flashbacks to show the surreality of stepping across a moral line. The choice that DP Paul Niccolls made to go handheld throughout the film also added to the feeling of being on-tilt that comes about when you go out into an ethical “no-man’s” land (which is visually echoed by the physical desert they go out into).

In the ending scene of the film, the choice to switch from over-exposure to perfect exposure with crushed deep shadows is in perfect harmony with the storyline and is a really nice touch that I didn’t at first consciously catch! As with the Beautiful Lie, there was a lot of gorgeous, shallow depth of field shots throughout the film, which really helped showcase a main character who felt increasingly disconnected and alienated from his world and those around him. (And, as a testament to the camera team, the focus was incredibly precise, whether it was keeping a certain element in focus or, conversely, keeping things out of focus. That’s difficult to pull off on locked shots, so serious accolades to them for pulling that off handheld!)

The props, costuming, and makeup were really great, helping cement that this was in the ‘60’s. As someone who appreciates authenticity, I personally loved the fact that they got a 1911 pistol to be the gun that was used, since it was the standard sidearm for the military from before World War I on and would have been the easiest thing for people living in the baby boom generation to get ahold of. (It was so reliable, in fact, that it stayed the sidearm of the U.S. Army until 1986 when the Beretta M9 replaced it.)

The only suggestion I might make from the visual look perspective is very minor. Nonetheless, I wanted to bring it up in case it’s useful for the future (or if it benefits other filmmakers who might need it). Near the end of the film, there is a gut wound which is overall really well done and nicely covered with film blood. The only problem is that it’s a bit too bright red in coloration, especially under the desert sun, so it looks a little bit off (but not far enough for it to seem like a stylistic choice).

When we were shooting Day 419, we also needed a gut wound (although this was from a knife, not a gun), but we wouldn’t see the actual wound, only the blood welling through the fingers of the wounded character. As such, we knew that the blood would have to really look authentic, since it couldn’t be assisted by prosthetics. Our makeup artist had already been playing around with some mixtures to try to create more authentic blood than she’d observed in film work, seeking something that would look and behave like real blood both to the human eye and to the camera.

At first everything looked off, too red or synthetic looking. However, she started to have real success when she began with the old Alfred Hitchcock trick of making blood (which was to use chocolate syrup, since it was the perfect consistency and looked realistic in black and white) and worked to update it for the color age. To do so, she kept adding red food coloring to the chocolate syrup. At first I thought she was crazy, since the more she added, the more it looked absolutely nothing like blood. However, after adding about a third of a bottle of food coloring to a few ounces of the syrup, the syrup suddenly shifted from a murky brown-purple mass into what, for all the world, looks like pure blood. (No joke. I felt like I was watching Mr. Wizard or something!)

When we dipped a spoon in it and dribbled a few drops onto someones’ skin, it appeared as though they were bleeding THROUGH a clean wound in their skin. (If you’ve ever had a scab torn off that wasn’t healed and it wells up with blood, that’s the effect you get.) After doing a few tests both to the native eye (which fooled a trained police officer familiar with brutal car wrecks) and to the camera, we went on to use it in the gut wound scene in Day 419. (Plus, actors that need to spit blood won’t have a problem doing so with the tasty blood and, interestingly enough, it even dries with the red-brown consistency of real blood!) Hopefully that’s of help for the future!

Use of Audio

If you’ve seen a Joshua Caldwell film, you know that as ubiquitous as shallow depth of field is to the look, stirring thematic composition is to the sound. In both The Beautiful Lie and Dig, music is as much a character as the actors are. As such, Bill Brown’s score for Dig is incredibly powerful and lush, providing a vibrant textural counterpoint to the more austere visuals. The dialogue was cleanly recorded, the sound design was really well done, and everything was mixed masterfully throughout. Special props to the foley artists, as well, for the distinctive sounds of the 1911 which punctuated the previously mentioned gun prepping scene so powerfully.

Use of Budget

At $35K, Dig comes in just a little over our official cap here at MFM. However, we provide leeway for films that come close and whose additions went to the excellence of their production. (Additionally, with the amount of inflation that our country—and the world—has been dealing with over the past 6 years, there’s a good chance we’ll be raising the budget cap to $50K in the near future to appropriately account for these economic changes.) Most of the finances for this film went for camera rental, to secure the amazing talent for this film, to pay the production team, for period props and costumes, and, finally, for permits to shoot in West Hollywood, where the coffee shop/diner was located.

The lighting rigs were graciously donated, as was the time from the audio post house, the composer, the orchestra, and the locations. Considering the costs normally associated there, that’s pretty incredible! For the more observant who watch the film, you’ll notice that Anthony E. Zuiker—the creator of the CSI franchise (and, as it turns out, Caldwell’s boss in his ‘day’ job) came on board to Executive Produce the short. While this likely opened up some connection opportunities that Caldwell might not have had otherwise, it didn’t lead to a film that felt foreign to Caldwell’s directorial sensibilities, which is even more impressive, since many low-budget filmmakers can find it difficult to stick to their vision when working with more established people in the industry.

Lasting Appeal

Honestly, this is a film that has both a great lasting appeal AND a broad appeal. Because Caldwell focuses on what happens when we as human beings transgress into the realm of gods, he avoids divisive questions about things like the death penalty and focuses on what happens to those who take the law into their own hands. The psychological and sociological ramifications are extremely powerful and he is commended for focusing on these, rather than getting lost along the way. For any low-budget filmmaker who wants to be inspired, Dig should definitely be on their book shelf, as should it be owned by any lover of good dramas that ask hard questions.

Overall Comment

Dig is only the second short film to ever earn a perfect 10 from me. (The Shadow Effect, from the Varrava brothers, is the only one to receive that distinction.) Having seen Caldwell’s work for a number of years, it’s so exciting for me to see how it improves at each step along the way. Now that he’s scored a perfect ten for a short, I can’t wait to see him jump off into features. (Only time will tell if Caldwell will become the first of our filmmakers to make the Christopher Nolan jump. He definitely has the chops to make a bid for it!)

 

Breakdown
Content	10.0
Visual Look	10.0
Use of Audio	10.0
Use of Budget	10.0
Lasting Appeal	10.0
Overall Score	10.0
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