While the ending was good, answering most of the questions about the various characters (except as mentioned above), it was a little hazy about what Keith decided to do after the film concludes. Jas has challenged him to be different from their father and make something of himself instead of just blindly accepting his money. The last time we see Keith, he is calling a number in the newspaper, saying he wants to put an ad in. Does he want to hire more hit men? Is he trying to look for a job on his own? We don’t have to know exactly what he’s doing, but it would be helpful if we had some hint of if he’s deciding to follow Jas’ advice or if he’s going to continue doing as he’s always done.
Visual Look
One thing that I really liked was the scenes with Trip and Peer together. It was a very creative move on Mr. Jarvis’ part to do scenes where both twins are clearly visible and interacting with one another. While it is a relatively simple matter of cutting and layering two sequences appropriately using a garbage matte, the effect is great. (For those of you unfamiliar with a garbage matte, it is a type of matte available in all the main editing suites that excludes visual information on a layer as garbage. Basically, you draw a vector-based shape around what imagery you want to be treated as garbage, and that portion of the layer disappears, allowing you to see the layer below.) However, the garbage mattes border lines were not as neat as they should have been, so that you often noticed where one layer ended and the other began. To prevent these issues, it’s a good idea to hide the lines of a garbage matte along planes that already exist in a scene; in other words, look for “dividing lines” in the scene where you could make the cut. (E.g. door posts, window panes, furniture edges, corners, etc.)
One of the biggest things I noticed right away about the movie’s visual quality was that much of the film was very grainy. This is probably because of small size CCDs in the camera, which causes the camera to be less sensitive to light, and lack of appropriate light to compensate. Just like underexposed, light-starved film looks grainy, the same thing happens when there is not enough light for the CCD in a digital camera to get all of the information they need. The camera starts trying to fill in areas that don’t have enough light, thus producing artifacts that make the image look grainy. Now, in the outdoor scenes in the film (such as when Lauren comes up to Trip while he’s taking pictures in the park), the video quality is great, indicating that when there’s enough light, the camera functions perfectly.
The way to overcome the graininess is to be sure that you always have sufficient lighting, especially when shooting indoors. Especially if you have one of the new cross-over consumer/prosumer cameras on the market which are using ¼ and 1/6th inch chips, as these chips must be very brightly lit to function properly. (As a rule of thumb, the smaller the chip-size on your camera, the more light it will take to expose it properly.) Additionally, I noticed that the indoor lighting tended to be concentrated in pretty much one area, with backgrounds and opposing sides lit sparsely. Not only did this result in increased grain in the underlit areas, but what was illuminated tended to be very overexposed due to too much harsh, direct light. To remedy this in future films, try spreading the light out as much as you can and not have it all coming from one area or source. You can also use or make reflectors to bounce light off of walls, ceilings, or the floor to make the most of your light. Check out our article on how to assemble an inexpensive but effective lighting kit for some more information.
