The other issue I had is that there’s not much consistency with these character moments. While all the characters are introduced by title cards, only Mike and Kasim are given their own personal vignettes, and both are different and unique to each character. On the one hand it’s nice to have each one personalized, but it feels as though each character ought to have their own shot at brutal honesty. One option is to allow each character to have a couple brief moments – like those in the conversation between Claire and John – where they say what they’re really thinking rather than what they’re saying. In this case, it would be a good idea to stick with the washed-out look, just to keep each moment consistent.
Ultimately, though, these character moments are really good, and they don’t distract from the film too much they way they are now; but it would be nice to have a bit more consistency throughout.
One story issue that ought to be addressed, however, is the setting. It takes a while for the audience to figure out what these characters are doing in this room. Given the title “Bar Barons,” I assumed that it was an AA meeting, but there was no mention of any of the characters having problems with alcohol. I also thought that it might be some sort of court-ordered group, but some of the people were apparently there of their own free will. And if it’s a group therapy session put together by some sort of psychiatric hospital or organization, it’s a very poorly-organized one for allowing such diametrically opposite people to be a part of it. This isn’t a major issue, but it might be a good idea to have a title card or an opening shot of some sort that explains exactly what the group is.
Visual Look
One of the visual aspects I really liked was the framing and camera work. There were a lot of extreme close ups that cropped character’s faces, especially that of the professor. Firstly, this type of close-up framing isn’t used very often, which makes for a more interesting visual look, plus the extreme close-up of the professor adds to the intimidation factor of him as a character.
There was also a nice shot when John is having a conversation with Jet. There is a two-shot of them talking, with Mike out of focus in the foreground, then there is a nice rack focus to Mike in order to give the introduction to his character.
This movie was done as a final project for film school, and shot on a very limited amount of 35 mm film. As a result, there were very few takes during production, though you wouldn’t know it by watching the final result. I really liked the acting, and there were no lighting or white balance issues that I noticed.
However, because the movie was shot on 35 mm and transferred to digital for the DVD, that did create some quality issues. The film opens with a black screen which was full of artifacts. This was rather distracting, since at first I thought it was perhaps a shot of something that was very poorly lit or perhaps a part of a slow fade in. Once the first image of the movie appeared, the artifacts became less distracting, but were still there. They even showed up on the black bars that framed the image. This is usually due to the way the footage was imported or because of poor rendering, though considering that Bar Barons was shot on 35mm, this issue was probably due to the process used in transferring the footage to digital. From what I understand there’s a machine that does this work, but I’m unaware if it would be the fault of the machine that there were so many artifacts in the final product. It may be a good idea to figure out in which step these artifacts were introduced and try to correct it because they are very distracting to the viewer.
Use of Audio
There isn’t a lot of music in this film, but I really liked what was there; some simple guitar melodies such as Mike’s solo or, during Kasim’s private vignette, when he kept rhythmically hitting the same three notes on the piano rather than a complicated song. This was a great musical choice – a definite example of less being more.
There were very few audio issues with this film, but I did notice some things that need a bit of work. When the professor is talking at the beginning, there were times when his audo level drops and the background music seems too loud, making it hard to understand him. Then later on he starts yelling, and overpowers the music. This is something that would be easily tweaked in a digital editng program, but is a little more difficult with 35mm film. However, with the footage already being transferred to digital for the DVD, it would probably be possible to make those necessary adjustments in an editing software program.
Also, when Mike is singing his song, there are a few moments where it is difficult to understand what he is saying; his voice sometimes sounds a bit muffled or is overpowered by the guitar. Once again, this could be tweaked in a DV editor, or perhaps some ADR could be done.
