There
was also a really great gunfight sequence in the film that
took place between The Shadow Company and a group of vampires.
There were really nice muzzle flash effects, and the entire
sequence was edited together very nicely with moving camera
shots and close-ups that fed into the action without making
the viewer feel too dizzy. The scene even ends with a great
character moment as all but one of the vampires have been
disposed of, but Cutter has run out of ammunition. Cutter
then walks toward the vampire, yelling at thim. Cutter tells
him not to reload, but to instead be a real vampire and
bit the unarmed agent on the neck. Cutter continues to goad
him on until the vampire drops his gun and starts to walk
forward. At which point, Cutter calmly looks to one side
and one of the other agents steps out from behind a wall,
gun in hand, and shoots the approaching vampire.
There were a few minor visual issues, such as some poorly-framed
shots, a couple of washed-out outdoor scenes, some shaky
camerawork, and several very underlit indoors scenes. A
lot of this can be explained away by the documentary feel
of the film, but some of it looked a bit too sloppy. Take
a look at the show COPS – that’s running and gunning if
I’ve ever seen it – literally. But while sometimes the shots
are crooked, they’re always decently lit and fairly clear.
Obviously they have access to far better eqyuipment than
most microfilmmakers do, but that doesn’t mean that one
can completely slack off in making a documentary-style film.
Attention still ought to be paid to getting a decent picture
– unless there’s a good reason not to.
Use
of Audio
As in the above category, viewer will probably expect audio
in a documentary-style film to be a little off. And, for
the most part, the audio in The Midnight Special
was pretty decent. There were a few instances where the
levels dipped or rose suddenly, or some moments of distortion.
During the interview segments, when the agents had lavaliere
mikes either taped to their clothing or – in the case of
a two-person interview – lying on the couch between them
there were several times where they brushed up against the
mike, causing a muffled sound. While this is also somewhat
expected in a documentary-style film, it might have been
a good idea to have the actor repeat the lines or to just
use a different scene. While audio levels can be tweaked
in post, muffled audio is more difficult to fix and may
have to be ADR’d.
I really liked the music in this film. There was enough
to give some atmosphere and set the mood occasionally, but
not too much as to depart from the documentary style of
the film.
