Use of Audio
The audio suffered from a number of inconsistency issues, which is a very common problem for first time directors. These issues came through especially in wider shots, where excess room tone and a thin sound suggested that the mics weren’t employed close enough to the actors. Unfortunately, these audio problems stick out like a sore thumb because the film looks so professionally shot that the audio glitches seem terribly out of character for the rest of the piece. That’s why superior audio recording is actually more important than superior visual recording. Redubbing the long shots would help clean up many of the most noticeable areas of this film. (We recently did an article on setting up a home studio for redubbing which you can read here.)
The music composed by Vita Tanga for this film is quite nice, adding the proper amount of ambience to the piece and really helping to sell it.
The beautiful, quiet Evelyn
causes Henry to stay...
...so that he can learn the
secret of why she's so quiet.
Use of Budget
$6,000 does seem like quite a bit to spend on an eleven-minute film that is situated in a single location. However, the expenses went toward bar rental, rental of the HVX200, P+S Technic Mini35, Carl Zeiss Cine lenses, and payment for a professional DP, post-production sound mixer, and a score composer. For future reference, if a post production sound mixer is to be hired, it would be highly advisable to hire a professional audio engineer to make sure the audio is recorded at the best possible quality on location. As it currently is, it seems like much of the budget went to making the film look as good as possible, with the money on audio being put in to try to fix problems in post that weren’t addressed during shooting. (I did the same thing on my first film, so I understand this tendency.) This would be something to further consider in future films.
Henry is faced with the dilemma
of
stealing Evelyn for himself...
...or helping her patch things
up with her oblivious boyfriend.
Lasting Appeal
This is an enjoyable film that manages to stay quite endearing throughout. If the time is spent to redub the audio areas that have problems and remix them, then the audio will match the great visuals in this film and the film will really stand up for repeated rewatching.
Overall Comment
While it suffers from a few first-time filmmaker problems, despite Mr. Remde’s attempts to get as much professional support as possible, The Wine Bar is a great first film. I look forward to seeing what he does in his future films as he builds on the lessons he’s learned in this film.
The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted.
