Additionally, Koszulinski makes assumptions where there shouldn't be any, most notably in relation to the 1935 hurricane. A large number of WWI veterans had been hired by the government to build a highway going down the the Keys. As the hurricane approched, the workers were loaded onto trains to be brought back to the mainland; but final approval had to come from Washington, and it came too late. The hurricane struck, resulting the deaths of hundreds of veterans. The director then poses the question: "The question remains, who murdered the vets?" Things like that have no place in a documentary like this, because it makes the assumption that the incident was intentional. Questions of this nature should have their own documentary, and not be in one that addresses the overarching history of an entire state. [Note from the Editor: According to the filmmaker, "Who murdered the vets?" was actually a question that was asked by Ernest Hemmingway who lived in Florida at the time. Apparently, the filmmaker had put a footnote in the film to this effect that the reviewer missed. Regardless, if the director was trying to show that their were historical figures that suspected foul-play, it should have been clearly told from that angle. An example of this would be, "In a loaded accusation at the time, Ernest Hemingway heatedly wrote, 'Who Murdered The Vets?'" As it is now, only a quick footnote even suggests that this is not the director's own personal opinion, especially since the filmmaker didn't delineate it by quotes.]
Visual Look
Koszulinski made great use of footage and pictures throughout the project. Many of the photographs that were used were fascinating and edited together in a very effective way. I also really liked the use of Super 8mm film, because it fit in so well with the rest of the stock and historical footage. In this case, going with a newer digital camera would've resulted in a drastic disparity in the overall look of the film. (It would've been "old scratchy footage from the Depression... followed by commercial footage from the '60's... followed by bright, crisp, clean digital footage!!!... followed by a very dated-looking PSA...") It would've stuck out like a sore thumb. As it is, it's difficult to tell what is archival footage, and what was shot specifically for this project. A very good choice by the filmmaker.
Use of Audio
The majority of the information in the film was conveyed through text that appeared either on title cards or over footage or pictures. The text was often lengthy, and took awhile to read. Sometimes this text had a voice-over to accompany it, but sometimes it didn't. This half-and-half approach was very confusing, because you never knew what to expect. It all needed to be either just text alone or text with audio voice-overs. Having VOs for the majority of the explanatory text would've helped tremendously.
There were three different narrators during the film: two doing the main VOs, and one doing the VOs for historical characters (e.g. in letters, personal diaries, etc.). This isn’t really necessary, as only one person is needed to do the main VOs; having two different people is confusing, because there is no apparent reason for it. Additionally, the Historical VO was very noticeably of a different (poorer) quality. It sounded slightly tinny, but muffled at the same time, as if it was recorded in a studio that wasn’t completely soundproofed. The quality didn't sound nearly as crisp or clean as the other VO, and certain sounds (the sibilants in particular) hissed and popped in the microphone. This is something that may not be able to be fixed with audio clean-up, might need to be re-recorded instead.
Use of Budget
While a budget of $16,000 is respectable for a 90 minute documentary, it is far too much for this particular project, because so much of it was comprised of stock and archival footage, with comparatively little original footage. While stock footage can be very expensive, it was not listed in the budget, so I can only assume that it was obtained for no cost.
The budget went for Super 8mm film and developing, travel expenses, getting narrators, and food. I don’t see how $16,000 could be used on just those five things alone. Instead of hiring three narrators, they could have used just two, and used the leftover money (that would’ve gone to a third narrator) to re-record the poorer quality VOs, as well as add VOs to the entire film. Additionally, some of the funds could've been used to get some current historians and/or authors to interview for the documentary. In all honesty, I’m hard pressed to see where all the money went in this project.
