Use of Budget
It’s very seldom that we at Microfilmmaker get a submission that was shot on actual film stock, and of those few submissions, a good deal of them usually have at least some minor issues with telecining to digital.
This was definitely not the case with The Fourth. The telecined version is great, and I think the use of film did a lot to enhance the visual look. Working with film can be a real gamble, and everyone who tries it on a microfilm budget ought to be applauded – especially when the final product comes out looking as good as it did in this case. It’s also very impressive that these filmmakers were able to keep their costs relatively low. $12,000 may seem like a lot, but considering the cost of film stock, equipment, and processing, it’s amazing that more money wasn’t spent. And the fact that they somehow managed to shoot the entire on not just film stock, but 35mm film stock for $12,000 is staggering. (By way of comparison, most filmmakers who achieve a microfilmmaker’s budget shooting on film do so with 8mm or 16mm film. These creative folks managed to hurdle Super16mm and go straight to 35mm for less than half our top-out budget.)
Despite a rigorous
training schedule...
...and snazzy
tracksuits...
Lasting Appeal
This was a very entertaining movie. I watched it with a friend, and we laughed throughout the entire thing. It’s silly, the characters are very amusing, the visuals look great, and the music is fun to listen to.
Plus, for the technically minded, there are some great shots to look at, and the coloring alone is worth watching.
Without a
fourth man...
...They have no hope of beating
their foreign competition.
Overall Comment
It’s funny how someone can take something as seemingly inconsequential as the search for the fourth member of a relay team and turn it into such a unique and interesting movie. They say that writers ought to write what they know, and I think the same rule is true for microfilmmakers. While a complex story set in the distant past may be impressive, it’s far more difficult to make than the simple story contained in The Fourth.
The
author of half a dozen screen plays, two novels, and a proficient
camera-woman in her own right, Monika
DeLeeuw-Taylor is Microfilmmaker's lead writing analyst and
one of our top film reviewers. When she's not writing a critique for
Microfilmmaker, she's writing screenplays for Viking Productions.
