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The memorization/rehearsal issues usually occur because everyone is working weird schedules, the script keeps being revised, and there are differing levels of commitment from various people, and any number of other reasons. For future films, rehearsal is key, especially for non-actors or stage actors. (To clarify why I keep lumping stage actors with non-actors: although stage actors are experienced, the projection and melodrama of stage acting is hugely different from the nuance and drama of film acting.)
While Ana and Evan seemed well cast, this rehearsal time situation was a killer for their characters. They seemed to be improvising on the fly as much as stating pre-written lines, which lead to breathless, repetitive rambling and a tendency to step on one another’s lines. While this is commonplace in real world conversations, it is extremely distracting in films, because film dialogue needs largely to be distilled to showcase some element of the person or the story. Failure to realize this means that your audience will concentrate on meaningless elements of the conversation and ignore important elements of the dialogue. (Even movies like Clerks and Pulp Fiction, which have long dialogue streams about seeming nonsense, actually use these conversations to showcase the characters and their struggles in the film in some way).
Another area related to this concept came in the form of the character of Ana’s co-worker, Jen (Mary Cain). Clearly, Kris Cain and Blake Johnson wrote the character of “Jen” to be cast by an actress who was the same age as Ana. However, Mary Cain seems to be in her late thirties to mid forties, which makes her dialogue, which is juvenile sounding, seem extremely artificial and unbelievable. This was especially noticeable when she would talk about how much of a “slacker and loser” Ana’s boyfriend, Evan, is. This would be appropriate for a 20-something Valley girl, but a more matronly voice would likely state that Evan’s interest in Ana was only to use her for what she could provide him and “wouldn’t it be better if she looked for a man who would make a better husband?” For future films, if the character’s planned age group can’t be cast, then dialogue adjustments need to be made to keep the film feeling believable.
Visual Look
The overall visual look of the film was good, with some creative camera angles. For a few dolly scenes, they built a dolly from The Killer Camera Rigs You Can Build! book, which helped add more production value.
Two smaller issues should be addressed in terms of look:
First off, the footage that they generated with the DVX100B was pronouncedly grainy much of the time. This may have been an intentional thing to make the footage look more “film”-like. If that was the case, it really doesn’t work. For a greater film look, utilizing something like Magic Bullet’s Mis-fire effect or, considering they edited it on FCP, one of Nattress’s plug-in packages (which are quite a bit less expensive) would be a good call. If it wasn’t intentional, then I would have to guess that the lux was set too high on the camera. (Low lux ability in a camera allows it to get useable footage in low-light situations. Unfortunately, it causes large amounts of digital grain to show up in the footage.) For future reference, always test the camera before shooting, to make sure that the settings yield the look you’re going after. As I personally have the DVX100B, I’ve found that if the lux settings are set to default, the image is clean with little noticeable grain. Of course, you do need to light your set better if the lux is set to default. (If you have a PC laptop, an easy way to make sure you’re getting a good image and your lighting is good is to get Adobe OnLocation CS3 or Visual Communicator 3, as both programs will allow you to preview and digitally record your content directly from your camera to a laptop.)
The second visual issue arose because there was no makeup artist on staff. Many first time filmmakers mistake the fact that less makeup is needed in film than on stage, with the idea that no makeup is needed. In all films, makeup allows you to highlight certain elements of your actors’ faces that you want highlighted and diminish those you don’t want noticed. (For example, drawing attention to an actress’s eyes, while drawing attention away from her chin, is a common use for makeup.) This is especially true when dealing with certain age groups, due to cultural perceptions. For example, high school students tend to struggle a lot with things like acne and other skin breakouts due to hormonal changes, whereas, those who are in their twenties don’t have as many issues with it and, when they do, are very quick to cover it up. As such, if your protagonist is either in her twenties or playing someone in her twenties, it is even more important to cover up acne breakouts with makeup, or folks watching the film will think that a sixteen year old is pretending to be a twenty-four year old, which, in turn, makes it hard for them to suspend their disbelief. (Strangely enough, makeup would still be necessary if you were shooting a film about teenagers WITH teenagers, because acne rarely breaks out in the same place twice. As such, for continuity, you would actually cover up the real acne with foundation makeup and then apply artificial acne that you can control the placement of.)
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