Fortunately, for a movie using exclusively handheld footage, which goes from indoors to outdoors to indoors again, the auto-adjustment of the camera to different lighting situations was mercifully brief. I am not a big fan of crossing from one lighting situation to another in a single take, with an auto-adjusting light sensitivity camera, but the DSR-PDX 10 clearly has a rapid response time to light-change.
There is one final thing that I would make a note of as a suggestion for this film and future films. The film currently uses many dissolves, which are rarely used in films. In narrative films, a dissolve is occasionally used to show passage of time or flashbacks. However most documentary style films have no dissolves at all (except in memoir-style documentaries that are showing a character’s past). As this was designed to be a mock documentary, the absence of dissolves would have been appropriate.
Use of Audio
When I saw that this was recorded with the onboard camera mic, with some supplemental recording from a mini-disc digital recorder as opposed to a shotgun mic, I was immediately nervous. You never want to use the native camera mic, because it records camera function noise as well as being farther from the source of your audio (your actors) and is tinnier than most shotgun mics. Fortunately, the onboard mic on the DSR-PDX did not have nearly as objectionable a sound as most onboard mics I have heard. It was easy to understand most of what was being said, except when an actor would shout into the onboard camera mic and redline (overload) the audio. For future films, I recommend that the director read our article on The Basics of No-Budget Audio.
There is no music in this film, which actually worked fine with the documentary feel of the film. (Granted, many documentaries incorporate a fair amount of music.)
When the "God" killer kidnaps
an Eco-Polluter
...
...Pat & Victor will track him
from the UK to France.
Use of Budget
The $10,000 budget is a little confusing, because of the run and gun feel of the film, the onboard mic, the low number of actors except for a final firefight scene, and the low-tech nature of many of the elements of the film. However, the fact that the purchase of the equipment was included in this could be where the $10,000 was primarily used. Additionally, the feeding of the large number of extras in the final shootout and the use of a number of blanks that were fired can raise the price tremendously.
Lasting Appeal
While Does God Exist? has its share of problems, its interesting premise, quirky characters, and mystery make it one that I would not mind watching again. Additionally, I would be willing to show it to my friends and writers for the creative way Mr. Douchet approaches filmmaking.
Overall Comment
Antoine Douchet has created an interesting look in the thriller/mystery genre in this, his third film. His creativity and humor make this film push boundaries in a way that is intriguing. I look forward to seeing his future work, because this is clearly a director who is going to take chances and present new takes on interesting themes.
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.
