The captions used to introduce each of the interviewees was good, but I also noticed a few random ones in certain places, such as when Kamikaze was talking about accidents or the “meaning of life,” a few captions on these subjects popped up in the bottom of the screen. It seemed as though this was an attempt at some sort of structure, but it all came at the very end of the film, and in quite a random way, so it further added to the movie’s rather disorganized structure. In my opinion, it would have been better to separate each section more clearly, with the more conventional black card/white text caption. Yes, it is a bit boring, but it is a convention an audience will clearly respond to and recognize. A short film does not have the luxury of time to get an audience used to new transitions, so it must rely more on the old and the familiar.
There were a couple other things that added to the film’s sense of disorganization – namely the occasional use of black and white for no apparent reason, an odd grainy/art film type filter used briefly in a couple of shots, and an extreme (and rather unflattering) close-up of one of the interviewees.
Mixing black-and-white and color can be done, but only if there is a good reason for it. In this film, all of the interviews, except the one, were shot in color, and the only non-colorized one also contained the aforementioned extreme close-up. It seems as if the director was trying to add an art film aspect to the movie, but as this is a documentary, it looked very out of place and, once again, rather disorganized. Better to stick with one style – in this case, since the director wanted to show off the gritty world of New York City, color would probably be the obvious choice – and then stick with it.
But at 50 years old...
...Joe Mauceri aka Kamikaze
cartainly does not fit this profile.
Use of Audio
Amazingly, there are very few audio issues in this film. Given the number of different locations and many shots that must have been very challenging for all concerned. Some of the interview shots have a slight echo to them, but it is barely even worth mentioning. I would be curious to know how they managed to get such consistent sound on Kamikaze, as he is always moving and jumping around. My guess is that many of the city shots were re-looped with different audio, as it had to be impossible to simultaneously film the biker in action and get good sound. If that is the case, the filmmakers did an exceptional job at looping.
For most first-time filmmakers, audio is the one area that tends to be overlooked, but in this case, it certainly was not. I am even more surprised that this audio came from the camera’s on-board mike, normally a big no-no. In future projects, however, I would encourage the director to experiment with a separate mike. It’s a bit of a hassle initially, but in the end the audio quality is much better.
I also really liked the score, especially since it was specifically written for the movie. The director indicated that he wanted a “very urban-gritty street sound,” and I think he certainly accomplished that. It added a lot to the fell of the movie, and was not too overpowering.
Use of Budget
While my genetic Dutch cheapness initially balks at the sight of a $12,000 short film, I am also reminded that I live in a town in which it is relatively inexpensive to shoot a movie; as opposed to New York City where everything is more expensive. (Especially now that New York City has unveiled extremely restrictive filming laws that heavily penalize Indie filmmakers.) A good chunk of the budget was used for sound design and music ($4,500), as well as P.R./Legal ($3,500), transportation ($950), editing ($500), and encoding ($350). The music and sound design, in my opinion, was a good investment, considering the quality of both. Considering the complicated task of following Kamikaze around in traffic, the transportation costs were certainly unavoidable.
