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Despite the fact that this was a very enjoyable little short film, it did have a bit of an issue. While this issue may seem to deal more with definition, it affects how one views this film. The question I found myself asking, at the end of watching this a few times, was: “Where does the definition of a short comedic film and a short skit diverge”? To me, the difference between a short comedic film (such as Jared Varava’s The Shadow Effect, John Heder’s Pelucah, or, arguably, Mike Judge’s Frog Baseball) and a short skit (such as one you would see on MadTV, SNL, or Monty Python’s Flying Circus) relates to the ending. The skit generally points out some general humor about a specific situation, real or imagined, and ends with you still laughing at that specific situation. On the other hand, a short comedic film uses humor to comment on human nature in some way, and tends to leave you with a more substantial ending. You can have a very silly comedic film that can still find a way to have a concrete message about life, liberty or humanity and you can have a very serious skit that still only pokes fun at a certain situation. In the case of Tea and Physics, the ending was much more skit-like, and left me laughing about the specific situation, but not learning too much more about humanity. (That is, unless you count the facts that people like to drink beverages together, comment on things they don’t understand, and leave when they realize there’s no money to be made.)
In the end, as is so often the case, the difference between a very good short film and a phenomenal short film is the ending. Tea and Physics is a very good short film.
Visual Look
The visuals knock this film knocks it out of the park. DP Stuart Van Eysden, used extremely strong camera angles, with nice creative perspectives throughout. For example, there’s an early shot of Mark grabbing a mirrored tea kettle with him perfectly reflected and no trace of the camera or the camera operator. Shots of calendars, mugs, and other tight close-ups help retain a similar look that was used in Mick’s ‘Hotel Motel’ film, which had a different DP. And finally, to cut down on the number of times showing the black hole, much of the film was actually shot from the black hole’s perspective, which is very clever.
What is fantastic about these crisp, clean, professional visuals is that they filmed with the consumer grade GS-400 3 CCD mini-DV camera. This series of camera, released a few years ago, attempted to give professional results for a sub-$1000 price tag. Unfortunately, 1/6” chips vs. 1/3” chips made a camera with a virtually infinite depth of field and required a lot of light. This caused many folks to instead choose to save up for the DVX-100 or, if they could get HD, HVX-200. Because Mick and Eysden understood the limitations of the camera well enough, they compensated for them and lit the scene brightly enough and choose close ups (with a wide-angle adapter) that tended to cast undue emphasis on the depth of field issues of the camera. Honestly, I thought he got this off a DVX-100 camera or better and I watched the film twice, before reading Mick’s comments and the kind of camera he used. Just goes to prove what Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) states in his book, Digital Filmmaking , about the fact that knowing how to handle your camera competently is much more important than how expensive or cutting edge it is.
Perhaps better even than the great camera angles is the visual look of the characters. Every person has a unique outfit and look that's designed to reinforce their personality and place in the film. Even though each persons part is very short, the focus on unique characters makes them all very memorable.
The lighting is highly stylized and feels somewhat unreal, but the fact that it’s in a kitchen makes you believe that lights and shadows may be emanating from those art-deco, under-cabinet lights that are all the rage. This fact allowed them to pump in enough light for the GS-400’s image sensors to get a very nice, professional picture.
While the editing isn’t as frenetic as Mick’s “Guy-Ritchie-esque” style tends to lead him to, it is perfectly timed for this subject matter. (Any faster and it wouldn’t allow you to laugh at the crazy assemblage of people.)
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