Use
of Audio
When
I watched the film the first time, I thought their audio
person had been able to record amazingly consistent audio
throughout the film. When I watched it with my audio guy,
he confirmed that there was a lot of ADR in the film, but
their audio mixer, Lonnie Park, had done it so beautifully
that you wouldn't be aware of it unless you were specifically
looking for it and caught nitpicky tells. (I emailed the
producer who confirmed my audio guy's analysis.)
The
choice of ADR undoubtedly inflated their budget, but it
allowed such a polished flow to the dialogue that it was
amazingly well worth it! (Lonny Parks had better watch it,
or I'm going to have to try and recruit him to write an
article on ADR!)
The
one downside to the audio was simply the fact that the music
was boosted way too loud. When I had the film set up in
my surround-sound home theater so that the dialogue was
easily discernible, the music would threaten to overwhelm
you and made my audio guy begin vibrating. (Watching my
sound guy vibrate with his eyes bugging out during the sudden
volume changes added an extra comedic element to the film!)
Despite
the music's loudness, it was really cool and served as a
nice buffer between scenes. Eric Lindstrom, the producer,
managed to get 21 different Indie bands for the film and
they all sounded pretty cool, tying in with the waiter and
the nouveau cuisine restaurant nicely.
Use
of Budget
At first I thought $20,000 was a bit pricey for a film that
was shot in six and a half days at a single location with
a GL2. However, when I realized how much ADR had been done
on the film, I was shocked at how inexpensively they had
managed to get the film done.
Great
character development along
with nice transitional effects...
...and
oddball humor help
keep this movie decidedly fresh!
Lasting
Appeal
While
the current ending is a little off, Waiting on Alphie is
a great film that has a lot of lasting appeal. Its humor
and commentary on life and crime is fun and quite enjoyable.
If the
few changes I recommended before are put in place, this
could easily become the Pulp Fiction of the 21st century.
In fact, as our magazine pursuse relationships with some
of the distributors that we are looking at, this will be
one of the films that I will be specifically bringing up.
Overall
Comment
Not since Pulp Fiction has an Indie crime film combined
so much spontaneous humor with hit man intrigue. Waiting
for Alphie is a great movie that takes a wrong turn at the
very end. Minimal re-editing and a few extra pickup shots
at the end can make this film seriously marketable.
