Spoiler Alert!
The overall story arch of this film works pretty well and arouses interest in where it is going and how it will all finally end. However, there is one element of pacing that needs to be brought up because it is the one thing that stops the movie cold: a love scene.
Towards the end of the film, we find out that Nick has his own affair-related secret, which is fully explained through dialogue, brief flashbacks, some more dialogue, a full flashback, and then still more dialogue. The problem with this is that love scenes are acts of passion, working best in some form of a linear storyline, where they naturally flow from a date or some other story event. White Out isn’t linear in that sense; rather it is about three people trapped in a limbo where they are talking out their problems from the past. The limbo in this case is the radio station, where the host makes a point of verbalizing everything that’s happening over the air. (In fact, the story structure is SO tied to the radio station and this show that the movie’s ending is simultaneous with the eventual end of Nick’s show.) As such, when he has a private flashback that goes on for a number of minutes, that shows all the specifics of how this love scene went down, it breaks the entire film’s structure of being in the here-and-now. While you can get away with a few mini-flashbacks without stopping a film like this and breaking the flow, even short flashbacks aren’t really necessary, as the acting in the here-and-now is more than sufficient to sell the gravity of the scene. Moreover, once it’s been revealed that Nick’s indiscretion has happened, the audience immediately ceases to care about exactly how it occurred, but instead wants to see how it affects his current situation and what the underlying reasons are—as he looks back on it now. As Nick’s partner in the flashback is an attractive person, I can understand why Grelck chose to originally include this scene, but, in my opinion, it really needs to get cut if the story’s pacing is to be as good as it can get.
The final ending of the film doesn’t need to be spoiled, as it works pretty well. The director mentioned that there used to be an extended ending, which I personally would have preferred, but the current one is still strong and leaves a few more questions than the other ending does, without being too ambiguous. (Hopefully the collector’s edition of the DVD will include some of these additional endings.)
Grelck uses opposing camera
angles and lighting with Nick...
...to create a schizoid scene
that is very like Golem/Sméagol.
Visual Look
The overall visual look of White Out is very impressive. Shot with the Indie-standard, the Panasonic AG-DVX100B, the film shows that you can get a very good look for a film without going into HD cameras. (And, in fact, since the DVX100B’s imaging sensors are much more sensitive to light than the HD HVX200, the dimmer environments of the radio station were able to be recorded well.) The costuming of the different characters was believable and the set really looked like they had commandeered a radio station for as long as they needed it. Camera shots were quite impressive, especially considering the close confines of a radio station, featuring lots of XCUs (extreme close ups), like an especially stylistic shot which frames part of Nick’s face right beside the on-air microphone. The lighting was nicely serviceable throughout the films, and the specialty lighting mentioned in the Content section for the Golem-scene was quite impressive.
The introductory credits were nicely put together, with simple, yet professional fly out animations that allow the credits to dissolve into space as they fly off the screen. The final credits were well designed and easy to read.
Use of Audio
The one area of this movie that sticks out like a sore thumb is the audio. Now, does it stick out like a sore thumb because it’s awful? No. Instead, it sticks out like a sore thumb because the rest of the production feels so professional that when the audio has issues, it tends to jar you out of the story. Audio issues were something that Grelck and the entire WDBG crew struggled with in Irving Renquist: Ghost Hunter and, while it’s not as problematic in this movie, as it was in IR: GH, it still is a problem that can only be prevented in future films by taking a close look at mic placement and realizing that audio on a film is fully 70% of what makes a film watchable to audiences. (Any doubt about the veracity of that claim can be answered by looking at the popularity of The Blair Witch Project and, more recently, the Bourne Supremacy, both of which had nausea-inducing visuals, but extremely polished audio.)
Where the audio issues arise is in the overall mixing of the film and in excess background noise recorded in certain scenes because the boom mic was too far from the talent (or because additional equipment was running in the background).
Currently, the vocal volume of the main actors is often so different, in volume levels, that the movie is all but unwatchable on a mono-audio TV, unless you are constantly riding the audio levels with a remote. You can watch the film and understand what’s being said in the soft parts, without blowing out your eardrums on the loud parts, if you watch it in a more 3D audio space, such as can be achieved through the stereo/surround speakers of a good home theater or a quality pair of headphones. To solve the volume issues would require tighter mixing of the dialogue on the center channel and bringing the volumes of the dialogue closer to –12 Db.
