A film of this nature is obviously very difficult to end. Real life usually doesn’t have any clear-cut endings – it just sort of meanders away, which is how this film finished off. On the one hand it fits better with the theme, but also leaves an audience feeling a bit let down, as we’ve gotten invested in these girls and now want to know what’s happening in their lives. A more concrete wrap-up would be best – their plans for the future, what’s changed in the past four years, etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but something a little more structured would be better.
Visual Look
One of the things I loved the most about this film were the black and white vignettes that popped up occasionally. There were many great artistic images, mostly of the towns these girls live in, but also some of the incidents that occur during the filming process of this movie. It’s a great combination of artistic imagery and the narration that is layered on top. My one concern in this area, however, are those few segments where there is mention of riots or other incidents. While people who are from the area may understand these illusions, those of us in other areas – or countries, even – will be confused at what is being talked about. It’s great to show the girls’ perspective on these events, but they ought to be prefaced by captions that explain each event in detail, otherwise a non-native audience will be lost.
There was a really nice scene where Sian and her friends go to a carnival at night. While this is a notoriously difficult area to shoot – the contrast between a dark sky and very bright lights – the director did a really good job at catching everything. Even the few instances where the camera goes in and out of focus – whether intentional or not – looked really great. This shoot could’ve easily been a nightmare, but it actually turned out well.
There was also a nice shot that showed the security cameras in one of the girls’ schools – a small touch, but an interesting one. Most of the interview shots were pretty straightforward; not a lot of variety, but amazingly not a lot of camera shake either. In a couple of the interviews that were shot near open windows there was the occasional washout, but other than that the lighting was mostly clear.
My only issue with the visual look was in the editing of some of the interview sequences – there were occasional cuts to black that seemed to serve the purpose of shortening these scenes. Interviews are difficult to cut down, especially if one lets the subject talk at length, and winds up with a few good tidbits in the middle of cutting room floor material. The sudden cuts to black are rather disorienting to the audience, especially since many of the film’s cuts are done with fades or dissolves, and it initially looks to be the start of a whole new segment. This type of transition ought to be done by dissolving between shots or, to give a more polished look, fading into and out of black. This will be much smoother than a simple cut.
Use of Audio
In contrast to a normal documentary format, there was very little music in Small Town Girl. The only music that exists is in whatever is in the background – whether it be the girls’ playing piano, their stereos, or even the music sung in church. In my opinion, this is a really great choice, and I’m very impressed at how clean the audio is. Shooting images that have background music has the potential for opening a huge can of worms in the editing room – the least of which is making sure the music matches up with any cuts in video that need to be made. In this case, however, the use of only background audio was great. I didn’t notice any sudden drops or breaks, and only a couple skips, which could have been attributed to the video. It also gave a much more realistic feel than trying to put in a soundtrack of any kind.
