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 Tom and Anthony are aspiring actors living in Hollywood. In between auditions and acting classes, the two work together. But rather than flipping burgers or washing cars, they work as hitmen for a large LA corporation. Infamous is an ongoing series of four minute vignettes of the misguided adventures of Tom and Anthony – aka “Maverick” and “Iceman.”
Infamous has both a novel concept and story. There have been a lot of independent films made about wannabe actors trying to make it in Hollywood. Ironically enough, one of those films – Swingers – was even referenced in Infamous. But while most of those films focus on the struggle to become an actor, very few of them actually turn the wannabe’s day job into the main focus of the plot.
Given this subject matter, one might assume that the film itself could get a little morbid, but there are plenty of great comedic moments thrown in – especially in the interplay between Tom and Anthony – that they almost turn into loveable gangsters. Well, not quite loveable. But they are pretty darn funny.
The DVD itself was a little difficult to watch as it contained five episodes and sent the user back to the main menu after each one, and if one wasn’t keeping track of what number one had just watched, you might get out of sequence in choosing the next episode. I realize that the point of the film is to be an online episodic-type series, but a smooth play-all would be a great idea for future DVDs.
This film has some really great visual shots, which used the camera to help set up the humor. For example, one of my favorite scenes was when the boys are at a strip club and one of them goes completely slack-jawed for the new stripper. Not only was the acting funny, but the visual layout were great (and I don’t mean this in a dirty way *ahem*). There were also many other visual moments that helped enhance the film – all in dramatic, comedic, and artistic manners.
The special effects, as one might expect, were also very good. There were several gunshots to the forehead, which looked realistic without being too graphic. Other great makeup and effects shots came in further blood effects, as well as a pretty intense mixed martial arts match – which I’m hoping was choreographed, as one of its participants was a rather sizeable man. (I heard a rumor that the “heavy” in this scene is somehow connected to the UFC.)
There were a few minor visual issues, however. In the first episode, the boys do a hit in a hotel room. It was a great scene, but there was quite a lot of glare coming from the hotel room window. Hotel rooms are an easy location to get, but they can be a nightmare because of limited area to move in and large windows with lots of sunlight. The obvious choice is to shoot with the camera facing away from the window, but since this isn’t always possible another option is to use ND (beutral density) filters over the window, or – as a last resort - to over-saturate the room with 5600 K light and adjust the camera accordingly. The filmmakers really did a pretty good job at balancing the window glare as it was, but without more extreme measures (which obviously would have been more time consuming and costly) there were a couple instances where it got a bit much.
As one would expect, given the theme of the movie, there are a lot of low-light scenes which are, for the most part well-balanced. A boardroom scene (where they receive their orders as to what hits they are to perform) did seem a little odd, as it didn’t seem appropriate to have such low light in a conference room. However, there was good use made of overhead lights in other scenes, particularly in a restaurant scene, which helped to keep the main characters properly illuminated, but kept any extraneous background imagery in lower light.
Along with the help of adjusted lighting, the folks behind Infamous made use of the Redrock Micro M2 35mm Lens adapter system on their HVX200 camera. This allowed them to really control the depth of focus and gave these episodic shorts a very polished and film-like look.
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