Now, let’s take a moment and discuss editing, shall we? Overall, the edit is smooth. There are no major snafus…no missing frames, glitches, hang-ups, etc. in the flow of the piece. Nice work. Two things to watch for (which is more of a camera thing, but can sometimes be corrected through editing) is the jump cut and the 180 degree cross. A “jump cut,” of course, occurs when the position of one shot to the next has less than a 30 degree variation. In other words, the one shot is too much like the previous shot.
The 180 degree cross occurs when you break the line of action. When you set your camera up and place actors in front of it, you have established a line of action between your actors and have set a precedence for how your audience’s orientation to the action. The 180 degree rule was created to describe the space that exists between your audience (the camera) and your actors. You can move anywhere on one side of the line of action (half a circle, or 180 degrees) and not disorient your audience. If you cross the line, left becomes right, right becomes left, and your audience is left shaking their heads in confusion. Are there times and ways to cross it? Of course, but it needs to be done with purpose, meaning, and in such a way as to not lose your audience. When it is done unintentionally, it causes the viewer to break their engagement with the story and go, “Hey, I thought that guy was on the right of that other guy!?”
I mention this because there were a few places where both of these were happening. Jump cuts in the wonderful scene with Tony on the phone in the hotel room distracted from the scene. Meanwhile, the line was crossed (most notably) in episode #1 in a scene where the guys are standing around the truck discussing Oliver’s love life.
Sometimes (not always), you can cheat to correct this by changing the position of the clip in FCP either in the motion menu or by using the “flop” command in the effects menu. (For non-FCP people, Avid, Premiere Pro, and Vegas all have a similar command.) The easiest thing, however, is to be conscious of these things when you’re filming. Remember, you’re making the film for the audience, so keep them in mind.
The ending is a wee bit tough to tackle on a submission like this one since it is episodic. So, we’ll talk about the endings to each episode in general. By and large, I loved the endings. They left you hanging in the mood of the last character seen or the last line spoken. Whether it’s Tony staring off into the distance dwelling on the pain of having been thrown out of his own home, Mike’s regret over having not succeeded at his own business, or Oliver’s immaturity, you’re decidedly left with lingering thoughts about what you just saw.
Now I will seemingly contradict myself. The endings left you feeling…yes, but there was a certain element of resolution that was lacking in a couple of the endings. The two that I felt could use a little more solid resolution were 1) the scene that ends with Oliver shooting himself in the foot with the nail gun (very funny) and 2) the scene where the “mean guy” taunts our three heroes and ends up driving off while Mike sings Poison’s “Unskinny Bop.” While both are humorous, they just feel like they don’t come full circle. Honestly, I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is and I don’t have any bright ideas, but it’s just a little food for thought.
Overall “Bastards” has a rather flat look. Some of that comes from the outdoor sets (except for the hotel room) and only using direct ambient light. While natural light looks great, it sometimes needs a little auxiliary help to create some depth (at least when dealing with something as small as a person). Granted, to really augment outdoor lighting would require HMI lights that are outdoor temperature balanced and they are usually a bit pricey, but you can do quite a bit of light sculpting with a good reflector like we reviewed in this issue of MFM.) On the other hand, the flat lighting seems to play with the mood of a group of guys just going through the motions, wanting something better, but not knowing how to obtain it. So, here I think that this type of lighting works. However, playing with some different lighting ideas may be a good idea for future episodes to keep the visuals from feeling stagnant.
I don’t think any additional lights were used in the hotel room scene with Tony, but there the flatter lighting plays to the mundane on an even deeper level.
I’ll briefly mention costumes since it is, technically, a part of this section. The nice thing about a project like this is that you can keep costume budget down because most of the actors can supply their own wardrobe. “Bastards” makes good use of its costumes. The costumes compliment the very real and honest characters that they adorn.
