Sets would be my only complaint in this section. There’s a scene, in particular, where our three men are unloading wood in the middle of a field. The field just wasn't believable to me. Instead of thinking “job site,” I was thinking, “where are they and why are they there?” I had the same thought during a non-sequitur scene at the train yard. I loved the visuals, but was at a loss for how it pertained to their job. When I saw the guys at a house (which I can buy into as a potential job site), I began to wonder if they ever do any work at all. Mike is raking mulch (I think), Tony was sitting on a riding lawn mower, and Oliver was eating lunch. Maybe you could work into dialogue some more details as to the nature of what it is that they do. Because the work is so non-specific, it actually takes you out of the story. Not that dialogue is the only solution. Having specific locations or having them do very specific individual jobs while they are dialoguing will help reinforce their exact line of work.
Camera work for “Bastards” was pretty good. I particularly liked a shot with a slow de-focus on Tony’s face at the end of the scene where he tells his co-workers that his wife threw him out. Not only is it nice, but it plays to the disorientation that we assume Tony must be feeling.
I’ll throw out briefly, since I mentioned in detail earlier, to watch the shot angles that will result in jump cuts and the breaking of the 180 degree rule. There was one scene that was zoomed in too close, people were walking in and out of frame while loading a truck, but they were constantly out of focus. If something had been in focus and this could have been an interesting shot, but if you leave it as is it just feels like a mistake.
So, controlling focus is the biggest area for improvement in the camera work department. When intentional defocus is used for dramatic effect, it looks great and doesn't look like a mistake. But when it's uncontrolled, it takes away from the story you’re trying to tell.
I sat in a workshop with a sound design/audio guy and he asked us to tell him what the most important thing to capture was. Some people said, “Room tone!” “Nope. Dialogue.” You most certainly cannot tell your story without it (unless of course you’ve written it that way).
Okay, I would like to start by saying that something like 99% of the dialogue is crisp, clear, and easy to hear and understand. However, there is some dialogue that is barely audible at the beginning of the scene in front of the house (when Tony shares his marriage trouble). It’s a wide, establishing shot, so it’s not like you can get the boom microphone close to the actors. The problem with losing this dialogue is that when we get to the other shots where I can hear the dialogue, I feel like I’m trying to figure out what had been said before.
There are three (that I see) simple ways to fix this issue. You could: 1) Have no dialogue during your establishing shot. 2) Rent lavaliere microphones. This will take care of the proximity problem, but could also create new ones, i.e. the rustling of clothes. 3) Record the dialogue separately (you can do it in post, but if you want to maintain the same sound quality without having to do a bunch of post-work, just record it straight to the camera in the location you're at on the day of shooting) and then pull it into final cut and remove the video portion so you’re left with only the audio. Place it over the footage of your establishing shot. We can hear the dialogue, but, in this particular shot, the camera is far enough away that no one’s lips can be seen anyway.
Sound effects weren’t a big issue here since there weren’t really too many needed. The nail gun, which may have been recorded as-is-on-set, sounded great. Then there was the sound of a ringing cell phone. The ring sound was too loud in contrast to the rest of the ambient sound and that draws attention to the sound effect, which takes it away from the scene.
Score? This is the one thing “Bastards” is missing and, in my opinion, the only thing that it really suffers from. There is so much good emotion in the episodes and a little background music would go a long way to reinforce those moods. It also helps bridge sound gaps from take to take. From an audio standpoint this is the one thing that jumped up and slapped me in the face. It needs some music to help tell the story and drive home the emotions/moods. I’m not saying that it has to be throughout 100% of each episode. There are places where I would leave it out, letting the silence do its thing and then punctuate with the music. Other places need more than others, so just trust your judgment. On the flip side, not using any music is a certain way to avoid any copyright issues. But, there are plenty of options out there for score that are low cost and effective and copyright free. (From online distributors of royalty free music to software that sculpts royalty free music, like SonicFire Pro, Adobe Soundbooth, or Sony Cinescore.) Explore what music can do for these episodes.
