Despite the good things in the movie, there were a few issues that need to be corrected.

One of the biggest issues cropped up in the form of an interview sequence in the middle of the film. None of the footage in this interview makes it into the final show reel, yet, for some reason, it's in color. However, the color is not as saturated as the final show reel and, to make matters worse, is actually shot from two different brands of cameras with two different color spectrums. If it was necessary for this to be in color, this would mean that this segment needed to be seriously color corrected, because it sticks out like a sore thumb. However, because it's right in the midst of the raw footage and because it doesn't show up in the ending show reel, the better correction would just be to desaturate the footage to look like the rest of the rough black and white footage in the film.

Another color issue occurs during the opening scene of the film with the crew driving to Brett's apartment. It initially starts out in color, then later switches to black and white. This seems like an odd transition and it's hard to tell why the filmmakers made this decision. It's so short, in fact, that it's possible that it was a rendering glitch that didn't get caught before it was burned to DVD. If it was intentional, then it would probably be better to just leave all te raw-footage portion of the film in black and white - this gives the film a consistent look, and makes a nicer contrast between that portion and Brett's color show reel.

Another editing issue crops up in the form of random dissolves, which are almost never done in actual documentaries. Because the camera would be simply shut off in a raw footage situation, these dissolves distract from the continuity feel of the film. Additionally, they just don't look good.

The last issue I had was with the scrolling text in the closing credits. The idea was great - showing scrolling text that explained what happened to the crew after the show reel was complete. This is something that is usually done in serious films that are based on real life, but incorporating them into this film really added to it. The only problem was that the font chosen was a little difficult to read, and the text seemed to scroll a little too quickly. I found myself having to pause the DVD just to catch what was being said. It may be a good idea to just pick a simple sans serif font such as Arial (yes, I know it's boring, but it is readable), and slow the scrolling down a little bit. I was once told that if a fast reader can read through the text on screen at least three times then it should be up long enough for the slower members of the audience to be able to catch it.

Use of Audio
One of the things that American audiences seem to find most interesting about British films is - obviously - the accents of the characters, so long as they can understand what is being said. This film did a fairly good job in keeping the dialogue clean, though there were issues with spiking when Massive Johnson would get too loud, which resulted in a slight pinging sound, and, during the interview portion, the interviewer was usually a little muffled. While the pinging audio can be seen past due to the documentary feel to much of the film, the background interview questions should be re-recorded to make them easier to understand.

Additionally, when they go outside the appartment to locations like a pub, the park, and inside a car as they drive around, the ambience and volume are much too high in comparison to the volume of the rest of the film. While lowering the outdoor volume helps some, there are enough ambience muffling issues that these sequences probably need to be redubbed. [Note to the Director: You can try running these segments through an audio cleaning software like Soundsoap or Diamond Cut 6, but the sheer amount of ambience will probably result in your audio breaking apart. As such, redubbing these segments with ADR is probably the only solution. (In March we will be doing an ADR issue, BTW.) For future films, use of a shotgun microphone like a Sennheizer ME67 with a windsock will help immensely. While that mic will probably run you about £355 new, you can usually find it for half that on ebay and it's an excellent investment for future films.]

There wasn't a lot of music underscoring the film, but what was there matched the mood very well.