Acting was a little bit of a mixed bag. Some of the basic acting was a little rough at the beginning of the film, when Legat and Wyatt had to carry nearly the entire film with a constant one-on-one conversation in a bar. However, both actors had good chemistry and made the viewer want to root for them in the film, so that, by the mid-point of the film, you were fully invested. Jonathan C. Legat continues to find a way to draw one into his often nihilistic characters, with the Wes character bearing striking resemblances to his character in White Out (but with more resolution than his character had in that film). Stephanie Wyatt's portrayal of the often confused but still determined Lauren is endearing in a way that makes her compelling, as well.
While there were a couple of shaky roles from some of the secondary characters, there were also some outstanding roles from some secondary characters. Emily Skyle as the slightly oblivious fiancée did an amazingly polished job with her role and really sold a few scenes that might not have worked without her panache. Christopher Weise as Harris, Wes' older brother, was another actor who's performances really took the film to a higher level, as well.
The folks at CNGM like their DVX100B (much like most of us with these cameras, as DVX and HVX cameras have amazing consumer loyalty from filmmakers), as this was used to shoot Coasting, just as they used it to shoot White Out. The camera angles and shots were pretty polished with decent white balancing and color correction throughout. The only time that I felt that things got a little out of balance was during a scene where Lauren is walking through a night shrouded parking lot talking on a cell phone to Dan. While there's enough light to illuminate her, the amount of blue darkness overwhelms the scene a bit too much. As such, for future sequences, a better situation might be to have her walking through an illuminated parking garage or under a fairly powerful street light with a bounce card adding some fill. (I've done that with the DVX and managed to get a pretty well illuminated shot that way.)
They did a lot of work to make this film feel authentic to inhabitants of both Chicago and Cincinnati, sending a crew to shoot panoramas of portions of both cities. This made the film feel much more authentic and polished.
