The other audio issue seemed to deal with microphone placement. In a conversation between Matt and Trip, Matt’s volume was lower than Trip’s, as though he wasn’t standing close enough to the microphone. And in an exchange between Trip and Kim, her voice was significantly lower than his – this often tends to happen with women; our voices are usually softer and at a higher pitch. A good soundman should be able to compensate for this, but it needs to be tested on the day of shooting, otherwise one will be forced to re-loop the dialogue in ADR. (One way to make sure you’ve got a good recording is keep the head of your shotgun mic between 1.5’ – 3’ from your actors lips while they speak.)
Of this film’s $3500 budget, $600 was spent on Kraft services (ie food for cast & crew, $800 for tape stock and equipment, $700 for sets, wardrobe, and props, $500 for music production, $750 for print media and duplication, and the remaining $150 for miscellaneous expenses.
There are a lot of big purchases here, but this film was also shot in New Jersey which, given its proximity to the microfilmmaker’s nightmare known as New York City, couldn’t have been cheap. The only expense that this film might have benefitted from would be to hire a professional soundman, as there were audio issues that could have been avoided on the day of shooting.
There’s a bit of a modern hint of the Redford/Newman classic The Sting in this film. As its one of my absolute favorite movies, I could be reading a bit into it, but the themes of card playing, gambling, cons, and double-crosses are timeless, and always seem to work their way into movies. Money is the first thing that seems to get people in trouble, and pride is certainly the second. Even though there is a good amount of humor here, this film still touches on that underlying – and deadly serious – message.
ActionJunkies could have easily been taken into a serious (and campy) direction, but the clever mix of severity and underlying humor makes for a very entertaining viewing. The mysteries that could have been accidentally given away at the beginning or washed out by excess dialogue were elusive enough to keep the audience guessing.
