The audio design worked pretty well in most areas. They chose to add nice sound effects in lieu of traditional visual effects, and the tradeoff worked pretty well. With that said, there were a few times where the sound design overwhelmed the dialogue. For example, when a ghostly sheriff has been summoned to a church, his heavily distorted voice actually replaces the nat sound track of the other actors, which makes the whole scene seem very artificial. It's important to remember that, for the most part, sound design elements need to augment the initial sound, rather than replace them.
Joe and Joshua Truitt did a pretty nice job with the score, which was minimal at times and a bit heavier in the more intense sections. The only real issues I noted was that there were some areas where they chose a more distorted style that seemed overly discordant for the film and there were some areas where the score just cut out suddenly, which also seemed off.
The use of budget was really excellent on this film. It primarily consisted of the cost of purchasing the Panasonic HVX200, a Panasonic microphone, and, an especially intelligent purchase, the Sony Sound Effects Library. The sound effects in this film helped drive some of the effects, even though they couldn't afford visual effects packages. For future films, it would be good to think about augmenting the budget for having a wider casting session and to get a dedicated shotgun mic and boom pole.
While I really appreciated how this film was created, right now its audience is fairly limited because actors were chosen either by bloodline or by friends of the family. This led to performances that drag and ramble too often for it to have a large draw. Even though I really do enjoy family and fantasy films, I probably wouldn't rewatch this one.
While there were a number of missteps in this film, I love the fact that the Truitt family decided to make this film as a team and did everything at their disposal to do it right. This is immensely educational for the members who might be interested in filmmaking and allows them to really see what all is involved in bringing a project to fruition, as well as providing family memories for all involved. If Joe and Josh continue to be interested in making films together, I think taking their creativity to a wider group of actors is going to help out immensely, as will budgeting for some improvements in audio capture.
