Use of Budget
£1-2,000
(approx. $1,900 – 4,000 US) is not a very large budget
at all, and for a feature-length film, it's downright impressive.
And even though there were only three characters in the
cast, minimal set decoration, only a handful of locations,
and no fancy camera moves or stunts, I'd say that this money
was still quite well-spent. This film probably took a good
deal of time to shoot as it includes both indoor and outdoor
scenes, most of which were shot in daylight, which can get
really tricky to complete, especially when shooting with
natural light. And in that respect, it seems that the filmmakers
did a good job at budgeting their time as well.
However, it seems as though there should have been at least some money allocated to getting a musical score to put in the background, and also a little bit of Foley/ADR effects in post production to fix some of the mismatched audio.
But
the biggest issue is that more time definitely should have
been put into script development during pre-production,
especially considering that the film as it stands now is
very difficult to understand. As much of a pain as it is
to wait longer to begin shooting a movie, or even to spend
extra money up front in refining a script, it's a hundred
times worse to complete shooting and find that all the money
spent was wasted on footage that can't be used.
Lasting
Appeal
The
thing about the psychodrama genre is that audiences expect
them to be mysterious and difficult to understand, and in
that respect they are often more willing to stick around
longer to wait for the big payoff at the end. However, it's
still a fine line that a filmmaker has to walk between being
too mysterious and too predictable. And Dead Time
suffers significantly because it seems to hit both of these
pitfalls. On the one hand, the plot of a woman coming back
from the dead seems obvious from the very beginning, which
just makes the movie drag. On the other hand, the concept
of a creative mind being overcome by her own imagination
-while it is an interesting idea- is almost impossible for
the audience to determine if that is, in fact, a part of
the story, as the film's structure makes it difficult to
tell.
This
is really unfortunate, however, because the story itself
is an interesting one and could make for quite a nail-biter,
if told correctly. And as the visual look of this film still
quite strong, it would be a shame to put all this footage
to waste. My suggestion would be to get a new screenwriter
-someone who was not involved in this film's initial production
in any way- to look at both the original script and the
film. Then they should try to re-work the story into either
a short film or another feature-length, using as much of
the original footage as possible. Once one has put a lot
of time into making a movie, it's nearly impossible to make
such significant changes as by then one is quite attached
to the film; this is why it's so important for these filmmakers
to find a completely new screenwriter. There will probably
be a need for some re-shoots, additional scenes, and a lot
of narration, but it's much, much better than having to
start again from scratch, especially when this movie is
still quite fixable.
Overall Comment
This story has definite potential. Since Alfred Hitchcock,
the modern psychological thriller has re-gained significant
prominence within the past decade, thanks mostly in part
to the work of director M. Night Shyamalan. People really
like to see these types of movies, and anyone who can make
a good one -especially on such a low budget- has a really
good shot at getting their film bought.
Still,
the fact remains that this particular movie's structure
has more than a healthy level of confusion and that makes
it very difficult to watch. But the film itself still looks
good, and it was quite remarkable that these filmmakers
were able to get so much out of such a small budget. Seeing
as how they've already put a lot of time and money into
it already, I'd hate to see that go to waste. I'd encourage
them to do whatever they can to fix the story issues that
are still remaining, because the final result could be quite
an excellent movie.
