The
lighting and white balance were pretty consistent for the
most part, except that the scenes of Alex at work had a
very blue tint to them. Whether that was done on purpose
to make work seem as boring and devoid of color as possible,
I'm not sure, but it does seem a little excessive. In addition,
if the intent was to make the office seem drab and dull,
it may have been a better choice to simply de-saturate the
color and bring it as close to black-and-white as possible.
It seems as though the filmmakers are already using some
color differentiations between the various locations, as
the outdoor scenes are somewhat more colorful and airy,
but the most intense and exciting color is reserved for
Alex's imaginings of the stories he is writing. As there
really aren't a lot of locations, it would be a nice touch
to rate them in terms of importance to Alex and assign each
a level of color saturation. It probably wouldn't be all
that noticeable, but would still give a nice, subtle touch
to the visual aspects of the film.
There
were also a few shots that looked to be out of focus, but
most of them were in Alex's "imagination" or when
looking from the perspective of the fish, so this only served
to enhance the dreamlike quality of these shots.
There
were quite a few moments where block-shaped artifacts would
show up on the image, which obviously looked glitch-like
and unprofessional. It might have been a rendering issue
or a side effect of the compression into the computer. Either
way, it needs to be corrected through re-rendering or re-importing
the footage.
Use of Audio
This movie did a good job with audio, which is usually one of the toughest parts of indie filmmaking. For the most part, the dialogue was clear and easy to understand, though there were some moments where the sound was a bit muffled.
One
thing that I found rather interesting was that when Alex
was outside on the street corner, not only were no cars
or few people, but there was very little ambient sound.
No sounds of cars driving by or even of birds chirping.
On the one hand, this makes the film seem very unrealistic
-no matter where you go outside, there is always some kind
of ambient sound. But on the other hand, this adds to the
eerie, dreamlike feeling of the movie, and to the whole
feeling of being in a fish tank, as water tends to muffle
noise, and being inside a glass bowl would shut out most
ambient sound.
In addition,
the score was good and matched very well to the action.
There were some very eerie strains that fit well with the
shots from the perspective of the fish, some more childlike
tones to fit in with the story of Yvette the young ballerina,
and -perhaps the most intense music- that meshed with a
story told by an ex-con of his escape from prison in which
Alex seems to literally become the man on the run. All in
all, the score of this film was very strong.
Use
of Budget
For a 20-minute film, $7,000 seems like
a little much to spend. Though some of that price tag can
be seen in the remarkable acting job by the main character
and of several of the individuals he interviews, several
really interesting and complex shots, a good visual look,
and a really good score. Still, it seems as though some
more work could be done to correct the rendering issues
that crop up within the film, and perhaps do a little color
correction on some of the office scenes and a bit of ADR
on some of the muffled audio.
Lasting
Appeal
This
film is very solid in most areas. The story is very intriguing,
it's visually interesting, and the score is very well-done.
The only problems are the few technical issues (the biggest
of which is rendering) that do tend to distract from the
overall enjoyment of the film. If these issues can be fixed,
it will be a very, very good movie.
Overall
Comment
This film is reminiscent of the Fight Club-esque
genre of thought-provoking, social commentary type movies.
Not only does it criticize the modern trend of fish-bowl
living, but it also cautions against its extreme opposite:
trying to look at life from every angle and becoming obsessed
with the outside world to the point where one completely
disregards their own life. Alex was on the right track in
his "instant novels", and as much as they were
cathartic for him, they definitely benefited the people
he wrote them for. The problem was that Alex went too far.
He became obsessed with escaping from the fish-bowl, and
yet he forgot that, despite the confinement, a fish must
live in water, and that water must be contained within a
fish-bowl. For a human being to confine themselves to that
kind of existence is tragic, but to try to completely break
free of all rules and restrictions holds only disastrous
consequences. Fish Eye illustrates this point very,
very well.
