Use
of Audio
The
R&B soundtrack for the movie is great. It sounds awesome,
flows well, and fits the various scenes appropriately. Several
of the rappers featured on the soundtrack are also actors
in the movie, which is a nice touch.
However,
the soundtrack was the only stable audio in the movie. I
had to keep the remote on hand while I was watching the
movie; the audio is uneven, constantly shifting in pitch,
volume, and intensity from scene to scene all throughout
the film. Part of the problem was the changing environments
(indoors, outdoors, etc.), and part of it was not adequately
checking the audio before shooting. Now, having been produced
a micro-cinema film, I know how hard it is to get decent
audio; ours was so bad, we had to go back and re-dub all
of the actors' voices in post-production! While I don't
recommend that for every film, I would suggest it as a consideration.
Personally, I think that this movie would greatly benefit
from cleaning up the audio with ADR (automatic dialogue
replacement).
There
are also a few scenes where the girls are partying in the
house, dancing to music from a stereo. Rather than have
the music from the stereo blend into the background, it
ends up overriding the dialogue so you can't hear what's
being said. The same thing happens with multiple-conversation
scenes; people end up talking over one another so that you
can't hear what anyone is saying. Again, re-recording the
dialogue in post would've made it easier to raise different
characters' voices over music or other voices so the audience
could hear what's going on.
LA
Celebrity rapper Tha'
Realest and...
...Drive
Time DJs Tha' Goodfellas
are some of the cameos in this film.
Use
of Budget
As stated above, it's evident that this movie was filmed
using a decent camera. But if a good quality camera is part
of a movie, then good audio is an even greater part. I know
from experience that it's not always possible to get great
audio while you're shooting. However, doing ADR in post--while
time-consuming--is well worth the time, effort, and money.
It can completely change the feel of a film.
For
$15,000, the movie was okay. However, for another, say,
$5,000, the audio could have been re-dubbed; then they'd
have a $20,000 movie that was even better. (A note
to the filmmakers: I noticed that some of your cameos
were professional rappers. If they're sympathetic to your
film, they might be able to gain access to a studio to redub
the film when the studio isn't in use for a much lower cost
or even no cost. We will be doing some articles on good
redubbing in future issues, but if you decide to do this
before then, email me and I can give you some specific advice
ahead of time.)
Finally,
since they decided to distribute via DVD, a last thing that
needed to be considered in the budget is how the DVD printing
was going to be done and what was going to be on it.
They've
gotten some awesome graphic designing done for the DVD covers
and the DVDs themselves, plus they even put in a bloopers
and outtakes on the DVD. However, it doesn't have any chapters
in it. This means that no one can flip to a scene that they
want to show their friends, which in turn means less people
who will see scenes from the film and wish to go purchase
it. Along those same lines, I noticed that they have a trailer
on their website, yet in the Collector's Edition of your
DVD, it was noticeably absent. They went to all the work
of creating the trailer, why not put it on the DVD so people
can show friends who might be interested in watching the
film?
Lasting
Appeal
The
movie and the production company that made it have a lot
of potential. There really aren't enough good urban comedy
movies, and I would like to see that void start to be filled.
Hopefully microfilmmakers like the women in Xyrus will start
tackling that genre.
Having
said that, I must honestly say that as the movie is now
I would not show it to my friends. Not because the film
isn't funny or my friends don't like this type of comedy.
Rather it is because of three major drawbacks: unstable
audio, adlibbed dialogue, and loose scripting. These three
aspects affected the entire impact of the movie; they influenced
the acting, the humor, character interaction, and understanding
of the plot. These three features could have all been improved
by good post-production cleanup, sticking to the script,
and tighter writing.
Overall
Comment Slumber
Party has the markings of a humorous and creative urban
comedy. Unfortunately, structural problems (dialogue and
scripting) and technical problems (audio and lighting) made
it difficult for the audience to fully understand or appreciate
it. (And there are few things worse than your audience not
understanding your film!)
Not
to despair though, this is only the first movie these talented
young ladies have put out. The first start is always the
roughest, and it's only through experience that we improve.
