The films presented at Slamdance were projected digitally on a screen, and many of the movies were shot on HD, presenting incredibly crisp pictures. Some filmmakers, however, chose to degrade the quality of their movies. Josh Bass, director of Joey and Jerome’s Artistic and Meaningful Independent Film; Steven Cohen, director of Broken Records; and Jules Stevens, director of Skinned, each downgraded their digital movie to give it the unique look they wanted.
Director Joss Bass tries to publicize Joey and Jerome’s Artistic and Meaningful Independent Film at Slamdance.
For Josh Bass, degrading the quality of the digital was a necessity for the storyline. The narrative follows two slackers, Joey and Jerome, who are inspired by several independent films and decide to create their very own artistic indie full of clichés on an old school VHS recorder. Josh tried special effects in post for a low-fi analog look, but found that transferring the digital footage to VHS and back two to three generations achieved the right look. The total cost came to $2,000 (including pay for actors and crew) for six days of shooting. He recommends that filmmakers “should plan on long days unless [they] have a really short thing that that [they] are doing.” He also recommends to not shoot in places that you don’t have “explicit permission to shoot.” This sage advice came after Josh put a sign that said, “Welcome to Cat Grisle Maine” over a welcome to Houston sign. He shot for only 30 seconds, but that was enough time for a cop and eventually three more squad cars to arrive. Josh tried to explain the concept of the movie, but as he says “I don’t know if you have ever tried to explain why your hilarious movie is hilarious to a cop, but it’s kind of a losing battle.” Eventually they made him erase the footage that he shot.
University of Central Florida film student Steven Cohen’s Broken Records takes place on the tape of an unaired eighties sitcom. After the tape is rewound, the actors must repeat their lines with a strong sense of déjà vu. With each rewind, the video becomes more degraded and the actors get more freaked out. The editor of Broken Records transferred digital to VHS up to eight times to get the artifacts of bad video production. To give the look of a sitcom, Steven shot with three cameras. He recommends that “at the conceptual stage, try to write something or an idea that can be done feasibly.” Producer Nils Taranger also added that “you need to make a lot of friends with people that have equipment and different skills.” That is solid advice, as they got into Slamdance on a budget of $300.
Broken Record's Nils Taranger and Steven Cohen.
Filmmaker Jules Stevens, aka Wotsisname, shot his short Skinned on HD then downgraded to DV and exaggerated the colors in post to give his movie a rougher edge. The movie traces an encounter between a successful man on the verge of a nervous breakdown and a woman he meets in a park. The two-day shoot had continuity problems due to moving clouds and wind that made the audio unusable. Jules used this to his advantage by editing in a choppy, disjointed style, pushing up the colors, and recording ADR indoors for all the dialogue, giving the film an overall surreal and disconcerting feeling. His advice to filmmakers is to “just get behind a camera and try stuff out. Don’t worry about getting a big budget and spending the time raising money.”
Anjoo Kosla began shooting her short documentary, Wahid’s Mobile Bookstore with another story in mind, the selling of pirated best selling books on the streets of Mumbai. The story instead centered on Wahid, a nine year old boy eager to make money for his family. She not only shot him as he darted in and out of traffic, banging on car windows trying to sell illegal books, but also documented his home life with the seven members of his family in a one-room apartment. Anjoo was taping a few months after the attacks on Mumbai and she tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Her advice to filmmakers is to get “friends and colleagues involved in the process and then do stuff for them [so that you can] call in favors.”
