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Reviews
Happythankyoumoreplease (2010)
Gets my own First Prize for first RED RAW camera which looks as good as film!
Yes, I didn't notice it was shot digital. Then, when I saw the oval-shaped boké in the out-of-focus car tail-lights, I realised it was anamorphic. A combination of Hawk Anamorphic lenses and a rock-solid story added up to the full-bottle with this film. RED can do it! What else? Did the DP hide the talent in the shadows, to hide the highlight-clipping? Nope. Any sign of heavy colourisation in post? Certainly not. I'd say most RED fans will be using Happythankyoumoreplease as a benchmark for how to get it right in RED. For me, as long as it looks as real as this, I won't be yearning for film. One minor gripe (big grip for me) is that its Blu-Ray release was in 16:9 instead of the original 2:35:1.
The Smell of Success (2009)
Another digital-acquisition failure
As soon as I saw the start of this film I asked myself, "Why the sepia tones?" Later, I asked, "Is this a play? Finally, when unsure of the answers to either question, I turned to IMDb. Oh, I see! It's shot on digital! Now, the RED camera is capable of super-realistic colour reproduction. On the other hand, RED format can sometimes even pass off masquerade as film - for a while. Given time, we audiences will possibly come to accept its particular look as being worthy of filmic drama. But not yet. Until that day, those film-makers who are unsure of their screenplay, talent or the financial certainty of their venture are likely to seek the cost-savings which digital acquisition can offer.
One day too, some brave cinematographer will use the RED's hyper-colour potential, starting an exciting, new genre. Until then, cut-cost producers will try vainly to disguise RED's inability to actually look like film. Usually these DOPs rely upon under-exposing and heavily back-lighting their scenes, with often a touch of rim-lighting to dazzle and sparkle. It's sort of like every lady's best trick: the little black cocktail dress. -But all day? Every day??
With The Smell of Success, the producers have gone all the way and hidden the colour altogether. It's sepia! only the faintest hint of skin-tones. We are treaated to yellow skies, hospital doctors in beige lab-coats, beige teeth and lots of brown. I'm afraid the whole film reminds me of the nicotene-stained Czechoslovakian cafes of the Soviet days. An aesthetic mistake. Bad taste. Please take the whole thing back to the colourists and undo that last, desperate decision they made in an attempt to save a picture they had no confidence in: Lose the sepia. Re-release the original, un-colourised film. If we want modified colours we can probably tweak the settings ourselves.
Monsters (2010)
"Made with a crew consisting of only two people" - and looks like it!
"Made with a crew consisting of only two people using "off the shelf" $8,400 cameras."
Well, that's what you get. In fact, it's as good as you'll get without a script. Some videographers are complaining about the over-use of shallow depth-of-field in the latest generation of HD-shot films - and I'd never understood what they were talking about. Now, after seeing Monsters, I know why. The poor camera operator was brilliant - but not psychic. Often, there'd be a two-shot of the lead characters, one in the distance: the guy behind would start talking so the camera would pull focus to him in the distance, blurring the foreground. Oops, now she's talking. Better focus on the foreground! And don't get me started on the incessant camera-shake. Hey, the actors were superb, so was the location, the audio... why on earth couldn't they raise the cash to make a proper movie? Or maybe it was the meagre story which had to be dragged-out like "Days of our Lives" or it would have ended after 45 minutes.
Me and Orson Welles (2008)
Spoiled by awful colourisation
This film was shot on some kind of HD video. That's not the problem. What made me hit the eject button on my blu-ray player was the nauseating, sepia (tobacco-like) tint they ran it through - probably in an attempt to make it look like film. What's more, the blu-ray/DVD versions were not released in the original 2.3:1 widescreen but in 16:9 video aspect ratio. When HD video finally wins our hearts it will be with its own, brilliant colours - not by trickery. Until then, I "believe in video, but I dream in film"*. They only saved a little by not using film; was it worth the sacrifice? I used to wish DVD-cases were labelled "shot on video" whenever necessary. Lately, however, several genre-specific films have been released where I found HD to be the ideal medium (The Social Network, Avatar). But the dramatic genre of this film means it is cheapened by the digital acquisition format used.
*We used to say, "We see in colour but we dream in black & white."
Australia (2008)
Anwatchable
When this film was released, so many of my countrymen immediately wanted to know my opinion of it that I grew so afraid of their criticism I avoided seeing Australia - until yesterday, when I fired-up the blu-ray in the privacy of my home. Not for one moment, during the 50 minutes before I pressed the eject button, did I imagine I was watching a real film. This is a montage. Every character is a caricature; every ounce of sincerity is driven out of the work of actors capable of giving much more of themselves than they were allowed to. I live here in the NT, in the bush - the subject of the film. I make films and despair.
A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
On the Technical side: a rare success for video shooting!
If few of us watching Tristram Shandy were aware that the film was shot on video and not film, this is because the content may have been carefully chosen to help us go on the journey and forget the look of the movie.
We associate the film medium with the movies and we tend to suspend our disbelief accordingly. When we see video, (even hi-definition video) we associate the content with documentary.
It's all in the grey matter. Video can be as good as film - even better - but it has yet to help us dream the way film does. Successive attempts to do so have lost money, which is why, once a producers have hired actors, caterers, etc, etc then they might as well pay the little extra for the box-office guarantee that film provides.
Tristram Shandy, in the tradition of the Russian Ark (2002), combines dramatic content, sumptuous costumes and classical decor with an alternately journalistic style complete with presenter, unsteady hand-held camera and almost a reality TV insight into the film-making world.
The trick of using just enough documentary content to woo our subconscious into accepting HD video as a drama medium for the movies got me - hook, line and sinker! In terms of our evolution from film media into a purely digital one, Tristram Shandy is a significant milestone.
Overnight (2003)
Unwatchable for anyone over 30
(Maybe it's because I've just seen Polanski's 'Oliver Twist' today, where each frame could be examined for its richness of content...) What can another film-maker colleague say about this shallow, out-of-focus, shot-without script, high-school montage without any notion of a plot? Am I too old? Too demanding? I see that others have liked it. If this video (yes, video) is not for the over 30's, then I ask you, dear distributors, to please label your promotion material so that I don't waste my precious time. Now my main criticism is in the marketing angle. Videos like this do indeed have their audiences. But I paid good money to see an "Official Selection ...Festival" video and spent time trying to see why. Once again, just tell me. (Why not a "shot on lo-res video" obligatory promotional standard?). Steve
Book of Love (2004)
For someone like me? Unwatchable.
I liked the characters at first.
But then, sometime during the "night on the town" scene's syrupy music, I kept thinking the director must have been kidding. Most of that lightweight content should have ended up on the cutting-room floor. (Sigh, eject) Is there really an audience who likes the content spelled-out to that extent? Perhaps there is. I wish someone could have warned me not to hire this DVD. As a public service. I must admit I choose my films by the laurel-logos of "Academy Award" or "Nominated for best ...xxx", whereas I avoid testimonials like "Thumbs up" or "A rollicking tale." I now know that "Official Selection ..Sundance" is no guarantee of quality viewing. We live and learn.
Diamond Men (2000)
60's look, 4:3 ratio yet gritty and addictive
If you're ready for a film which challenges current ideas of what movies have to be (ie glossy, widescreen) then like me you may return to Diamond Men again and again to re-live some of the magic movie experience you felt in your childhood. Apart from music movies, this is the only film I have wanted to own.
Avant-garde for the common man. Gritty and addictive.
Steve Peters
35 mm Cinematographer,
Alice Springs,
Australia