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Use of Audio
The use of audio in this film was great. The cinematic score that wove through the piece brought a nice level of psychological drama to the piece, with a deep moodiness that let you know what was about to happen and quickened the pace as things began to transpire more quickly. The few dialogue segments in the film were recorded cleanly and evenly, so it was very easy to understand.
Where this film really jumped up a notch was in sound design. In addition to tying the piece together, the great sound design allowed them to overcome many shooting and special effects restrictions. For very little money, it is obviously very difficult to shoot a subway car exploding or a gunman shooting down doctors in an abortion clinic. To accomplish these tricks, Mr. Waxler cuts to black from shots of the gunman running into the clinic and the bomber stepping into the subway car. From here, we hear the explosions, shots, and screams, as well as the sounds of these things being replayed on the evening news. Because Mr. Waxler chooses these times to take the film a bit out of order, these cuts to black work perfectly and really sell the tragedy of these events. (I haven’t heard such effective use of audio design since the brutal rape scene in A Time to Kill, where the screen again fades to black and the story is told only through sound.)
For all other microfilmmakers reading this, good editing and good sound design can allow you to tell stories you could never tell if you had to show everything with traditional special effects.
Use of Budget
$3,000 is a fair amount for a ten-minute film without any visual effects. However, it was shot in New York City, which is a much more costly city to shoot in and which is also pretty strict about permits. Additionally, it was shot with a Varicam with a Pro35 adapter, which requires a fair amount of light rental. As such, for that plus the sound effects and audio gear, $3,000 was a pretty good deal.
Lasting Appeal
As the message of the film is pretty open ended, I think this film has a pretty good amount of lasting appeal. I would definitely show this to other people I know and, with it’s smart editing and audio design, it would be an excellent film for other filmmakers to watch.
Overall Comment
Following Abraham tells a compelling tale about misguided people who think that good can be accomplished through evil means. Its uses of audio storytelling takes a solid concept and makes it convincingly compelling, despite some weakness in the storyline in regards to the Muslim protagonist. Definitely a film that should be checked out, especially by other filmmakers.
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Content |
7.0 |
Visual
Look |
9.0 |
Use
of Audio |
10.0 |
Use
of Budget |
8.0 |
Lasting
Appeal |
8.0 |
Overall
Score |
8.4
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The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted. |
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