Let me start by saying, I really enjoyed this short. If not for a pretty major technical issue in audio that cost it a lot of points, A Friend Indeed would've easily earned a score in the 9 or higher range. The main thing I liked, and appreciated about it, was filmmaker Michael Busch gets right down to it. The story is clear and focused. And although the characters take on a serious tone at one point, the film itself never comes across as self-righteous or self-aware. None of that, "Yoo hoo! Look over here at how clever we are!" Rather, Busch and his filmmaking cohorts just set out tell a joke via a simple story that, despite of (or maybe it's because of) its simplicity just plain works.
With a running time of 5 minutes and 10 seconds it's the perfect length for what it is: a joke. It is literally a joke in the classic sense, perfectly adhering to the three act structure that makes the best jokes so effective. You know the structure: set up (two friends sitting at a table studying), complication (one friend reveals something mind blowing and life altering to the other), and finally, the punchline (well, we'll get to that a little later as I don't want to spoil it just yet). So, due to its short length, if we are going to examine it for the purposes of critique, I will have to reveal the major twists. Since the story is well told and doesn't suffer problems in the content, we won't ruin it for anyone.
Thinking back on the film after watching it a couple times, I honestly can't think of anything offhand that should have been removed. Everything included in the film served a purpose to the story being told. I don't care if your movie is 5 minutes or 2 hours; this is not any easy thing to achieve. Short films are far more unforgiving of filler than features as anything unnecessary weighs down the whole effort, shining a bright light on any such defects. Thankfully, A Friend Indeed was tightly edited and well-paced. The story was kept simple and the filmmaker obviously used what he had and did so admirably.
One final note: even though the cast was "working for experience," so I assume no one's a card carrying SAG member, everyone did a great job. I especially enjoyed the interplay between Bret and Calvin, who specifically showed a very strong presence and charisma in his role as the prankster.
A Friend Indeed was shot using a Canon 7D with a 24-50mm zoom lens and an 85mm prime lens. The quality of the images reflects not only the use of this high-end video DSLR, but that those using it knew what they were doing. Additionally, a homemade dolly made from PVC pipe was constructed for slow tracking shots. Everything looked sharp and no soft focus or vignetting was caused by a DOF adapter… because they didn't use one! Personally, I think DOF adapters are an effective tools in the right, restrained hands; however, too often in low/no-budget films they are abused and create more distractions than the cinematic images the filmmakers intend.
Since there wasn't a lot of money spent on lighting, I assume the tried-and-true, hardware store lighting kit were used. Regardless, the images were solid and well lit. Everything had a balanced, even tone to it. And while some might have chosen to create more shadows, especially when John begins to believe Vince's story (perhaps in an effort to replicate the surrealist lighting of German Expressionism), Busch maintains realism throughout. This, I think, works in the film's favor and helps to emphasize the absurdity of the final reveal.
Speaking of the final reveal, from a visual perspective this was my only gripe with A Friend Indeed. A CGI character was added to the end of the film that felt very out of place. Even though though this is a film about a joke, I felt that the visual elements to the punchline should've been more cohesive. As such, perhaps having an unshaven, slovenly actor in a bunny suit (ala Donnie Darko) might've been a more cohesive choice. Either way the audience gets the joke, but it would have maintained that connection to reality that the rest of the film had.
This, unfortunately, was the only low point on the film. The biggest problem had to do with the sound dropping out, especially between the lines of dialogue spoken by Vince and John. According to the submission form, a Sennheiser ME66 mic and a Zoom H4n Digital Audio Recorder were used. And based on the actual dialogue clips themselves, I believe they were recorded just fine. The problem seemed to stem from a lack of ambient sound and, most importantly, mixing the audio properly in the final version.
In fact, the audio reminded me very much of the temp audio track used in rough cuts where only the production audio is laid down, but there's no sound effects, ambient sound, or any other crucial sound elements to fill in the gaps. It's also interesting to note that this issue wasn't as noticeable when I watched the film without headphones, just listening through the small built in speaker of the television. However, since most short films use the web as their main distribution channel, there's a much greater chance that your audience will listen with their earbuds in, thus emphasizing this effect.
One nice touch was the use of epic score music (courtesy of Video Copilot's Pro Scores). Normally, this style of score would have seemed excessive and distracting when used for such a "small" setting. However, because of the music working in concert with John's reaction, it felt right and helped heighten the intensity of the character's emotional response. Of course, the music also helped dampen the audio drop outs a bit.
High marks in this section because the final budget was only $340! Now, the filmmaker acknowledged that he owned much of the equipment already (apparently, he buys a new piece with each production—a great model for building your own microfilmmaking toolkit!), so this definitely helped drive down the price.
Here's how the $340 breaks down:
$100 for food
$120 for new lights
$60 for the PVC dolly
$40 for parking
$20 for office supplies (script copies, contracts, etc.)
Notice that almost a third of the budget was spent on food. This is always a smart move, especially when your cast and crew are working for the experience as they were in this case.
The audio elements that I mentioned before also damages it's rewatchability factor, because they are distracting enough that they could deter someone from wanting to watch it again. However, if these issues are fixed (which I would assume they should be able to be), then I'd give it an 8.0 in this category.
Like any joke you hear, if it's told too often it loses its comedic effect. That doesn't mean you won't find it funny, just that the novelty experienced from the first telling can never be duplicated. And while A Friend Indeed suffers from the "joke effect," it's worth re-watching at least once to see how it was put together and to appreciate its economy of storytelling.
It's also very short, so I can see it becoming viral and people passing it along to their friends. I'm not sure how the filmmaker intends to distribute A Friend Indeed (I assume film festival submissions), but I'd get it on Youtube, create a Facebook page for it, and if you use Twitter, start letting everyone who follows you know about it.
