Darkness to Light & Light Into Darkness
I have watched 2 crime movies in the past couple of days both dealing with famous murder cases from the past where the main characters become obsessed with their case as time progresses to the point where it starts impacting on their lives. The difference between the 2 movies is vast.
The 2 movies I am talking about are 'Zodiac' and 'The Black Dahlia'. Black Dahlia starts off with a bang and ends in a complete mess while Zodiac just draws you deeper and deeper into the movie to the point that you don't even notice that you have spent close to 3 hours watching the story fold and unfold and take you on a tense ride.
'Zodiac' is a masterpiece and a movie which probably won't get that much of an audience because it asks the audience to be involved with the movie all the time. It is a journey in which the driver never lets you get off the bus. The acting from everyone involved is brilliant and so is the attention to detail about the time periods and the picture looks gorgeous (even though it was shot on the Viper HD camera and edited on FCP with compressed 1080 DVCPRO HD footage before being transfered back to film as RAW 4K files). If you don't know anything about the Zodiac killings - it is better if you go into the movie blank and you will probably enjoy it much more. There are no action scenes in here - just plain old obsession with trying to solve puzzles.
The picture cut for 'Five' has been locked and there is no going back now. It is scary because if any changes do come up it will be a logistically nightmare trying to get the sound design and music people updated with the cut. A simple change could add a day's work for each of the people involved. And if the changes are many...oh God...I don't even want to think about it. I guess this is where having money would have been good because then I could pay for people's time to deliver the movie to deadlines. But that's the drawback of being an independent film - you spend more time trying to get things done since you are not spending any money at all. It isn't good or bad but just the way things are really.
I was having a conversation today with someone and they scoffed at my words "I make movies.". It was a surprising attitude to notice since they seem to think that you are a film maker only if you make 5 movies or so. A dose of cynicism is usually good to keep one grounded in reality but bottles of pure cynicism will never get one anywhere. How will you conquer the mountain if you don't believe that you are a mountaineer? The whole thing brings it back to one simple thing - if you are passionate about something then don't let what others say stop you from doing what you are doing. If you can't dream about it then you won't ever achieve it.
Till later,
Amit
posted by Amit @ 9:00 PM
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