I attended the premiere of THE BOTTOM LINE at the Lakewood Theatre in Dallas and knowing so many of the cast and crew and how highly they had been talking about it, I went in really expecting, and hoping for a great film. I came out sorely disappointed.
The first thing that indicated that things were only going to get worse, was how bad the audio was. When the characters were talking, the background ambient noise, at times, was much louder and made it very difficult to hear everything. The other aspect, was bad camera work. In one scene near the beginning, two of the characters are in a kitchen talking and the camera slowly tracks in and shakes, unintentionally.
It was almost as if the camera operator forgot that they were tracking on a tiled floor and forgot to take into account, the grooves between each tile and instead of re-taking the shot, they decided to leave it in the film.
The bad audio continued throughout the movie and the characters were not much better. Two of the characters who are in the bar, Ben and Jan, are each married to their spouses but Ben really wants Jan. They kiss, then she gives him a speech on how wrong it is, then they dance for a while, then they sit back down, kiss, she gives another speech and...well, do you see a pattern here? It got so repetitive I was ready to walk out but decided to stay until the end.
I feel that the filmmakers were trying for a story along the lines of Crash, American Graffiti, et al, about a group of characters who come into each other's lives over the course of one evening and the repercussions they have on each other but the writer, Pam Boyd, should have watched American Graffiti or even The Big Chill to get a better understanding of character development.
When the film ended, the director, Matt Posey, got up on stage and apologized to the audience and said the film had audio issues and that they were still working them out. My question to him was why premiere a movie that obviously isn't finished and not wait until all the issues were resolved? I give the filmmakers kudos for actually getting out there and actually producing the movie. As an Indie filmmaker myself for over 25 years, I know how difficult it is to get any film made but the technical issues and a few more re-writes should have been resolved before the film saw the light of day. I know and have worked with most of the people in/on this film but I'm giving my honest opinion.
As a side note, a few years later another version of the film was released. The original was about 90 minutes, the new cut was 45 minutes. I never saw the new version because having watched the original I didn't want to watch any of it again.
The first thing that indicated that things were only going to get worse, was how bad the audio was. When the characters were talking, the background ambient noise, at times, was much louder and made it very difficult to hear everything. The other aspect, was bad camera work. In one scene near the beginning, two of the characters are in a kitchen talking and the camera slowly tracks in and shakes, unintentionally.
It was almost as if the camera operator forgot that they were tracking on a tiled floor and forgot to take into account, the grooves between each tile and instead of re-taking the shot, they decided to leave it in the film.
The bad audio continued throughout the movie and the characters were not much better. Two of the characters who are in the bar, Ben and Jan, are each married to their spouses but Ben really wants Jan. They kiss, then she gives him a speech on how wrong it is, then they dance for a while, then they sit back down, kiss, she gives another speech and...well, do you see a pattern here? It got so repetitive I was ready to walk out but decided to stay until the end.
I feel that the filmmakers were trying for a story along the lines of Crash, American Graffiti, et al, about a group of characters who come into each other's lives over the course of one evening and the repercussions they have on each other but the writer, Pam Boyd, should have watched American Graffiti or even The Big Chill to get a better understanding of character development.
When the film ended, the director, Matt Posey, got up on stage and apologized to the audience and said the film had audio issues and that they were still working them out. My question to him was why premiere a movie that obviously isn't finished and not wait until all the issues were resolved? I give the filmmakers kudos for actually getting out there and actually producing the movie. As an Indie filmmaker myself for over 25 years, I know how difficult it is to get any film made but the technical issues and a few more re-writes should have been resolved before the film saw the light of day. I know and have worked with most of the people in/on this film but I'm giving my honest opinion.
As a side note, a few years later another version of the film was released. The original was about 90 minutes, the new cut was 45 minutes. I never saw the new version because having watched the original I didn't want to watch any of it again.
