Star Circle Pictures' short indie production, Samaritan, gives us a glimpse into the future of digital filmmaking.
Production notes tout 81 setups in two days for this indie short that comes in at just under twenty minutes. There are two stories to tell with the Samaritan, the first, the film's story, and the second, the behind the technology story.
Samaritan is a supernatural story about a mysterious, angelic "homeless man," Victor (Johnny Alonso,) who positions himself in a convenience store to thwart a robbery that will surely go bad. And it does go bad, with multiple shots fired at Victor. Mysteriously, Victor is unharmed, and it is the job of the local police detective to find out why (in a nod to Homicide interview session.)
The story of Samaritan is interesting on its surface, but the film does little to take us beyond that surface and into its characters. We're left not really understanding Victor, or why he 'stopped' the robbery/shooting. Although Samaritan's screenwriter and director, Kimball Carr, does cleverly misdirect us toward concluding it was all about the girl, when it was all really about the shooter. And there's a great line here: "Accept that the truth may not be what you wanted it to be." Unfortunately, we learn this in the film's final moment, and without any further explanation. We begin with, Why the girl? We end with, Why the shooter?
Carr also chose flashbacks to tell us most of the main story when, with a twenty minute run time, the present would have worked much better. Instead we're left picking up the story's pieces through the memories of witnesses and news broadcasts. There's an old saying in storytelling: begin at the beginning. And with shorts, bet on a variation of Ockham's Razor: keep it simple. In this case fading in as the shooter enters the convenience store and showing us the robbery attempt and Victor's intervention.
Alonso does well with Victor, bringing to the character a calm that only a Samaritan could possess. Alonso also has a feel for the camera's perception of the tiniest of movements, using his eyes and subtle expressions to often say more than his dialogue.
On the technology side of this story, Samaritan shows us both the limitations of the current ultra-indie-affordable production and its bright future.
The limitations are apparent immediately: affordable digital still looks like it was shot on a camcorder. Not that the Samaritan didn't have its "film" moments. It did. But it's like bad sound: a few scenes with that camcorder-look stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. Hey, we all can't get our hands on a Red One! Not yet...
That said, what Star Circle Pictures is up to is heroic. Based in Virginia Beach, this small production company is taking those difficult and challenging first steps that will take the film industry into its next life. No question that digital filmmaking, or imagemaking, is the next step. And here's a production house that is committed to moving forward, committed to the exploration of the technology.
Bravo, guys. And I'll look forward to seeing your next film.
Various Samaritan stuff:
- The first short film shot on the Panasonic AG-HVX200 high-definition camera (filmless and tapeless)
- Note the high school yearbooks that pack the bookshelves in the police station (gotta watch out for this stuff in the Hi-Def world!)
- Credit catch: No ones or zeros were harmed in the making of this motion picture
- Check out the Fast Company article
