Synopsis

When a family moves into a new house after a tragedy impacts the daughter, they must each wrestle with their own personal emotional challenges. All while dealing with the creeping feeling that another presence is hovering over the home.

What Did I Like?

Anyone discussing this film’s positives will invariably focus on two things, firstly the camerawork. The flowing, long takes used to deliver the film’s story are astounding. The smooth movement between rooms, often phasing in and out of different characters’ conversations, natural placement and motions and the perfect timing of each camera manoeuvre make the camerawork both a technical marvel and an effective way of characterising the presence observing the story. This film will undoubtedly be used in media courses for years to come. It’s an amazingly efficient example of how to involve audiences in a film’s world, story and atmosphere using the camera.

The second aspect many will focus on is the central cast’s performances. Callina Liang deserves the biggest share of the praise. Her performance as Chloe is fantastic. She mixes wonderfully played teenage vulnerability with a good amount of humour, strength and warmth. But all the other performers also do great work here. Chris Sullivan is quietly brilliant as Chris, the dad who does his best to help his kids. Even if he feels emotionally raw about his marriage. Lucy Liu’s Rebekah is brash but always realistic and sympathetic. Plus Eddy Maday’s Tyler and West Mulholland’s Ryan capture the vile sexist nature of many teenage boys disturbingly well. All of these performers individually and collectively make the drama fiercely engaging.

Beyond these points, it must also be noted that the effects are, mostly, very well done (artificial camera shakes aside). With the presence’s ghostly powers being pulled off without any behind-the-scenes seams being visible. The production design is beautiful. The direction of the action, as is expected from Steven Soderbergh, is so perfect it’s pretty much invisible and its discussion of issues relating to sexist force and violence hanging over the family is pointed and very relevant.

What Did I Not Like?

Undoubtedly the weakest element of this film is the writing. The story is fine and the characterisation of the main players is incredible but pivotal plot moments such as the use of a psychic and the final act feel either forced or like they aren’t given enough build-up, which makes the ultimate resolution not hit as hard as it could have. On top of this some of the dialogue, despite the cast’s best efforts, feels very much like it comes from the mind of a screenwriter rather than the characters speaking.

Also aside from the moments of the camera drifting around the house on its own the use of music feels rather forced and distracting. It’s as if it is trying to artificially heighten emotions that are already being achieved. Honestly, the filmmakers should have had more confidence in the characters and the direction’s ability to carry the story. 

Finally, the editing choice to end most scenes with a black screen feels like it always grinds the film to a halt. Something else should have been done to help give the impression of a change in time.

Conclusion

Presence is an admirable technical experiment with a memorably played set of characters and a well-realised small-scale world with a big message. It’s just a shame the plot and some poor sound and editing choices mean the film never quite matches the smoothness of the titular presence.

Rating: (3.5 / 5)

Also Read: Unsane and the iPhone Revolution

The post Review: Presence – Steven Soderbergh’s Latest Movie Takes A Novel Approach To A Haunted House Thriller appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Why would an A-List Hollywood Director, film a movie on an iPhone? Well because Steven Soderbergh (SD) is not your typical A-Lister. In an interview with Hey U Guys Steven Soderberg said it was a creative choice, as he saw the iPhone 7Plus as being a small capture device which gave him a flexibility he couldn’t get from a bigger device.

It seems the iPhone was instrumental in pulling off certain shots in this movie. So instrumental, that Soderberg also said he’d use the device again in the future! Well if It’s good enough for him, it must be good enough for us, right?

iPhone vs Arri

So now that we’ve realised we have a Hollywood capable film camera in our possession right now, it kind of begs the question: What do we actually need from a movie-making machine and what’s the difference between the iPhone and a proper film camera? There are actually many things to consider when choosing your capture device for video production: resolution, frame rates, audio bit-rate, sensor, lenses, how the camera reacts to light.

At the time of writing, a popular film camera used in Holywood is the Arri Alexa. This camera could be considered an Indusrty Standard and has been used to film movies like The Avengers, Drive and a million other huge titles. Let’s take a brief look at how that compares to the iPhone used to film Unsane.

iPhone 7Plus Vs Arri Alexa
Resolution: 4K (30 fps)  Vs 2K (60 fps)
Frame Rates: Up to 60 fps Vs Up to 120 fps
Audio: 44.1KHz Vs 48 KHz

Potato Jet did a video review which shows that although the iPhone can produce good pictures, it really doesn’t compare to the might of the Alexa. You’ll lose something in terms of quality, but then you’ll gain in terms of mobility and It’ll be great for your budget.

iQuality

With filmmaking being an art, it’s always difficult to debate whether the increasing pixel count of the new technically superior digital cameras are actually producing better images than those of analogue film cameras. Does sharper and more crystal clear actually mean the story will look better? We’ve gone from grainy black and white pictures, to full-colour Standard Definition, all the way up to 4K and beyond. But someone out there will tell you they prefer the way a vintage Alfred Hitchcock movie filmed on a Mitchell BNC looks, compared to the sharp and polished 4K look you get from a modern Red One.

iMovies

Rage (2009) may have been the first major theatrical release shot on smartphones and there’s been a number of notable smartphone movies since. #STARVECROW is the world’s first selfie movie and Tangerine was filmed completely on the iPhone 5s. This iMovement has picked up pace since it’s inception in 2010 and now the iPhone Film Festival judges received over 2000 submissions in 2017. IndieWire has some interesting movies in their iMovement list if you want to find out more about this sub-culture.

iGear

Dougal Shaw (Senior Video Journalist at the BBC) decided to delve into iPhone videography himself and his kit list included the following: iPhone 6S Plus, Filmic Pro App, some sort of rig to stabilize the phone, a collection of lenses, a tripod, a microphone and a computer with video editing software. All of this is so much cheaper than getting a pro Arri Alexa setup!

iMoney

The fact that Steven Soderbergh did shoot a movie on an iPhone, is proof that you don’t need a huge budget to film a movie. Having said that, there’s a lot more involved in shooting a movie then just having a camera and pressing record. Also, the budget for Unsane was pretty low for a Hollywood movie, at $1.5m. But that’s astronomical in terms of a low budget indie production. Unsane only made $10.7m in the Box office, which is Soderberg’s lowest grossing movie by far. I wonder if a better camera would have equated to better box office sales?

iDirector

If iPhone’s are so great, do you need to bother buying a camcorder or DSLR? This is where personal preference comes in. Me personally I know how things can go wrong with technological devices and I prefer to have separate bits to do specific jobs. The thing is sometimes we’re short on space (so we buy a printer and scanner 2 in 1). Sometimes we’re short on budget (so I bought an all-rounder DSLR instead of a camera excellent at taking stills and a separate video camera). Using your iPhone all day to film movies will drain your battery and constant charging will shorten the lifespan. Steven Soderbergh has years of experience, a team of professionals and a million dollar budget. His iPhone movie would be awesome but I doubt you could get the same results. If you’re asking me could I film a movie on an iPhone? The answer is yes. Would I? No. But Steven Soderberg did.

Check out the trailer for Unsane. The full movie is available to purchase on Youtube now.

The post Unsane and the iPhone Revolution appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.