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Wamego: Making Movies Anywhere Steve Balderson's new project Firecracker, the follow-up to his controversial feature debut Pep Squad, has been under continuous Internet speculation since the first cast announcements. Finally completed, after a long production process, the film hasn't been screened yet but at the Raindance Festival in London. However the making-of documentary got its limited DVD release some time ago. Named after Balderson's home town Wamego: Making Movies Anywhere was made for marketing purposes which is not that obvious judging by the finished documentary. Wamego approaches its object purely from the production point of view documenting the period between January and October 2003 which covers also preparations from building the sets and hiring the technical crew to the training of actors in addition to the shooting. The weight of a process is so strong that there's not a single clip of Firecracker to be seen and the story is discussed so discreetly that the plot stays unrevealed. Cameras follow Steve Balderson and his producer father Clark to meetings, filming locations, wardrobe department and screen tests among other places giving an extremely interesting insight into the independent movie making. Tight schedule and limited budget demand quick decisions, which many would make differently, but this is just where the documentary's tension rises because the possibility of failure is always present in the form of risky solutions and adversities. Pressure is leveled by the relaxed atmosphere of the film crew which tells quite a lot of the crew's dedication to the project. Among the on-location footage are interviews
which include exciting examples of the methods of the American film
industry and Hollywood executives' attitude towards a rather unknown
Kansas-based film maker. The documentary draws a picture of Balderson
as a hard-working director who sticks to his vision and artistic
freedom. This is confirmed by the crew members who widely share
their experiences in the film project. Unlike in usual behind the
scenes featurettes actors don't talk about their characters' activities
but their own reasons to participate in the making of Firecracker.
However DVD which is primarily meant for promotion represents the adequate quality of self-financed discs which is actually quite suitable because Wamego is a low budget documentary instead of a flashy blockbuster. Shot on video the picture is slightly soft with mute colors. There are also quite a lot of aliasing and compression artifacts which result in a hazy look. The audio track contains a natural ambience of locations which has not been polished afterwards so hiss and background noise are always constant. Fortunately this doesn't affect the audiblity of speech. Altogether Wamego: Making Movies Anywhere is a fine and eye-widening documentary which you should get into your hands if you have ever considered becoming a film maker. It also fulfills its actual purpose because after Wamego you probably feel that seeing Firecracker is pretty much necessary. Film: 8; Video: 5; Audio: 6; Extras: 0
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