Private
(2022)
Director: Steve Blackwood
Cast: Steve Blackwood, Sandi Bainum
I'm sure most
- not all, but most - of my readers do not have any experience in the
entertainment industry, particularly in television and motion picture
production. You may have had dreams once upon a time of entering the
industry, but you probably saw quickly that the odds would be greatly
against you. But what if you wanted to enter the industry all the same?
Would it be possible to make any actions that would increase the chance
of you reaching your entertainment goal? What could you do if you
wanted to become a director, for example? Well, for many years, it was
suggested that if you really want to become a director, you have to go
to film school. But personally, I have noticed that the students of
film
school always seem to make movies that are incredibly bizarre and
pretentious, unlike the real
movies you and I generally prefer to watch. Would a studio executive
assign a popcorn movie to a director like that? Unlikely. Well then,
what else could an aspiring director do to break into the industry?
Well, there is the case of Quentin Tarantino. He never went to film
school, yet he became a big director despite doing things towards that
goal in an unconventional manner. He worked for several years in a
video store, which gave him the opportunity to learn about many kinds
of movies, and he dabbled with screenwriting until by a chance meeting
he found someone to back his first movie, Reservoir Dogs.
The legendary producer Roger Corman, however, was more lenient with
people who aspired to direct. With one wannabe director, Corman simply
gave the guy a movie camera and told him to practice taking shots for a
day on a nearby beach, and at the end of the day the person felt he was
ready to direct a bona fide movie.
However, more often than not, a benefactor will not come
into the way of someone who wants to direct, and the wannabe director
will have to do the lion's share of the work that's needed to make a
movie that is his or
her own first. And let's face it, making any movie is a lot
of tough work. You don't have to just arrange the actors and the crew;
you have to juggle additional responsibilities like craft services and
toilets for everyone. Plus, you have to not only make sure that the
screenplay written by either you or another party is filmable, you have
to film it in a competent manner. And... there's a good chance that
covering all the costs of the production will drain your savings
greatly or entirely. As you can see, making a feature length film of
your own would seem daunting to most people. So that is why a number of
filmmakers who make their own first movie make it as a short. The
advantages of making a short over a feature film are quite
considerable. Obviously, it would almost certainly cost a heck of a lot
less than making a feature film. The shooting schedule would likely be
a lot shorter as well. The behind the scenes coordinating and preparing
would be less taxing for the wannabe director as well. Scripting the
short would also be much easier in more than one regard, such as there
are a wealth of short story ideas that wouldn't make it if they were
adapted as a feature length movie. To tell the truth, if I wanted to
make a feature film of my own, I would get my feet wet by first making
a short of my own; it would be a great learning experience in a number
of different ways.
However, there are disadvantages in making a short over
a feature length movie. It could be difficult to attract top talent in
front of and behind the camera for a short production time for reasons
I will get into shortly. If you do get your short finished, you'll
almost certainly find it very difficult to get it seen. Yes, there
are
film festivals everywhere, but you'll see that they more often than not
focus on feature length movies instead of shorts. And even if you get
your short into a film festival... where could you take the short from
there. It's an ungodly task to get a television, streaming, or home
video sale and release for a short compared to a feature film. It's
small wonder that when shorts get made, they almost always seem to
vanish completely afterwards, even if they got a film festival release.
So working on a short over working on a feature would seem a waste of
time to that top talent I mentioned earlier. Shorts are so often
orphaned immediately upon completion that I don't watch them very
often, except for stuff like cartoons from the golden age of Hollywood,
or the works of Chaplin, Keaton, and others of their field. However,
when Steve Blackwood (long time actor on the soap opera Days Of Our Lives) approached me
recently to ask me to review his short Private,
something piqued my interest. It may have been in the way he approached
me, it may have been that it has won a could of awards at festivals,
and it may have been that the subject matter of the short - a film noir tribute - but whatever it
was, I told him I was intrigued and I would take a look at it. As I
said, the short is a tribute to film
noir
films of the 1940s and 1950s, where Blackwood himself plays a private
detective named Jim Calloway. Calloway has seen better times in his
personal and work lives, but all the same a client named Sally Danforth
(Sandi Bainum) has approached him for help. Danforth is a socialite
with
a
secret past who is married to a U.S. senator, and he has recently gone
missing. Calloway has taken on the case, though if you know film noir movies well, you'll know
that his subsequent investigation had uncovered a lot of surprises the
deeper he dug.
Given the fairly brief running time of Private
(just a shade under twenty minutes in length), it probably won't be too
much of a surprise (if at all) that the short is completely focused on
the two aforementioned characters, the private detective and the
socialite. No other characters make an appearance (visually or even
audibly) in this story. So a noticeable amount of whether the short as
a whole succeeds or fails falls on these characters and the actors who
play them. I'll start with the detective Calloway, played by
writer/director Blackwood. Calloway in the ends comes across as
adequate. Blackwood's performance seems not too far removed from his
soap opera background, feeling a little out of place a few times for
this film noir atmosphere.
It's also a little casual or befuddled on occasion, and in these times,
you don't feel the confidence and assertiveness you'd get from someone
like Humphrey Bogart in this role. On the other hand, when Blackwood's
character does get angry or annoyed, a spark is ignited, a spark that
is convincing and grabs your attention. Towards the end, Blackwood's
character also has a monologue revealing a painful part of his past
that's been injected by Blackwood with enough trauma and a touch of
reluctance to be believable as well. I should also mention that the
banter Blackwood has with his co-star Looney feels natural on his side.
Looney, on her side, manages to skillfully catch Blackwood's words and
then deliver her words back with just as much ease. When her character
is momentarily left to her own devices, Looney manages to convey what
many women in the classic film noir
movies have - a resignation towards feeling that everything is out of
their hands and they must simply accept that things probably won't get
any better, at least any time soon.
But Looney's socialite character does go beyond this,
and she has her own monologue when she brings up her own secrets. It's
pretty powerful, not only because Looney sells it with skill, it's also
because the secret that is revealed is a secret that you'd never see in
one of those classic film noir
movies because of the Production Code at the time. However, the sordid
details are written to be not very far removed from the Production Code
guidelines, so the details as a result seem to fit naturally in this
particular film noir
narrative. While I'm at it, I'd like to comment on other particulars
about Blackwood's script. For starters, I did appreciate that the short
didn't start with the cliched setup of when the female client enters
the detective's office for the first time and tells of her problems
etc. Instead, the short starts near the end
of this story for the two characters, where the dame and the detective
are wrapping things up, and we learn what has happened in the recent
past for them. We are given exposition as this is going on, which is a
clever change of pace, though I will admit that was somewhat confused
for the first few minutes as I was trying to put all the pieces
together. Later on in the short after we've learned what happened in
the past concerning the two characters, I did enjoy how subsequently
detective Calloway manages to put the final piece together and figure
out more or less what happened. I will say no more about that or what
happens subsequently, except to say all of it is neatly written in a
way that you'd expect to come from one of those classic film noir
movies. That includes the ending, which while respecting the Production
Code, also makes sure to have that familiar cynical edge that told the
fans of these movies that life's problems aren't always wrapped up well
for all participants.
Another thing I admired about the script for Private
was that except for an opening outdoor shot, all of the story takes
place in one room, the detective's office. Though writer/director
Blackwood was obviously helped with not keeping things from being
boring by the short's brief length, he still made the effort to write
enough punch throughout to keep things interesting. As well, in the
director's chair he put additional lively touches. He was certainly
helped by the black and white cinematography of Jeffrey Buchbinder;
with expert lighting, there are some shots combining black, grey, and
white that look absolutely eye-catching and out of those old movies he
was obviously emulating, like when light is shining on a character's
eyes, yet it's darker everywhere else in the shot. Getting back to
Blackwood, he has the narrative go by at a brisk pace, and he went to
the trouble of putting in enough period detail, such as his detective
wearing an old-styled watch. Even the frosted glass door of the
detective's office has the detective's name written on it. I do wish
that he had managed to get a better hat for his character; what he has
instead looks a little goofy. Also, there are a few brief moments when
what power he is trying to put into a moment is soured a little by the
music of Charlie Barnett (Hell Squad);
it sounds too modern for this aged black and white world. But while Private
may have those and a few other flaws, this is a short that you can't
dismiss in short notice; there is quite a lot to admire here, and I am
glad that I eschewed my normal policy of avoiding shorts and giving
this one a look. But as you probably know, finding shorts like this to
watch can be a challenge at times. Hopefully it will only take you a
short time to find this short.
(Posted January 29, 2023)
See also: Consenting Adults,
The Hot Spot, Wrong Turn At Tahoe
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