Swingers and The War at Home

Both Swingers and The War at Home are films made with relatively low budgets that used their lack of funding in positive ways. Sometimes the low budget look turns up on the screen but in those cases the filmmakers turn this into a virtue. In other respects the lack of money is not obvious but it has positive effects that the audience cannot see but, without knowing it, come to appreciate. Both films are enjoyable because they are well written and well acted and because the directors minimized their lack of other resources quite effectively.

Both films, for example, are successful because of the level of the acting and the producers of Swingers and Emilio Estevez stressed the effect that rehearsal had on the quality of the performances. Estevez remarked that one of the principal things he, as an actor, disliked in making most films was the lack of rehearsal. Even though such time is often promised, the cast usually gets two days instead of two weeks in which to rehearse. He was determined not to do this on his film and the results show. He reported that they spent two weeks in rehearsal -- one of them in the actual location where the movie was shot. This enabled the cast to get the feel of the script and then to play it out in their actual surroundings so that when it came time to shoot the film they were completely prepared. The preparation shows in the naturalistic way the conversations take place and the actors move through the set.

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o Alaska. Favreau, LaLoggia and Simkins reported similar good luck with extensive rehearsals as a compensation for the drawbacks of location shooting on a low budget. Favreau had written the script and he and some of the other actors had done a great number of readings from the script as a means of promoting the financing of the movie. These readings for potential investors made the script second nature to the actors and the results of this show on the screen. They speak the lines so well that it truly sounds as though they were inventing their dialogue as they speak. Considering the amount of quick give-and-take that is involved it is remarkable that they ever got this on film under the conditions of the shoot. Since they were shooting in businesses, such as bars, restaurants and casinos, that were actually open for business at the time, the crew and cast had to accommodate themselves to a lot of extraneous noise and distractions. If the cast had not had such great familiarity with the script it seems, from their accounts, that they would never have been able to finish the film in the small amount of time their budget allowed. The use of the hand-held camera aided this as well. The director deserves a great deal of cre

Category: Film - S