Personally, I find some of the close-up shots in modern movies way too close and too obtrusive. /QUOTE]
I agree completely and in my feature film No Place there is only one close up in the entire film, all the dialogue is done on the mid or on long shot. This of course creates technical problems which we solved by using radio mics.
Boom mikes may capture sound with great fidelity but sometimes you can't understand the words.
Ah, I don't say this often because so much in film is subjective, but in this case you're just wrong about this. In fact I'm not sure how to unpack this one for you because I'm without hearing the audio you've recorded with a boom mic I can't give you a precise diagnosis.
However, here goes. Boom mics are directional, very directional so you only get clear crisp sound when the mic is pointed right at the source of the sound (usually the mouth). The deal is with boom mics is, the closer the better, because it allows the sound person to isolate the dialogue from the ambient sound.
If you aren't getting clear sound it's because the boom op isn't pointing the mic directly at the sound source. If you've got clean sound on one actor and fluffy sound on the other, it's because the mic is directional and the boom operator has to swing the mic from one actor to the next. This means pacing the scene so that lines don't come too fast on top of each other, to give the boom op a chance to get the mic into position, plus it gives the editor a fighting chance of cuting the scene.
I know for instance that directors like Woody Allen and Mike Leigh favour doing scenes in master shot to allow the natural flow of dialogue. Actually I agree with them and am just starting some research into new audio recording techniques that will allow greater freedom for the actors in performance. However, to get clean sound for that kind of work currently requires lots of expensive sound gear and a genius sound recordist. On board mics are not the answer, well not the current generation anyway.
The truth is that sound recording for film is the most technically challenging of all the aspects of production. More people mess this up than almost anything else.
The hunor is verbal and situational rather than slapstick
Three points on this one.
Firstly - Laurel and Hardy films are all based on situational humour.
Secondly - Laurel and Hardy films are all based on situational humour
Thirdly - Laurel and Hardy films are all based on situational humour, and so are all of Buster Keatons
Oh, in the world of laughter there are only two kinds comedy
a) the kind that makes you laugh out loud and
b) the kind that doesn't.
Go and watch just an hour of them before coming back to me and dismissing them out of hand, because anyone who thinks that they've nothing to learn from Buster Keaton on comic timing, or about the central vunerability at the heart of comic character production from Laurel and Hardy shouldn't be making comedy.
Finally, just a personal thing. You don't ever have to apologise or make excuses for your work, you made it, you did the best you and your team could at the time. Complaining after the event about time, money, rehearsal methods or the cast doesn't help anyone and the bottom line is that the director is responsible for quality control.
If a film fails it's the director's responsibility to stand up and say, "I pulled this production together and you all trusted me to make you look good, I'm sorry if I let you all down, there is no one to blame but me."
Actually I don't think you need to make excuses for this film. It's obvous that you had a blast making it, you put real heart into it and you inspired people to make it happen, Bravo