Stylistically, you can file this effort under "We have After Effects are we are NOT afraid to use it!" Yeah, there is a lot of eye candy. Lots of spooky sound effects and quick cuts and cool transitions. Lots of WHOOM and WHOOSH and FLASH.
But none of it makes any sense. The Booth brothers have ZERO notion as to how to assemble their materials into a comprehensible, linear narrative.
You'll see lots of talking heads, but the people interviewed are never allowed to say more than a line or two at a time -- because the film-makers presume that the audience has an attention span of three seconds. Consequently, we have no idea what the interview subjects are even talking about.
We never know what year is under discussion. We have no idea as to who the main players are or how the events relate to each other.
For example, the film-makers include many shots of modern-day people playing with ouija boards. But how does this relate to the events in Georgetown in the 1940s? We are frequently allowed to hear "real" exorcism sounds. The audience is led to believe that this audio comes from the Georgetown case. But it doesn't.
I've read a great deal about this real-life case, yet even I had little idea as to what was going on in this movie. This so-called "documentary" devolves into such incomprehensible gobbledegook that I had to stop watching after about half an hour.
Booth brothers, heed my advice: Take the After Effects OFF your system. Just get rid of it. Learn how to tell a story without it. Learn how to use straight cuts and classic dissolves. Learn how to assemble your work in chronological order.
Have some faith in your audience. Just because YOU apparently spend your entire lives hopped up on meth and caffeine doesn't mean that your viewers are as itchy and twitchy as you are.
Ultimately, the audience wants to become engrossed in a narrative. We want to be hooked. We don't want our eyeballs slammed continuously by "cool" images that don't have any relationship with each other.
Also: If you want to be taken seriously, either don't appear on camera or cultivate a different look. You guys look like a couple of pimps from El Paso.
But none of it makes any sense. The Booth brothers have ZERO notion as to how to assemble their materials into a comprehensible, linear narrative.
You'll see lots of talking heads, but the people interviewed are never allowed to say more than a line or two at a time -- because the film-makers presume that the audience has an attention span of three seconds. Consequently, we have no idea what the interview subjects are even talking about.
We never know what year is under discussion. We have no idea as to who the main players are or how the events relate to each other.
For example, the film-makers include many shots of modern-day people playing with ouija boards. But how does this relate to the events in Georgetown in the 1940s? We are frequently allowed to hear "real" exorcism sounds. The audience is led to believe that this audio comes from the Georgetown case. But it doesn't.
I've read a great deal about this real-life case, yet even I had little idea as to what was going on in this movie. This so-called "documentary" devolves into such incomprehensible gobbledegook that I had to stop watching after about half an hour.
Booth brothers, heed my advice: Take the After Effects OFF your system. Just get rid of it. Learn how to tell a story without it. Learn how to use straight cuts and classic dissolves. Learn how to assemble your work in chronological order.
Have some faith in your audience. Just because YOU apparently spend your entire lives hopped up on meth and caffeine doesn't mean that your viewers are as itchy and twitchy as you are.
Ultimately, the audience wants to become engrossed in a narrative. We want to be hooked. We don't want our eyeballs slammed continuously by "cool" images that don't have any relationship with each other.
Also: If you want to be taken seriously, either don't appear on camera or cultivate a different look. You guys look like a couple of pimps from El Paso.