Interesting how I find something new that was just from Vancouver, by Kyle James-Patrick.
Not for the Saving is about Alistair, a simple everyday guy hanging out at a party looking for a girl to hang out with. But every girl knows him for a sex-tape incident and won’t hang out with him.
Meanwhile a girl named Mia is on top of the roof of the club finishing her final phone call. Nobody seems the least bit respectful to Alistair so he heads up onto the roof to smoke in peace. Right as Alistair arrives he sees Mia, ready to jump off the ledge.
When Alistair confronts her, she refuses to talk. Mia doesn’t want to live anymore and Alistair wants to figure out why she is killing herself. After hearing the whole story of how she has cancer and nobody cares about her, Alistair offers to get her help but she refuses it.
The majority of this movie takes place on the roof of a building, as Alistair and Mia converse and get to know each other bit by bit while arguing occasionally. Mia tries to brush off Alistair while he asks her questions and tries to help Mia with her condition. The entire roof conversation, in real time, goes on for quite a while. It’s kind of interesting as I had a similar but much shorter conversation with a woman last week.
Anyways, the lighting is perfect for a roof setting at night with the perfect ambience. The soundtrack is simple but really adds to the mood. Occasionally, there were some inconsistencies with the background ambience but it still did pretty well. The building ambience could’ve used some perfection though as it was a bit hard to hear the dialogue over the music. The setup of the roof is stunning as the set dec really made use of the lights setup as well as patio furniture even though there is a lot of empty space in some shots.
Another interesting use of camera shots is when one character is in the background and the other in the foreground. The lens changes focus from one character to another during their conversation to show who’s important. It’s really amazing what a minimal cast and crew can make nowadays. Even though the movie didn’t seem like an awful lot you really feel a bond with Mia after a while. I personally feel like I can relate to Alistair as I tend to converse with people and try to help them out.
