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★★
Directed by #AshaRosemond
Written by #BrielleCarroll
Incognita is a ten minute long student film, which gives us a glimpse into the life of an ethics professor who has just moved to a new university or ‘college’. Professor Ben Park goes about his daily life, unaware that some shocking revelations are coming his way.
The cast of this film were of very mixed ability. The principal of the college is played by Timothy J. Cox, whom I have seen in a few other short films. Cox has so far never disappointed me with his performance and the same goes for this instance. Cox was probably the shining star amongst the actors in this production. Sean Kneese plays Professor Ben Park, and Phil Kramer plays Trevor. Both actors were of average acting ability, with the latter being a bit more realistic and believable than the former. Nedra Shamberger plays the wife of Ben Park, and I have to say, I wasn’t too thrilled with her performance. Shamberger’s performance was the least realistic and convincing; some of her mannerisms were over-the-top, whilst others were too dull. Asha Rosemond probably did her best as a director to work with these actors, but nevertheless not all of them did amazingly.
In regards to the cinematography, the quality of the visuals wasn’t too impressive due to the slightly off-putting fuzziness or wave-like interference pattern in the recording. However, I understand that this is a student film and so won’t judge the visual quality too much, not everyone can afford high tech equipment or high quality gear.
Some of the shots used were interesting choices, although not entirely impressive. For example, the shot of a pillow being thrown and yet missed most of the pillow in the shot was poor. The shot of Professor Park looking at some books online was just a screen recording from a laptop, the quality of this shot was too much of a contrast compared to the rest of the film. Therefore, this shot seemed misplaced. Also, there was a shot of Mrs Parking talking on the phone to her husband, but for the most part Nedra Shamberger seemed to be looking nearly directly at the camera and this was really detrimental to the shot.
The soundtrack was pretty good and consisted of only one song: The Great Next Idea by James Horner. Although, I realised it was just a song that has been taken from another film, so the credit really goes to the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind for the song. Again, not all students know people who can create a personalised song for their project, so that is also understandable.
The story itself was nice but also not super impactful or as heart-tugging as it was probably intended to be. The dialogue was fairly basic and for the most part predictable. For a film that was 10 minutes long, there could have been so much more to it. I’ve seen films that are shorter than this and yet more meaningful and eventful. Incognita was written and produced by Brielle Carroll, and considering that this was a student film, I understand resources were most likely limited for Carroll but there were some things that could have been paid more attention to. Just a little bit more attention and consideration would have made this film much better. Incognita is on YouTube and easily accessible, so go give it a watch if you’re interested!
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