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Filed under: Cameras •Distribution •Production •

April Showers website a treasure of information

The fun began when the film received its R rating. In a post on the film’s official website Andrew talks about receiving the news as well as the MPAAs reasons behind the R rating. I won’t spoil the fun by outlining the reasons here so click over and you can also see a nice comparison between April Shower’s shots and something similar from Pearl Harbor. To add insult to injury, the April Showers trailer was later branded as a red band or R-rated trailer meaning that it can only play in front of R-rated audiences. In another post the director talks about this issue with the trailer, the MPAA’s reasoning for the decision and comparisons to other trailers. He even links to the actual letter from the MPAA and their reason for the rating: “SOME DISTURBING VIOLENT CONTENT.”

It’s not often that we get to see this kind of detail between a filmmaker and the MPAA. The film’s director has done a great job of using their well-designed website lay out his case in a public forum for what he believes is the wrong decision from the ratings board. There’s open letters from the director as well as others who don’t think the MPAA made the right decision. There’s two very heart-felt letters, one from the director appealing for parents to take their kids to the film as well as a letter from the principal where the film was shot, discussing the R-rating and how it misses the point of what the film really is about.

In addition to the discussion of the film’s rating, there is a podcast available with a number of participants (including the editor) from the film. Between these interviews, many of the posted news articles and the discussions and stories that have been (and are being) shared on the April Showers website, it’s a great example of the value that a website can add to a motion picture.

There’s some good technical talk for those of us who are into that sort of thing as well. You can see a comparison between 3 frames of footage and the different stages of color grading at A Filmmakers Guide to Why You Need to Calibrate Your HDTV Now. The director mentions shooting April Showers at 4K so I immediately assumed RED but when I clicked over to his bio page there’s a picture of him holding the behemoth that is the Dalsa Origin camera. There’s a number of good production stills that show the camera at work as well as a behind the scenes video where you can just get a glimpse of the Dalsa being handheld. That’s a big camera. They’ve also posted a raw, un-color corrected clip of the Dalsa footage before it was graded. Compare that to the theatrical trailer and you can see a good example of before / after when it comes to color grading a feature film.

Thanks to director Andrew Robinson and the creators of April Showers for the wealth of information that they have placed on the film’s official website. This type of content is great for aspiring filmmakers and movie junkies alike. It makes it all the better when the movie has an important subject like that of April Showers. I wish them much success with their film. The showtimes are updated on the site so support the film if you can.

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