Noise: Filmmakers' Edition (2007) |
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Noise: Filmmakers' Edition (2007) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Drama |
Main Menu Animation Audio Commentary-Various Cast & Crew Featurette-Workshop footage Storyboards Featurette-Making Of Interviews-Cast & Crew-Interviews with ten cast & crew members Deleted Scenes-With optional commentary Gallery-Photo-By Matthew Saville Gallery-Photo-By Suzy Wood Interviews-Crew-Margaret Pomeranz interviews Matthew Saville Interviews-Crew-Channel 31 program, Popcorn interview with Matthew Saville Audio-Only Track-RRR interview with Matthew Saville & Trevor Blainey Audio-Only Track-Radio National interview with Matthew Saville Theatrical Trailer-Noise Short Film-Europe - Directed by Brendan Cowell Short Film-Gents - Directed by Matthew Saville Teaser Trailer-Madman Propaganda |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2007 | ||
| Running Time | 103:53 (Case: 108) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper |
Dual Layered Dual Disc Set |
Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Matthew Saville |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Madman Entertainment |
Starring |
Brendan Cowell Maia Thomas Nicholas Bell Luke Elliot Katie Wall Fiona MacLeod Aaron Mcloughlin Henry Nixon Damien Richardson |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Dual | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music | Bryony Marks |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Unknown |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.30:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | English | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Writer/Director, Matthew Saville hails mainly from a background in television comedy. Some of his directing credits include, Skithouse, Big Bite, We Can Be Heroes and the more serious, The Secret Life Of Us. Recently Matthew also directed the controversial telemovie, The King, about the life of Australian TV legend, Graham Kennedy. It is interesting that for his first feature film, Matthew has chosen a subject that really bares no resemblance to any of the above. Noise is a well-crafted, suspenseful character study that reveals itself slowly, leaving a degree of ambiguity for an intelligent audience.
Noise opens with the aftermath of a bloody massacre on a Melbourne suburban train. A few days before Christmas, late at night and with music blasting through her headphones, a tuned out Lavinia (Maia Thomas) boards a seemingly normal train carriage for the journey home. With the train in motion, she realises that everyone in the carriage has been brutally murdered in a mass shooting.
Meanwhile, Police Constable Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell) is aggravated by an unexplained case of tinnitus. After collapsing on an escalator, he is told by a doctor that he must take on light duties at work.
Lavinia emerges from the train carriage in a daze and with no idea why she survived. With the killer at large, she has become a vital witness in the police investigation. Lavinia's fears are unexpectedly compounded when she discovers that the killer has taken the framed photo of herself that she was carrying on the train. Although the police do their best to reassure her, Lavinia is now convinced the killer will try to track her down.
When another body is found dumped in scrub, police set up an information caravan close by and Graham is conveniently assigned to spend long, boring nights waiting for any community information.
The narrative follows the lives of Lavinia and Graham in parallel until the two protagonists paths finally cross, setting in motion the films powerful conclusion.
Noise could have easily fallen into the "CSI" style of crime genre, but Saville has been very careful to stay focused on the human issues rather than the crimes itself. The result is a film that will stay with you long after the final credits have rolled.
Noise picked up an impressive nine nominations at the 2007 AFI Awards, winning just the one for Best Sound Design.
Considering that the vast majority of the film takes places in varying degrees of darkness, the video transfer is excellent.
The film is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.30:1, which is 16x9 enhanced. The films correct aspect ratio is 2.35:1.
The transfer exhibits outstanding levels of sharpness and clarity. Blacks were generally bold and deep, with just the occasional glimpse of grain. Shadows held an exceptional degree of detail.
The colour palette for Noise is predominantly based in the blue spectrum. This sets the atmosphere perfectly, and helps to emphasise the nocturnal aspect of the film. Warmer colours are used sparingly in appropriate scenes. All colours appeared beautifully balanced, with no saturation issues.
There were no MPEG artefacts evident in the transfer. Film-to-video artefacts were kept in check and didn't present with anything significant. Film artefacts were non-existent.
English subtitles are available on the DVD. They are easily legible in bold yellow and appeared to be very accurate.
Both discs are single sided, dual layer discs.The layer change on the first disc is perfectly placed during the film at 53:37. The layer change on the second disc occurs between extras, so there is no disruption.
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The audio transfer is also excellent, but is marred by an irritating fault.
There are three audio tracks available on the DVD. English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s), English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) and English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s). The aforementioned fault relates to the Dolby 5.1 audio track, which was accidentally reversed during the authoring of the DVD. Basically, this means any directional sound that should come from the right channel for example, comes through the left channel. This tends to distort the entire sound experience and lets down the marvelous, AFI Award winning sound design. Ironically, it's the quieter scenes that bring the more obvious examples of this fault. Some of these examples include, characters talking at 19:28, 29:30 and a passing car at 38:23. Although the 5.1 audio track still has many high points, I've decided to drop two points from the overall score of the audio transfer because of this issue. Incidentally, the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track is spot on.
Dialogue quality and audio sync were generally very good.
The original music score by Bryony Marks enhances the tension and maintains the atmosphere throughout the film. Without giving anything away, Matthew Saville has also uses complete silence to great effect in this film.
Apart from the obvious problem, the surround channels have been used exceptionally well to immerse the viewer into world of the lead character and his medical condition. Some fine examples include, bar noise at 59:32 and a full-on sound assault at 54:00. The subwoofer also gets a good workout and really gives the bass elements in the sound design some prominence.
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Madman has given us an abundance of quality extras spread over the two discs.
All main menus are animated; 16x9 enhanced and feature music from the film.
As you can see, the audio commentary is an all-star cast. Everyone contributes when appropriate with relevant and interesting information relating to all aspects of the production. Recommended listening.
The first menu you will see on the second disc has five categories, Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production, Bonus Films and Madman Propaganda. Selecting each of these options brings up new menus with choices relating to that topic.
Workshop: These three pieces are video taped rehearsals, recorded two years before production of the film.
Storyboards: Drawn by Matthew Saville - navigate through using DVD remote.
An excellent look at the making of the film, which is divided into a series of chapters. This featurette incorporates plenty of fascinating behind-the-scenes footage, covering most of the key scenes in the film. Obviously, don't view this extra before you see the film.
A decent collection of interviews with key cast and crew members. These interviews appear to have been recorded during the filming of Noise.
These scenes are time coded and play through consecutively. An optional audio commentary is available with the films editor, Geoff Hitchins.
These images taken during the production by Matthew Saville, scroll through automatically. The director has also provided a humorous explanation to accompany each image.
A collection of forty-one images taken by Suzy Wood. These also scroll through automatically, accompanied by Bryony Marks music from the film.
Margaret Pomeranz from the ABC television program, At The Movies, talks to Matthew Saville about the film. Matthews audio level is fine, but it sounds like Margaret is talking from another room.
An audio only interview taken from Melbourne radio station, 3RRR. Tony Wilson, Sam Pang and Fee B-Squared talk to Matthew Saville and Trevor Blainey.
A short chat with Matthew Saville and Brendan Cowell taken from the Melbourne community television program, Popcorn.
Another audio only interview, this time from the Australia Talks program on ABC Radio National. This interview with Matthew Saville also features some listener talkback.
Europe (7:02)
Craig becomes very depressed when his girlfriend, Denise, leaves to go to Europe. Written & Directed by Brendan Cowell in 2005, this very funny short film is a must see.
Gents (3:28)
Be careful when you flush the gents toilet in this pub. Another humorous short film, this time written and directed by Matthew Saville in 2002.
Trailers of other Madman releases.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
At the time of this review, there is no R1 version of Noise available.
Noise is a spellbinding and intelligent debut feature from writer/director, Matthew Saville. While the film will probably not appeal to everyone, it certainly reaches out to those who enjoy being challenged in their film viewing. Highly Recommended.
The video transfer is excellent and supports the nocturnal attributes of the film really well. The audio transfer is likewise the same, but is unfortunately let down by the reversing of the Dolby 5.1 mix.
The selection of extras is outstanding and will please admirers of the film.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | JVC XV-N412, using Component output |
| Display | Hitachi 106cm Plasma Display 42PD5000MA (1024x1024). Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080i. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
| Amplification | Panasonic SA-HE70 80W Dolby Digital and DTS |
| Speakers | Fronts: Jensen SPX7 Rears: Jensen SPX4 Centre: Jensen SPX13 Subwoofer: Jensen SPX17 |