About the movie Open Water.

The film was shot on digital video that gave the movie a free of “reality” as in home movies or reality TV which in turn gave the viewers a sense of intimacy with the characters. Perhaps this is why some reviewers thought this was a mock- documentary like Blair Witch.

The script is simple, logical and straightforward. The acting of the main characters is very good and quite natural. The jellyfish and the sharks are real, not animatronics or computer- generated. There aren’t any “state-of-the-art” special effects which seem to be almost de rigueur in today’s horror-suspense films.

Writer / Director Chris Kentis and his wife Laura Lau made Open Water with a budget of 130,000 US dollars from their own pockets.While the average Hollywood film now costs at least 20 million dollars, indie films can be done at a fraction of the cost of mainstream movies. Even with a limited release, the film grossed 30 and a half million dollars! This is what good indie (independent) fllmmaking is all about.

In the Philippines, many indie writers/directors think that indie films mean simply incorporating magic realism, surrealism or adding postmodern techniques such as self-referencing, intertextuality or some such gimmicks. It must be always pointed out that whatever genre, whatever format (experimental, short, mainstream, etc.), films must always strive to be coherent, logical, fairly comprehensible and aesthetically pleasant. Even with the same setting and similar storyline, Open Water and Open Water 2 (Adrift) are worlds apart. One is made by a director with a good grasp of film fundamentals while the other is made for the sake of making a movie.