Combine ambition with inexpensive technology and you've got a potent recipe for game-changing filmmaking -- plenty of young guns can apply rudimentary techniques to the time-honored principles of creating movies; grab a DV cam, some acting pals, slap the whole thing into Final Cut Pro and voila! You've potentially got your ticket to fame, fortune and a life spent working in Tinseltown. Able Edwards, the 2004 film noted in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first film to be shot entirely against green-screen, eschewing conventional sets and beating out higher profile projects like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Immortal, is a shot across the bow of the major studios, a paradigm shift in independent filmmaking.

Boasting idiosyncratic auteur Steven Soderbergh as an executive producer, Able Edwards deliberately fuses archetypal elements of American pop culture -- Citizen Kane and Walt Disney -- as writer/director Graham Robinson sets out to fashion no less than the defining indie film of the 21st century. It's a simple story -- entertainment magnate Abel Edwards (Scott Kelly Galbreath) dies in the early Sixties, only to be cloned by a future generation to revive the corporation bearing his name. The plastic fantastic world of the future is gradually re-introduced to the child-like wonders of Edwards's empire, but his clone soon discovers that being shackled to stockholders has left him little time to explore his soul.

As is customary with most low-budget, skin-of-the-teeth indie films, the caliber of actor is, shall we say, a little less than skilled. Galbreath acquits himself well as the title character(s), but many of the cast deliver stilted line readings and Michael Suby's overwrought score doesn't help matters either. It's hard to know whether the actors' inexperience or the challenges of shooting against green-screen are what holds Able Edwards back from fully realizing its ambitions, but suffice to say, it's a memorable piece of work that never quite fully coheres. Robertson's ambition is, this time, outstripped by his technical limitations, but if someone gives this filmmaker a serious budget, Able Edwards suggests he could make a furiously creative work of art.

The Video:

Shot on DV, there are segments of Able Edwards that look intentionally crappy and then there are those that, unfortunately, probably aren't exactly intended to look so bad -- the non-anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen transfer shows many of the green-screen seams, but I'm surprised that with a film so heavily reliant on visuals, the filmmakers didn't insist on an anamorphic transfer. It certainly would've helped smooth over some of the more distracting hiccups.

While the visuals stumble a bit, the Dolby 2.0 stereo soundtrack almost overcompensates, blasting forth from the speakers after starting at a barely audible level, prior to the credits sequence. Bass-heavy and occasionally too thin in the high end, Able Edwards boasts some clever aural touches (the cyborg's metallic-sounding speech, for example) but is sonically just as messy as the images.

Thankfully, the filmmakers included, as you'd hope with a film touting its technological edge, a few glimpses of their creative process. Robertson and producer Scott Bailey sit for a commentary track that outlines the nuts and bolts of the production; the 10 minute, 23 second featurette "On the Set of 'Able Edwards'" is, by Robertson's own admission, "a bunch of clips" that he narrates; the trio of "Behind the Green Screen" segments (Political, Spaceman and Swimming) strips away the final product to reveal its origins with the film's theatrical trailer and trailers for 24 Hrs. on Craigslist, Kissing on the Mouth, Lurking in Suburbia, Piece By Piece and Magdalena's Brain rounding out the disc. Curiously, the production notes listed as being included on the DVD case are missing.

It's hard to know whether the actors' inexperience or the challenges of shooting against green-screen are what holds Able Edwards back from fully realizing its ambitions, but suffice to say, it's a memorable piece of work that never quite fully coheres. Robertson's ambition is, this time, outstripped by his technical limitations, but if someone gives this filmmaker a serious budget, Able Edwards suggests he could make a furiously creative work of art. Rent it.