I’m not entirely sure how to describe what exactly ‘Real Adult Feelings’ is about, which probably has something to do with the fact that I don’t really know exactly what ‘Real Adult Feelings’ is about.
A lot of this might stem from the fact that I didn’t watch the first episode. This is where you trash this humble writer for not doing his due diligence but let’s at least be fair here. RAF is written in a pseudo sitcom format, which means episodes ran between twenty and thirty minutes and I watched four of the five (really six) season one episodes. In addition I watched the four episodes they recommended.
I was also tired from work, lack of sleep, and an as yet undiagnosed mood disorder.
If this article comes off as loopy then that is probably the reason why, with the second possible explanation being that RAF is rather loopy itself. Now the real reason I can’t exactly define RAF is because it isn’t really about anything. Perhaps it’s about a group of roommates experiencing real, adult, feelings, but I’m not quite sure how that ties in.
While the story feels a bit rudderless it’s not entirely without direction as each episode was focused on one of the main characters. Each of those characters, by the end, was generally well developed and uniquely relevant within the story. Ultimately I feel like it is the characters and the dynamics between them that defines the quality of a show like this far more so than the logic of the scenario and overarching plot.
RAF is a show with a lot of warts, and it generally comes off as being a work “in progress” rather than something fully ready to show off. Working with a “low budget” presents a lot of additional challenges as well, and some of them showed up in ways that could’ve been avoided.
For example, the noticeable lack of extras in an early scene. There are logical ways of shooting a character doing a standup routine, and many of them reveal the existence of an audience. Unfortunately here there was no budget for extras and the solution seemed to be to frame out the audience. The problem was that the camera angles and the framing chosen was just unnatural. It was instantly clear to me what was going on. The same issue pops up later when they tried to frame out a street. The solution is to move the camera such that the area needing to be framed out is behind it.
Another budgetary issue was the noticeable change in imagine quality that I later associated with the production switching between 5D’s, 7D’s, and a Rebel, based on whichever was available for them to borrow that day. I’ve seen productions pull it off before, but here it was noticeable. I’m guessing that the different cameras also came with similar quality lenses, and that the camera use didn’t often line up with shooting environments that matched the cameras strengths.
I could nitpick a lot of other things that all fit under the ‘warts’ umbrella; sound recording and post production could use a little more attention, editing could be a lot tighter and a handful of other, more minor issues. Still, the bottom line is that “Real Adult Feelings” was entertaining, and that is not something I can always say, even for shows that I don’t spend paragraph after paragraph critiquing.
Not every joke lands, but a lot of them that do are really funny. Execution could be better but what is ultimately presented, while flawed, was still worth watching.
You can find ‘Real Adult Feelings’ season one AND season two online at http://realadultfeelings.com