The Waiter is a 2007 feature film written, directed, and produced by Jason Konopisos. The film stars Charles Durning and Glenn Morshower.
The main character, “The Waiter,” is a metaphor for ‘man.’ Throughout the film this character is plagued by an existential sense of ‘ungst.’ What is "Ungst?" Is it anything like "Angst?" As the audience follows the character, we see man without purpose. It is truly a life without balance. The character goes along with his jobs, yet the character is disturbingly devoid of self. Many hints are given as to the previous life of this individual being one of service in the military. The analogy can be drawn between the post Enron scandal, unemployed loss of worth, and self-understanding and that of a special assignment military personal after his military service. In a given hour an individual may lay motionless in his/her bed, however the planet we inhabit travels at 67,000 miles per hour through our universe. The complexities and paradoxes of man’s existence haunt the films subject as he attempts to attain understanding and depth to the circumstances for which he has been thrust. The character is left without purpose and is in a sense living temporally yet not experientially, and moving physically yet not progressing.
The film also engages in a socio-economic observation focusing on Capitalism and “The Culture of Death.” Through the fall of Enron, the appearance of Capitalism’s main weakness was made apparent. In its worst form, Capitalism breeds in those who are the “have’s” rampant greed brought upon by the intoxication of power, and in those who are the “have not’s” desperation and covetous. “The Waiter” seeks to not explain, but to explore those aspects of our society and self affected by the strong socio-economic influences that direct our daily movement and stagnation. “The Waiter” is the middle installment of a trilogy, which parallels Dante’s “Divine Comedy” as our main character travels through the Inferno, Purgatory, and Heaven.
Visually, the film is largely inspired by three filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, and Godfrey Reggio) and their focus on human paradigms and archetypical images to evoke emotional responses from the audience. To insure the best quality appearance we set out to find the right technology. Bacchus pulled together their resources and was able to raise initial $76,000 for the budget. They started with the Panasonic DVX-100A, which was purchased by Jason Konopisos with $3000 of his own money. This camera shoots with a 24 frame rate, the same as a studio 35mm film camera. This gives the regular moviegoer the same visual feeling that the big film cameras give. Then Bacchus came across Reel Stream, who created a conversion to this camera which allows users to pull raw information directly from the CCDs of the camera in to their computer. Their software then converts this raw information in to whatever Gamma curve that is desired. Basically this gives an extra couple of stops of light and a higher pixel count than before. To give an idea of the information gained per a frame, a Mini-DV gives a frame size of 222K at the maximum render of the raw footage you get a frame size of 3.5MB. This allows more flexibility in color correction and image manipulation. Another technology solution Bacchus came across was at Red Rock. They have created some of the best solutions for independent filmmakers. Carter started with their Micro 35mm lens adapter with the Nikon set up. They used Nikon still camera lenses with this. Also, they have a great follow focus with whip for your camera assist. The lens adapter gives the depth of field of a film camera, thus being able to do proper rack focus for story control. Bacchus Entertainment's "The Waiter" marks the first time a feature film narrative has been shot using the Andromeda technology.