After getting absolutely roasted at a comedy club, Hamish Boyle gives one of the best performances of this year's competition as a wannabe funny guy who will stop at nothing to get other people chortling. Stalking? Kidnapping? Who's keeping score?!

Genuinely well deserved nomination for best sound at the Auckland final. When I rewatched the film just now I was amazed at how crisp and clean every line of dialogue was, as well as impressive use of audio space to get inside the headspace of our protagonist. The club felt like a void with the walls surrounding the humiliated Hamish as others reveled in his roasting by the comedian on stage, whilst indoor and outdoor spaces were audibly captured as just the right level.

Really cleanly shot as well with professional framing, clean and creative lighting and a crisp edit.

For me I think it probably needed to "go there" just a bit more, as I sympathised with the lead and always like seeing a bully get their comeupppance. What I mean by that was that the revenge could have been slightly more satisfactory. Does he get revealed some actually great jokes? Maybe an injury to Paul plays off as funny? Just spitballing of course.
It actually almost felt like to do that you needed more than 5 minutes to tell the perfect story here. Was their history between the characters played by Hamish and Paul? Could being funny or not have serious ramifications for Hamish's personal or career prospects? I liked the open-endedness of the film but a couple of beats to flesh out proceedings may have elevated it further.

I get the subversion though and the revenge was a central element of the story. Strong performances, technically great, but leaning into the competition elements as plot devices might have been the last thing it needed to go from good to great. I really enjoyed it personally though!

Soo fun and the figure in the dark was legit scary. Amazing job all on your own.

Absolute Thriller and a must watch, had me gripped till the very end.

Very entertaining, kept me guessing the whole way through. The way the continuity changed was funny.

Apparently acorns have the perfect appendage to protect them from hypnotic AI computers.

A very cute and genuine film. The animated characters are lovely. So are the voices. Colour creates a striking contrast between the dreary opening and the cheery ending. Films about AI seem to be in vogue this year, but this treatment is delightfully heartfelt and wholesome.

Making a film about making a film, and having an animated film inside an animated film, are big gambles. They only pay off because the credits delightfully reveal that animated movie #2 was made by eight-year-old Moss. This hammers home the film's message that art that is real is better and more alive than soulless AI outputs. A child's creativity is inspiring and contagious.

The let-down in this film is the volume of the music. It's too loud, drowning out the cute voices and sound effects, and forcing me to turn the volume of my TV down much lower than I should need to. Perhaps sound mix was the last-minute casualty after a sleepless weekend of loving, painstaking animation. But audio can make or break a film. This film would benefit from some attention to the levels monitor and making sure the decibels of each track adhere to the relevant 48Hours guidance.

Thank you for being the first to review my own film! It meant a lot to have a flurry of reviews from around the country straight after the heat. In return, you are my first review of a non-Christchurch 48Hours film. I lived in Tauranga as an adolescent so it seems fitting.

Loved it! Tight story, great gags, animation looks awesome. So well done!!

Shine shine shine shine shine shine shine shine, shine! shine! shine! Amazing sets, perfect performances and the songs are so good! One of my fav teams, love your work.

So much fun and real out of the box production design. This was easily the most creative use of film noir I’ve seen so far in the competition!

Great work team!

So much fun!! Love this team and their wild ideas!

One of my favourite final lines of the competition so far!!

Great work!