Very fun, Matrix-Ready Player One mashup.

I feel like a POV shot through the goggles would have made for a more immersive experience. Just watching someone fiddle in the air is a little awkward. A green filter and some greenscreen tech effects over a drawn map in his hands would have done just fine.

The use of the fog machine was great and the lighting in that scene really made for a dramatic feel.

This film kept me engaged throughout and had me rooting for the good guys.

Well done :)

Sorry to hear you were DQ'd, this was definitely one of the more enjoyable films out of the Hamilton heats. I was genuinely impressed by the amount of coverage you got for your film. I counted 116 cuts on my second watch just now and it seemed like brand new angles that would have taken endless setups peppered the film, giving it frenetically paced energy to proceedings, but with a smooth edit keeping things on track at all times.

Yes, the inspirations of films were yesteryear were obvious, but you still stuck to your guns and played it straight, giving the film a respectable consistency to the tone. Your villain was larger than life, your gatekeeper ethereal, but the plot was driven by the required elements of the comp such as the invisible map and titular Josh having to show bravery reluctantly.

The location could have easily been given away as a school with the wrong angle or reflection at precisely the wrong inopportune time, but everything was tight to sell the idea of guerilla militants racing to find the key they needed.

I have to say I felt the conclusion to the film a tad confusing with the overlays and chess board etc, but this was classic guerilla film making and I applaud you for it.

Story: 2.5/5
Technical: 3.5/5
Elements: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Never taking itself too seriously, with slow moving cars and a weakness for water being our hero's biggest issue, Broken Ties used their genre as a catalyst for exploring how far friendship can be tested.

Whilst there was a perilous kidnapping involved in the plot, the fact that the film came to a conclusion of standing around and arguing next to a swimming pool about sisterly love meant that the money shot splash played like a lighthearted comic moment rather than having any real weighting. I get that you were going for what was supposed to a dramatic SAW-like 'Live or die, make your choice', but I felt that there could have been more tension, more consequence.

Audio was clear and the film had a nice colourful feeling to it with strong outfits giving visual character to the actors, and the invisibility moments were nicely edited, but just personally found the proceedings quite light.

Story: 1.5/5
Technical: 2.5/5
Elements: 2/5
Overall: 2/5

After being too picky for Tinder, a woman is registered by her friend for the upcoming local speed dating event to get her back on the dating horse, with an uber on its way in an hour!

I liked the quirky charm on show in this film, with the would be lovers available for our lead to choose from all having some gut-busting red flags from terrible ties, through truckers, to scarcely believable hot dog costumes. The film of course played like a classic lesson in not judging a book by its cover, with chemistry and rapport developed nicely in the short running time.

Pacing was really well done, building to a satisfying conclusion and I liked that you took a fairly standard idea and went outside the box. Sound seemed a little raw, but I'm always careful to criticise there in case it was my setup, and I thought that some of the editing was a tad jumpy in terms of what I noticed from a technical POV. Definitely a film that could have only been made in New Zealand, but a very enjoyable one.

Story: 3.5/5
Technical: 2.5/5
Elements: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

Really gung-ho splatfest of a couple of pirates climbing aboard and murderously taking over a boat complete with some low budget but nicely done OTT blood vfx and convincing sound effects of bones breaking.

When the film got going, energy was the key word that would describe the events that occured as the team tried their best to pay homage to BAD TASTE. However it did unfortunately take quite some time to get going, with shots held probably a bit too long to kick off proceedings as the pirates planned their takeover, and then the boarding of the ship itself also having some very extended coverage.

Your general camerawork was nice, with excellent use of natural lighting on board the ship, though I would just advise for night time footage to work on lighting as the opening shots did come across as compressed and grainy. Points for cool uniforms though and hey, my review notebook has "FUN" jotted down. Good work, just a bit more to the story would have elevated things.

Story: 1.5/5
Technical: 3/5
Elements: 3/5
Overall: 2.5/5

First of all, yikes at using drunk driving as comedy even if a throwaway line. Not cool.

Blink Blue Media went down the mysterious stranger as hitchhiker route, and nicely subverted audience expectations with many tonal beats that seemed like they were made to match the 1986 cult classic THE HITCHER, only to present things completely differently.

Things even got into meta-commentary at times, with the hitchhiker recording that he did not know what was real at the same sort of time that the events unfolding on screen were blurring a dreamlike line between reality for viewers as well.

I think the script was the strongest aspect of the film, which was important given it was largely driven by dialogue. Performances were decent in particular by the titular hitchhiker who carried an air of mystery to himself throughout proceedings. I genuinely liked how open ended it was as well.

What threw me a little bit was the conclusion, which seemed like it was trying to create an arc that would make us reevaluate prior events, but honestly was a little predictable.

Technically the film had some fantastic cinematography, at times, and then other moments where the lighting got away from the team. Audio was good though.

Story: 3/5
Technical: 2.5/5
Elements: 2.5/5
Overall: 2.5/5

Thanks for your feedback mate. Much appreciated as a first time film maker. Will certainly take on board the comments positively and aspire to do better in future. Tena koe. PS: Loved all your reviews thus far btw. Huge moral boost to all us aspiring filmmakers.

Now here's a film I have been aching to turn up in the screening room, because it was one of my absolutely favourites in the whole competition this year, and honestly I feel a strong darkhorse to make the national film. Seriously touching subject matter about learning to accept and love yourself, Rame Media you hit me right in the feels.

Firstly, EXCEPTIONAL performance by your lead actor, who is considering an upgrade from the slightly sinister and most definitely superficial Alexa Cybernetics, who can help with creaking bones, aching muscles, physical disabilities or if you just want to become 30cm taller. Said actor was stoic, charismatic, introspective and assured when they develop a friendship with a young man in the waiting room. It appeared that they actually had a physical disability with their arm and I loved the way you took a slightly meta approach to make something so uplifting.

In terms of further praise, your music score was an absolutely perfect fit for the subject matter. I forgot to note whether it was an original composition or stock, but whoever edited made every note a winner. The heartbeat was also so well placed it was one of the very few I made a note of in my review book about.

There were a couple of minor misses for me. It sounded early on like fake American accents were being used for the technology company (please forgive me if they were genuine), and technically whilst the job got done very well, it was a little flat in terms of cinematography particularly in terms of backgrounds whereas a slightly stronger depth of focus would have elevated the film even further. However that was balanced out by the fact that we were able to concentrate our attention 100% on the actors who were so fantastic.

Story: 5/5
Technical: 3/5
Elements: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

Who doesn't want to know what is in store for their future? Our lead goes to a tarot reading for this exact reason and draws many unusual cards or toys only for a presence to appear and events to spiral out of control.

For mine, seeing what won let alone was nominated for cinematography in Hamilton I'm pretty surprised you weren't up for that award. The film was visually slick, with really good camerawork, lighting and cinematic touches throughout. I can see how the inserted footage of buildings and candles might have rubbed some the wrong way though as it was a little bit extrenuous.

Performances were also good in terms of line deliveries and screen presence and the original soundtrack which was really strong was the highlight of the whole thing.

But I need to talk about the elephant in the room. That ending, was, in my opinion, absolutely dire. An eye for an eye cold blooded revenge. I get it, I think, that brothers would do anything for each other but to just go for the cold kill left me feeling absolutely freezing and nonchalant about the whole thing that had come before in the previous 3 minutes. An absolute shame.
My personal opinion is that you had 2 more minutes you could have used to give depth to characters and make the ending actually resonate. Why was the revenge so important? What satisfaction did the audience gain? Why did the first murder happen? Being open ended is all well and good but when even a shred of detail about who the characters are is stripped away like this it just creates a mean spirited film.

Story: 1/5
Technical: 3.5/5
Elements: 2.5/5
Overall: 1.5/5