The King of the Playground

You have a lot of cool shots here. I also really liked that you justified using the school playground here, making a virtue of the setting you had access to - it was a neat reveal. The concept worked well and the story hung together nicely too. Cute ending with the poor teacher's coffee.

An affectionate fantasy parody that plays on the way that schoolkids who eat apples for lunch tell tall stories to schoolkids who eat chips for lunch. Only in the playground must all tall stories be believed.

This is a comedy duo with great potential. They have an impressive ability to do physical movements completely in sync, to great comedic effect. They are funny just by staring at things together.

Some fun camerawork and sick edits towards the end!

The exposition heavy scenes at the start were shot pretty flatly; I wanted more of an emotional connection to the characters.

Really enjoyed the fantasy element; it's a touchstone short film trope, so it gave this a solid foundation.

This is a great story, excellent use of the "fantasy" genre. The acting is also very good, the actors form a great comedy duo. I particularly liked the lunchboxes gag, with the smaller boy eating healthy food and the larger boy eating just chips - it is great to see people confident enough to make themselves the subject of a joke, which is often the key to great humour.

The one thing that lets it down is the age-appropriateness of the casting. The actors look about 14, but the playground fantasy is the sort of game that would be played by 7-year-olds. This particular film would have been more convincing with younger actors. I'd love to see this same duo of actors next year, but acting as someone their own age.

This is the quintessential School film.
It had a clear story and a fun idea. The acting was great (especialy that of the dragon)
really felt like childish dramatics.
loved it.

This was a really fun film! I enjoyed it a lot, and I was very impressed by the acting and comedic timing of our main duo. I really enjoyed this

It's been said before but the main duo here were excellent. And you got to give credit to a teacher who's willing to wear a silly outfit on a playground and scream about being the king of the castle. Ka pai team

MY TOWER IS IMPREGNABLE!

A truly solid performance and a really heartfelt little story! We loved the chips gag, and the lizard - although it’s a shame that reveal wasn’t in focus!

It was great to see you focus on going fairly small with the story but doing it really well, as opposed to biting off more than you can chew - which can be a common trap for school teams.

The main thing that pulled us out of it was the final few shots of the dead king, which made the rules of this make-believe world a bit confusing. Ending with the reveal that the kids consider the grumpy teacher the “king,” and smashing his cup on the way to class, would have been a stronger finish.

THE BEST THING: Telling a short story really well, with good pace and a committed performance.
THE NEXT THING: We reckon you’ve got the skill to turn up the dials next year and raise the stakes of your story. Would have loved to see some actual combat with your teacher!