USBrie

In a funny way, this film reminded me of Goldstein from the old ASB ads. A man on a secret mission getting up to all sorts of entertaining antics and reporting to the voice in his ear – a higher power who no one else knows about. Of course, this man was rather more unhinged than Goldstein, and I would expect nothing less. It was such fun to sit in the mystery of whether the man's mission was real or whether he was just mad and harbouring an unhealthy love for his USB stick. The actor's commitment to the part really sold it.

I'd never seen the chapel at College House before. What an epic, visually striking location to secure, and filmed so well! And I like how you continue with the geometric compositions as the characters run down the ramp from the New Brighton Pier.

I worry about portraying a man cornering a woman in an alley. It somehow feels off (similarly, a film in the following heat depicts someone's drink being spiked). Are there certain dark parts of our society that shouldn't casually be depicted onscreen just to set up a throwaway joke? I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe a solution would be to make both characters actively fight, instead of having an active chaser and a passive runner. If she fought back, there could be room for more comedy when we see how incompetent her assailant is in hand-to-hand combat.

I also find myself wondering why so many films this year are featuring Lego men. Is it an easy way to get a miniature into a film?

Well done on a thoroughly entertaining film.

The performances are INSANE!
There were moments in the cinematography that reminded me of Danny Boyle! That could have been leaned into to make the chase scenes even more intense!

The lead guy... Is like finding for substances. He's tweaking hard! He's doing facial expressions I've never seen before!

The team name is a quite pretentious for such a fun movie!
I really dig team names that reflect the tone of their work!

This was a really fun film! I think the chase scenes were really well shot and I quite enjoyed the comedic elements coming through from our leading man. That chapel setting is beautiful, and i really loved the way things in there were shot. This was a fun one I really enjoyed it

As the director of our first time in this festival I’d first like to say, 48 hours is definitely a much shorter time limit than I expected! It was a great experience and I feel we learnt so much so we can improve on next year. Unfortunately there were a lot of editing and corruption issues but I’m glad we got to finish it and submit it! I feel like narrative definitely ended up coming second making this a bit hard to follow, essentially an incompetent agent having his specially assigned usb swapped with a stranger that he must get back. We did forget about the time limit unfortunately so had to cut out a lot of our shots!
Thank you to everyone who watched though and we appreciate the feedback and will be taking on all notes and advice for future projects!! (Also short explanation on Apotheosis, our team name was originally The Brady Bunch but we were worried about copyright so last minute changed to the topic our composer was learning in his classics course haha!)

I have such a soft spot for any team that films around UC, or Ilam. I just love seeing local neighborhoods on screen! I don't know much about representation, but seeing local settings shot by other filmmakers makes me feel like i'm part of a real city! I have a feeling some stuff got lost in the process of making this, but I fuck with the vision and would love to see these guys have another shot! Only cirt is the scene where he corners that girl at night was unintentionally terrifying, but luckily it never jumped the shark. Keep practicing, there's a ton of good energy here waiting to be harnessed! And if you want to collab, hit me up!

Nice job team! Lots of fun to be had with this movie and great use of locations across the city. The performance from the lead was a stand out to me and there's something about the style of comedy used that really speaks to me. Ka pai!

USBRIE is a fun chase-’em-down short, led by a very charismatic performer! Right from the start, when we saw this guy’s brilliant facial expressions, we knew we were in for a good time.

“I’M IN PURSUIT!” — probably one of our favourite lines this year.

Great to see you’ve had some self-reflection about the overall product. You’re on the money with the key thing this story lacks — it’s just a little unclear what happened at the start, and beyond the chase, we don’t get a whole lot else to sink our teeth into.

Gotta say though, that walk-away celebration at the end, which goes on for waaaayyy too long, was a real hit with the audience. It was awkward, but hilarious.

THE BEST THING: Great to see this team commit to high energy and an enthusiastic performance.

THE NEXT THING: Continue to sharpen your shots and editing so that you can communicate the story beats to the audience with a bit more clarity.

Looking forward to seeing next year’s submission!

Oh - and what does this title mean? USBrie? lol