Bomb Busters

What I liked:
Top overall production as per with RAJ. The lives of people doing something not so normal while having a deep discussion/argument about their relationship is a cool way to go. The ticking clock adds some tension and suspense. It’s well acted, of course, with no doubt some improv doing some heavy work when they’re talking over each other. Lots of teams, perhaps to save set-up time, whip-pan across characters during dialogue, often poorly with the timing off or unsettling motion blur. Not here though – it’s executed with perfection.

Take it or Leave it:
Is it eighties? Is there enough action? Probably both subtly applied, as the short could in any time period really. Certainly, had very similar vibes to TBALC Alpha’s 2016 CHCH winning film “Down to the Wire” right down to the comical interjections of a third character. It’s a well-written story; the only question is whether enough really happens – there’s a lot of arguing with a pretty stock-standard sweet resolution.

Final hot air:
RAJ are a top team who produce excellent short films in this comp. There’s never a stinker, and they never fail to impress. Nice work!

This one was quite clever, and I imagine it must be hard to take such a strange concept and deliver it. I think the acting was superb. I did like the imagination of the concept.

I do think that maybe it's hard to deliver something like this where an argument escalates within the duration of the short film, because at one point the argument got so loud that I felt I had to cover my ears. It's one thing to have an argument contain conflict in a film, and it's another to have it be actively aggressive to the audience... that said, I can tell this team is full of lots of talent and even if sometimes the absurdism was hard for me to latch onto fully, I could tell it was made with a lot of heart.

Brilliant entry, with some parts that made me not so hot, but I think those can be chalked down to the 48 hour time limit. It's hard to make something as dialogue-heavy and argument-heavy as this resonate within just 48 hours. Great stuff either way :)