A Product of My Imagination

An Evening With take us on a journey of discovery in their 2026 entry ‘A Product of My Imagination’. The scene is set with an audible cue that evokes rolling the dice as we peer upwards at corporate structure, a modernist take on SALESMAN via Dorothy hitting the technicolor yellow bricks of Kansas. Only here our cynical fish out of water has been recruited for their apparent ability to innovate through their thoughts.
What unwinds is an intriguing battle of the wits that makes a mockery of the one track masculine mind, and shows that even within a world of endless SEVERANCE-like possibility that singular focus can undermine grandiose plans.
The colour play in the film is sublime with the saturated reds, greens and blues giving us a timeless yet modern feeling to proceedings, whilst the genre gets turned on its head and subverted though the metaphysical black and white mind prison our lead finds themselves in.
It’s better than just an ode to hard boiled Burt Lancaster though, even with food jokes running throughout (thank fuck you didn’t do eggs guys!), as the lady in red gives a pitch perfect voice for women in 2026 that the age of objectification is over.
Comedy is excellent, with witty snappy dialogue and confident performances by all involved. The reasonable person dialogue test compared to reality distortion always gets a laugh out of me. Case in point the medium sized meeting room. Great stuff.
The edit is smooth, and the flow of angles high and low gave the film the pacing it needed to breathe and elevate above its office setting which has been the kiss of death for so many 48 Hours films before. Not here though.
You know you’re splitting hairs on a banger of a film if your only personal thought is if a solid ending could have gone another way. And truth be told I’m glad it went the way it did. The film was never obvious and what else can we ask for but originality in this competition.
Honestly like the protagonist yearning for their sandwich I was salivating at the thought of what this team came up with. If THE MATRIX and BRAZIL are your idea of a neo noir peppered with humorous rib ticklers then you are in for one heck of a tasty. I left the film feeling like I had had all I could eat. Thanks team!

What got my attention
This is a typically slick film from this team, which gets better on subsequent viewings. It’s such a clever, well-executed short with an equally clever punchline that surprised (due to its slow burn in the background) and delighted the live audience at the screening. Faultless cinematography, editing and top-notch performances all-round. The script is witty and tight. Loved the failed concept designs and man, I haven’t seen a working overhead projector in years. A lot of stereotypical detective stories in this genre this year, so great to see neo-noir grasped and taken to different creative places.
Take it or leave it
Hard to fault. I guess the characters are pretty cliché, but that’s also the point no doubt. Does it nail neo-noir? A question for the judges, but it certainly subverts hard so probably not an issue at all!

Final hot air:
Very hard to see this not in the race to win Christchurch and going on to do well nationally. It could effortlessly stand-alone outside the competition and is easily my favourite film I’ve seen from this team. Amazing job. In awe.

As expected from this team, an extremely crisp and well polished film. And with a novel story that was unpredictable and kept the audience engaged.

However, to be honest, I was disappointed with this because it did not really feel like a noir film - the noir elements seemed just a token addition to a film of an entirely different genre - and this is the same genre issue the team fell into last year. Had this team applied their ability to a pure noir film they would have blown everyone else out of the water with the best lighting and videography in the competition - but they missed this opportunity in my opinion.

Ignoring the genre mismatch though, this is an excellent film. I particularly liked the green animations of the ideas on the computer screen, the quality of which demonstrated the attention to detail this team excels at. The acting was also top notch.

Really enjoyed this film. Such a creative concept. The graphics were cool for each product. Loved the punch line too

This was undeniably a great film. The concept, writing, humour, acting, set, cinematography, and editing were all top notch. I have no doubt you will get all the praise you deserve for it from people more qualified than myself.

My one note is the genre. It feels very slapped on. It feels like, (and I suspect this may be the case), you went into the competition already decided on the story you wanted to tell and then found ways to fit your genre and elements into it. Some of my favourite films have been ones that really lean into their genre, such as Spoiler Alert last year, or Miss-Take this year.
I was really excited this year to get the same genre as a team with as high a production value as your team, and see how our films matched up given the same starting point. So imagine my disappointment when you have all but thrown the genre away, keeping it only enough not to get disqualified.

It begs the question of what motivates you to do the 48 hours? If you enjoy the challenge then why not lean into it fully? Go into it with no plans and build off the genre and elements provided. Part of what I personally love about 48 hours is the chaos of improving and inventing on the spot.
But if that’s not your cup of tea that valid too! If you just enjoy 48 hours for the format, and because it gives you motivation and justification to make a short film you wanted to make anyway, then just make that film! I think your film this year would have been better had you just fully abandoned the noir genre rather than trying to shoehorn it into your lead’s internal monologue. You would get disqualified but who cares? You would still make an amazing film, everyone would still see it. And you would still have a great weekend with your team.

Now if there is a secret third option that motivates you please do share it. I’d love to hear.
To finish I’d reiterate that your film this year is amazing. I loved the premise, the humour, and the twist at the end which seemed perfectly justified but I didn’t see coming at all. I hope to see you next year.

There's so much to like about this short. Cinematography, sound design and acting were all fantastic.
Expecting to see this one go a long way in the competition!

So much to say about this absolute knock-out film. A great concept. Taking an overused location (offices) and breathing new life into it , as well as satirising the quirks of office life in unique ways.

I really enjoyed the variety of locations and visual interest they managed to pull out of what could have been a flat location. Never over-using the same location kept the story racing along.

Be warned it's a dense film with a lot going on - from its witty dialogue and offbeat humour, to its layered plot. You will enjoy it more and pick up on clever little bread crumbs on subsequent viewings.

This team doesn't miss and I think we're going to see this film go far in this comp:)

Hi, Cinema Conissure! As we said last year, we do not preprepare - we stay up until 3 or 4am on that Friday scrapping ideas and trying to find something that sticks.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but genre-subversion is one of the judging criteria at 48 hours. There have been tens of thousands of films made over the years and it pays to keep things fresh and find (hopefully) unique and interesting ways to play with such incredibly familiar tropes.  Especially when it comes to something as visually style-coded as Classic Noir. But stylistic elements are not all that makes a genre.

We chose to film a neo-noir film, in colour, and aimed to use its core themes, such as moral ambiguity, fatalism, destructive desire, the femme fatale and had the internal monologue play an intrinsic role to the story. We threw in some classic noir shots for good measure (and fun!) but they are not the sum of our genre adhesion.

Finally, we make comedies, and will continue to make comedies! Sometimes that won't gel with the mood you're expecting from a particular genre - and that's totally ok! We would just love to not have to defend ourselves over pre-planning. 

Hope that clears some things up!

It was really wonderful to see where all the eScooter helmets went!
Strong key concept, with a great inbuilt final twist.
I do wish the narrative didn't run alongside the credits, so we could have more time to sit with that ending twist.
The camera work and performances are great... But you already knew that 😉

Another BANGER from A.E.W. Like a noir film and chip commercial had a baby. All of the snappy fast edits and crunchy sound design that I have come to expect from this team! Plenty to chew on for the rewatch, and the actors are firing on all cylinders! Loved the extra step of making the computer graphics! Such a small thing that makes a HUGE impact for me. Maybe the helmet swap scene could have happened at night with some strong noir style lighting, but I respect the choice to keep the light on 😉

Hi chestertravis,
I suppose now that I think about it your film does have the themes of destructive desire and moral ambiguity and so forth. That’s my bad.
I suppose my suspecting you pre-plan is a testament to how good your writing is. I apologise for jumping to conclusions and thank you for clearing things up.
Again, your film is amazing and congratulations on making the short list.

I'd love to see what the small-size meeting room in this office looks like!

A Product of My Imagination is highly polished. I would expect nothing less from An Evening With. Everything in the story has its place. Everything drives the plot forward, or sets up a delightful surprise for us at the end. The performances are of course on point, as is the music. The twist is perfect. You can't help but feel sorry for the protagonist who seems bullied by his exploitative employer and colleagues.

We find ourselves in a delightfully ambiguous time period. The office and job descriptions are decidedly modern, the helmets are oh so sci-fi, the eMacs and screen graphics are delightfully retro, there's an overhead projector, there's flat-screen TVs, and one of life's greatest conveniences hasn't been invented yet.

On my first viewing I didn't notice that this is a (neo-)noir film because I don't care that much about genre. The film was simply entertaining on its own terms. But on subsequent viewings, I see the noir tropes are there and they are strong. The black-and-white narrative asides are excellent and don't feel remotely out-of-place. The thematic elements are there as alluded to in reviews above. Taking the heart of an old-school genre but shaping it into a fast-paced modern piece is oh so compelling.

At this point the joke has become a 48Hours Christchurch meme (in both the Dawkinsian and millennial senses) but I feel sorry for Chester constantly having to affirm that his idea ideation does in fact occur during the 48-hour period and not beforehand.

The best 48Hours films are rooted in a simple concept. You can rely on An Evening With to deliver that simple concept with class and precision. Now it's time for the sequel about diced onions and sliced radishes.

When generating ideas keeps falling flat, one man makes a decision to source his ideas externally…

Another incredibly tight, polished and hilarious entry from An Evening With! All the compliments I could give have either been already spoken about by other reviewers, or you know already! I shall try anyway - you guys nailed it! Technically there is nothing to fault here, it’s beautiful, fantastically acted, story is hilarious and on point, the colours in the office space are so bright and engaging, and the noir sequences felt perfectly attuned to the inner workings of his mind!
I also absolutely loved getting that subversion in there around a woman stealing a man’s ideas and claiming them as her own! Honestly that had me cackling! (yes let’s steal ALL the men’s ideas).

Congrats, this is gunning for top of the city finals, and I wouldn’t put it past y’all to be headed straight for nationals again with this delight of a time! Love ya work!

Post CHCH Final Re-Review

So good to see this on the huge EntX screen. What really struck me on this viewing was just how much is packed into this short. There's a lot of story, characters you quickly love or despise, and so much going on cinematically. It moves very fast; not one second wasted, zero redundancy. The noir sequences, aside from looking beautiful, have great subtle touches such as the leaning forward into the microphone or the slinking back into the shadows. The more you watch, the more classic trappings of the genre you see. Amazing to hear that other product designs didn't make the cut - the "Nodding Male Head" (not the official title!) would have been equally brilliant to see.

I was genuinely surprised this film didn't win CHCH, which isn't a slight at all on Rip Focus, just that "A Product of My Imagination" really could have won awards for directing, performance, writing, and cinematography, along with the couple they did pick up. Could have; should have been a slam-dunk.

Just wanted to give Chester (his dad) and the team some love. Hope y'all make the national final.

Once again Chester and Paul and Chester's dad finds themselves on a bit of an uphill battle - up against an audience that expects big things, up against a judging panel that always has mysterious ways, and once again up against your review page assuming that surely you're not as talented as you are - what a hilarious thing to run into two years in a row.

Maybe I'll start there with my thoughts. I want it to be known that Chester's love for this competition supersedes (or as I originally wrote before checking the spelling, superseeds) the natural talent, connections and professionalism he and his team brings to the table each year. It's easy for people to turn their noses up at films that look this incredible and come together this well, but lets not forget that this is a competition on the national stage too, not just our region, and so we're going to have teams like this one with ambition for the top spot. This team is here to play, and also to win, but they're here most importantly because they love the game, it's in their DNA, and their massive pool of talent is the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. It's a pleasure to have you in our region, and I'm sorry not sorry that you get consistently graded on a massive curve compared to most in this comp.

Now with that out of the way, time to judge your film on a massive curve hahaha

As I said last year, you make your films look VERY expensive, and this one is no exception. The office set and the internal monologue scenes are both gorgeous pieces of work. The wins you took away on finals night for production design and sound really were simple layups for this team, and I imagine there was hunger for more that sadly didn't come your way, more thoughts on that soon. I'm also happy to report that while maybe there were some audience members who thought you tripped on the genre adherance again this year, the panel didn't bat an eye on that front, take that win I suppose!

Everything about this product (of your imagination) really is absolutely top tier - editing, cinematography, performance, story, all of it made while you acted like your hands were tied behind your back with the dreaded noir genre. It's a shame that for some of the panel they felt it was great but not untouchable, and I suppose I'd note here that while maybe some of these elements were strong together, like editing and cinematography for example, on their own they were up against teams that got praise for their specific skill, therefore swiping that award away from your fingers. You find yourself in a very similar place to Felix & Luke last year, and Rabid Aunty Jean the year before - excellent enough to be recognised as the Runner-Up, but robbed of a few key awards that would have/should have/could have gone your way.

Nobody is comparing A Product of My Imagination to the rest of the field. We are comparing it to Zero Mum Game and I MetaMan, and to the standard you have now spent three years establishing. So what is the honest diagnosis for not quite taking out the top spot? I think talking with you about it it's clear you already know - it's just a tad crammed. While some here have said there's not a second unwasted, I think I'd say it just needed a few more seconds to breathe. There is a lot to setup, and perhaps the meat of the conflict doesn't make itself clear until we're a little too far into the runtime. What to cut though? Well if I was in the editors room and had fortune telling abilities, perhaps we would have suggested that getting to the point about how the ideas are being reviewed and processed needed to come sooner, which in turn would probably mean cutting or reshaping something around Raddison's contract clarification scene - but then you'd be cutting an excellent medium sized meeting room moment that really tickled us.

This is how surgical and detailed we're thinking about it! It's kind of silly to do so, cause judging be a mystery, but this is our best attempt at trying to give you something to ponder for next year. Simple stories for the win, both regionally and nationally I'd say. A complex story done well is still a complex story, so maybe the intricacies of this one went over judges heads, or maybe it was the whiplash of an ending that didn't land perfectly for them all. We'll never know for sure, but I think we can all agree that this film is firing on all cylinders regardless of nit picks, and it deserved more praise than it got.

THE BEST THING: Another tour de force that I hope to see get some love at the grand finals, maybe even more then it got at the regional level - that happens! Just look at last years national winner, you never know what a new round of judges will think of this one, I really hope it's good things.

THE NEXT THING: I look forward to catching up in a couple of weeks to give you some thoughts and feedback on your script for 2027. (and just to be perfectly clear about it, that is a joke)

When I describe this competition to people, I say there are two "big dog" teams in chch, Rabid Aunty Jean and you guys (I say it with excitement and love). I ADORE you guys and am so glad that we have a big dog here for us all to look up to after RAJ abandoned us (I kid). This film will be another that I share with people in years to come as I try to get them to participate; look at what can be produced! It's so slick! So smart! And so funny! I don't want to fall behind for next year, so will have to get started on our script asap ;)