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.