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Sounds intriguing, will look out for it!

This was extremely odd and upsetting, in a really fantastic, interesting way.
Really hit that existential, emotional place where you don't quite understand, but you feel it deeply.

Render Rebels assembled a unique team of right wing Christchurch political figures to bring us this confusing saga of someone injecting himself with a magic potion and then there’s a dragon? Ok sure, whatever, I had Tears in my eyes laughing.

GOAT

HUGE step up from the Render Rebels! Last years film was great but this is on a whole new level! I loved this crazy film, and so did the crowd! Really played with the 3D medium in such an awesome and fresh way! The meta elements were hilarious, and the contrast between the character designs were sooooo fuckin good. I don’t even have notes, just praise! Surely this wins best animation, but I could also see this winning the whole thing? Amazing work team!

I love stories about background characters in games, and seeing them chat normally while performing in all their various scenes. Like while hanging upside down burning haha! I also enjoyed some of the funny lines, "your 17 abs," etc. I loved seeing all the levels of detail between how rendered characters were depending on what game they were from, and also that karma at the end was to be turned into a low-poly character haha. Great job

What I liked:
I guess the sheer ambition of this is incredible. I could never do something like this – no skills or patience for it. It’s a fun, crazy old time with obviously plenty of in-jokes. I liked how one character looked like Kurt from my 2014 film “The Shirt”! Topical with mixes of gamer, NPC, and influencer culture, and a dragon! The two characters hanging upside down having a conversation was excellent.

Take it or leave it:
I didn’t really vibe with a lot of the voice acting. I get the kiwi slant, but it didn’t work for me unless deliberately cringe was what you were going for. I think it could have been real OTT with these voices – like they were trying too hard. It was just a bit ponderous at times. I’ll admit I’m not a huge gamer, with only about half-a-dozen in my library that I regularly play, so a lot has probably gone over my head. Some of the jokes were just crass and a little forced, including the ending. I’m no prude but c’mon!

Final hot air:
Another amazing effort given the time pressure. You obviously have all the motion capture sorted 100% (even if some of the mouth movements were a little absent at times) so top work. Just not my thing. Great work on making the shortlist and no doubt in the CHCH finals.

I’m not usually into men, but (see the pun haha), I was 19 and I had a maths tutor who used to swim in the pond next to my house. I watched him. He gleamed in the sun afterwards. I could have had a whole other life.

You’ve made me think. Really think. Do I really want this marriage to continue?

This film blows last years entry out of the water on *almost* all fronts. You knew after last years effort that this year you had to go big, and by golly did you deliver! From the opening shot Rachel and I were gobsmacked by the technical feat. The scale of the worlds you take us to in the story. The amount of work to pull all of this together in 48 hours is truly remarkable. Dragons!?! DRAGONS?! you gotta be joking! Surely the ambition this film presents is more than enough to justify a finals spot - yeah? no?! how is that possible!! *sigh*

The result for this team is probably the biggest shock to come out of Christchurch this year. Absolutely gutting, and I'm sure both the team and many of the audience/reviewers of this film will feel ripped off. But maybe when we step back and look at some of the other teams that didn't quite make it, we see a pattern unfold - between you guys, Cactus?, PITCHED SHIFTED, and Out For Lunch, we have an fleet of incredibly talented technical teams that had stories that the judges just didn't buy.

I'm really sorry to say that it's the *almost* bit that is probably what pulled this one back for the judges. While this years short has more entertainment value, a larger scope and an incredible sense of style, last years film actually stuck a landing that we feel was stronger than this time around, and it had a structure that was easier to follow. This year, while going big was the right move, story is still king, and the judges said no.

Let it be known - you had one judge that was absolutely in your corner and thought this film was top notch story telling, they fully followed it the whole way through and gave you a really high amount of praise on all fronts, including performance and recognising careful choices of editing due to the limitations of render time. Beyond them, the rest just didn't get it. And as the scores started to come in, we felt really sad that no love was coming your way, or at least no where near as much as we expected. We know how hard this method of film making is, it's operating at a technical level that is unmatched by most of the competitors - but if the story isn't easy to follow, it just doesn't matter how good the technical feat is unfortunately, judges will mark it lower if they don't buy into the story.

The comments were pretty consistent - an amazing technical feat, but messy plot and motivations. The most specific bit of feedback being around the rules of the injection. It's unclear what the lore is behind Frank's serum - he's taking the serum every day right? Is it a luck of the draw whether it causes glitches or not? When our lead challenges him to take it, Frank goes 'it's your funeral' (which was probably the one line that confused me the most, but on reflection maybe the joke here is because they were at a funeral), he takes the serum, unfortunately offscreen I imagine due to time restraints, and then accuses our lead of being the reason he's now a blockhead, as if it wasn't his own product he was pushing? This was the biggest question on the minds of the judges I think, and potentially the reason it just didn't quite score enough to reach top 14 - judges care a lot about endings of stories.

THE BEST THING: Well, for me personally, 'Who the fuck am I supposed to be fighting' was absolutely my favourite moment of this one, a moment among many that I felt helped make this crew of misfits really well established. That, and the incredible technical abilities on display, is the best thing.

THE NEXT THING: Please don't give up! Every team gets short handed every now and again, it happened to me plenty in my years competing, and there are others sharing your pain right now. I know it can be quite disheartening to not have your incredible effort reflected in the results, and it can be especially confusing when last years film, that isn't considered to be as strong, did make finals. My thoughts are simply to take heart in knowing we feel you deserved more than you got, and you have a whole bunch of fans in the Christchurch community that are absolutely blown away by the work you do. This film deserved more love, and we know if you continue to compete and bring us more to enjoy each year, we will continue to welcome it with open arms and be rooting for you every step of the way. We certianly hope to see you again, Render Rebels!