Fools Gold

Hihi, I just saw your heat and wanted to say great job!

I loved the cut from the hand drawn map to the home map, the music slowing down as more spoons came up, the birds eye view of the X, and that finding the spoons came in handy! So many excellent moments.

I think your film has my fav line of the night - "My mum dropped me off and she ain't coming back," delivered so casually.

I did mildly gag watching them eat mayo. But that seems appropriate xD

Fun watch!

What got my attention:
A good set up and thank God you made the initial phone call sound like one. The real magic begins with the interaction between the two characters. As mentioned above, some great lines – “My mom dropped me off...” and “Are you painting the fucking rocks gold?” Nicely shot, acted naturally and a great location. The ending is surprisingly sweet.

Take it or leave it
Despite the good humour there is also a lot of time wasted digging through rocks. As someone who demanded a 40-second slasher scene in my film it still has to have some purpose aside from shifting rocks – mine was OTT stupid humour; yours was just looking through a pile of rocks and digging through dirt. A serious of jump cuts may have served you better here. We don’t learn much about the other character but maybe we don’t need to know anymore. Likewise, nothing much really happens – there’s no major struggle from our lead, he doesn’t really solve his problem but maybe he very simply just gets what he wanted.

Final hot air
This was well received at the screening and is an enjoyable short. I'd be intrigued to see what these characters do next. Nice job!

Nice fun film! Carried the story throughout. Classic subtle and prop comedy was mint

This film was great fun! From your dialog in the phone call all the way to that hilarious ending, I greatly enjoyed your humour and the way you told a simple and clear story!
I would like to reiterate what Mista Teas said though about the amount of time spent digging, that could have possibly been elevated with some more interesting camera shots showing the character's frustration building as he doesn't find the gold, then his excitement and interest as he digs for the mayo.
Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed your film!
That mayo, not explained at all, and yet it needs no explanation!
And I especially loved the ending and the spoons! The spoons truly made that ending perfect!
That mayo Not explained at all, and yet it needs no explanation!
Good work guys!

Crack up! So many good gags in this film. I loved the guy spray painting the rocks gold and just saying "nah" when confronted about it. The spoons coming back around at the end was so good too. Really nice location too. Great job!

Following the guide of an online influencer, one man’s journey to enrich himself leads to unexpected treasures.

There was some absolute gold in here (pun intended)! The visuals here are great, and I love a good excuse to shoot out in the stunning locations Canterbury has to offer! Panning for gold with an actual pan too was inspired, and the music getting slower and more discordant as our hero fails to find any actual gold was brilliant. Love me a good drone shot too!

As has been mentioned already, tightening the pacing of the story in the edit I think will help bring more polish to the film! Shortening the phone scrolling sequence and the digging would help keep the pace, and stop any moments dragging on too long.
The use of genre as well I worry may have departed a little too far from the conventions of found footage. Love the subversion of interpreting it as going out to actually find things, but judges have been sticklers for genre in the past, so it may be worthwhile veering a little closer to home on the genre front!

Overall, really fun film, pulled together with great flair and some beautifully dynamic shots! Well done!

This film was well received with the Little A crowd, so well done on that front! Outside of that, sorry to say, this one didn't land amazingly for us.

The drone work is cool and there are some great shots in here. The core joke is fine too, a strong idea having this guy get caught lying to his audience.

The big drawback that really switched us off was the blatant ignoring of your assigned genre! This is not POV or Found Footage in any meaningful sense. Some of it is filmed on a phone, and I get there is an argument for the lead 'finding the video' that drives their motivation, but a drone gliding over a river is nobody's found footage, nor is basically 95% of the other shots. If it was some sort of unique subversion, then maybe we'd buy into it, but it's just...not the genre!

The other thing that bugged us is the lack of tension when the guy is caught lying about the gold. This reveal lands about halfway and then the film just sits there while a motorbike is out of fuel, a dude reflects on being abandoned by his mum or something, and then the two blokes eat mayonnaise, and the mayonnaise is not doing enough work to carry two minutes (despite that final drone shot being pretty freaking cool). There is no want, no cost, no consequence for anybody. It's one of the most 'and this happens' stories we've seen in this comp.

We'll give you this though - one thing that on second watch in Little A we did appreciate more was the two spoons the lead finds being used to eat the mayo is quite funny, so kudos on that.

THE BEST THING: The drone photography, and a premise with a real satirical idea buried in it.

THE NEXT THING: Serve the genre! If found footage is the brief, everything we see has to be footage somebody in the film actually shot, and there has to be a reason they kept filming.

Great use of location and some really pretty shots throughout. As Joel and Rachel said, POV/Found Footage didn't come across strongly. Found Footage is a tough genre to work within and keep visually interesting, and I reckon you would be up to the challenge! Perhaps sticking with the influencer theme, you could have the main character going to record his findings so we feel like we're watching a wannabe gold hunting influencer.
I didn't understand the golden mayo, and I'm not sure if there's anything to "get".
Despite genre being a little off, this is really well made and so nice to look at! I look forward to seeing what you bring to the competition next!