Reputation

On behalf of Dennistribe we gladly take on the mantle as your (friendly) rivals, and return the favor! We are extremely exited to see your film and how you take the noir genre (A difficult one to pull off well, but you have proven you are more then capable!)
We wish you the best of luck in performing better and beating us, hope you bring the best you have to offer and may the best film win!

(We really enjoyed your film last year and are glad to be competing with you once again!)

Well that was an excellent film, you leaned heavily into the genre as anticipated and crafted a great storyline. Utterly hilarious, so many great lines, and the ending - switching to a new innocent culprit to be brought to "justice" - is perfect. The internal monologue is fantastic. The ominous hint that the victim has been killed with a hammer, but without actually saying so directly, leaving the viewers working out the story for themselves. Brilliant acting.

And what viewer cannot relate to "Life's hard when everyone thinks you're crazy"?

I can't think of any improvements to suggest, I'll leave that to Foetidum, I just loved the whole thing.

I chuckled when I spotted the chainsaw from Brunch Solstice placed strategically in the background. If you've spotted where the scythe is in ours you'll realise how much our teams think the same as each other - but triple points if you also spotted Tractorius lurking in the shadows... Regarding our friendly rivalry, I can't pick a winner, we'll have to leave that to the judges!

There are so many parts of your film that were great. You did Noir so well. I love when the same dialogue follows the narration haha. When I saw the tied up person was quite modern looking, I was hoping it'd cut out of the noir into modern everyday and you delivered. I love the idea of someone's inner voice being all 40s/50s dramatic noir detective. The pacing was excellent, too, with the drama and chaos escalating. Great job

Great noir film with some great performances! Loved the sinister undertone with our main character, and the extremely silly situation he finds himself in. I would nominate this for best use of garage this year! The set looked GREAT! No notes

What I liked:
This is really well done and probably the most enjoyable from the genre I’ve seen this year. Well-acted, good pacing, nice lighting, and a dark story that was really well told. The script works nicely and is both funny and tragic. A dude personally aggrieved by the most trivial things, real or imagined, is very close to my heart!

Take it or leave it:
My only note here is one I often give with this genre. The casting does work, and I’m sure the detective look is all part of his vibe, again real or imagined, but it all could have been more neo-noir. And less crime board on a wall. (Man, I hate those things!) You could have told the same story, with the same aesthetic, without the classic detective thing going on. More Sin City than Maltese Falcon, but even Shadow of a Doubt would do. Look, I don’t even know how old most of this team is, but play to your youthful strengths in the world of adults if you wish, but not as adults. Just my thing.

Final hot air:
Great film and I hope it gets beyond the shortlist. Superb mahi!

A man confronts his arch-nemesis who has been ruining his life, but his nemesis doesn’t see things the same way.

This was so much fun to watch! Your lead pulled off the role as a disgruntled detective-type-while-not-actually-being-a-detective so well, and in particular I loved when he got more and more erratic, losing it as his story was being picked apart by his captive. Your shots looked great too, beautifully lit for black and white, contrasting nicely!

I loved the story, your lead grasping at straws as his theories fell apart and he was exposed for the delusional madman he is, however I was a little confused at the end as to where him fighting the other guy was in the timeline. Was he remembering how it actually happened, or was it in his imagination?

Overall though, solid entry and a great step up from last year’s film! Congrats on the shortlisting, and really excited to see how far you go in the comp this year!

The growl on "you're lying", the smooth voicing and writing of the voice over, the set and and the story was all so amazing! Brilliant concept and well executed. Absolutely loved it!

On behalf of your friendly rivals Dennistribe, given that you were nominated for three awards and we were nominated for none, we humbly concede that you have beaten us this year. Good work! Disappointing you didn't make the finals, but it was a tough competition.

Regarding Grae's comment about where the fighting was in the timeline - I was also confused by this initially but understood it on the second or third watch. This could have done with a clearer indication that it was a flashback.

Sub-Par return with a step up from last years short! Great to see the school teams returning and continue to hone in on their craft.

This was by the far the strongest 'detective' short we got this year, with an excellent twist of the noir elements of the story being in the guy's head. It's got great style, great interior shooting and lighting, and a confident performance from your leads (even if they are swinging between kiwi and us accents hahahaha). A great score, a great final shot, there was a lot to love here! It's a shame it fell flatter for the judges. They thought the script was good, the story was mostly easy to follow and the choice to cut to colour to show reality was inspired.

Where the story lost us was the final conflict, and the cut to Lucas randomly attacking Zeph under the bridge, I still don't quite get what was being revealed here - are we saying that the whole interogation was in Lucas' head too? What layer of reality are we looking at in those final moments? Whatever it was you had in mind, sadly this is where it looses us and likely why it didn't climb higher on the judges scores.

THE BEST THING: The strong sense of style, and the goldfish line was *gold*

THE NEXT THING: It's funny to note the friendly rivarly going on between you and Dennistribe, and the fact that you both got noir so making the comparisons this year is actually a helpful exercise for noting strengths in both films. For you guys, your setup and style was stronger, but your ending was messy, whereas Dennistribe took a few minutes into their film to find it's feet, but it had a really strong ending. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, your film next year needs a sheep.

Sub-par rep here. Thank you DennisCheif for the Victory. That makes the score 1-1. Next years film will take the lead.

For those wondering, the fight scene at the end was intended to show our Noir lead kidnapping our victim, which then leads to the interrogation in the garage. We were hoping it would bridge the timeline between the flashback and interrogation a bit, as well as further showing our lead do terrible things to feed his paranoid fantasies.
However if we are being fully honest. That scene is only there because we really wanted to do a fight scene. We didn’t even know where we were gonna put it until we were in the edit. And even if it is a little confusing I’m still glad we did since it was great fun to film. We got to do fight choreography and folly for the first time. And what is 48 hours about if not having fun and trying new things?

Thank you all for the positive feedback. Can’t wait for next year!