The Clock-work killer

A great short film

...

The view over the valley and the back alley were both really well chosen locations.

The cardboard on the wall was obviously not a real pin board but I respect the team for finding *a solution* rather than just scrapping the idea.

I thought the handling of the rumour was very clunky. A cop knowing the killer's next target surely immediately makes them a suspect or at least an accomplice of the crime??
I would suggest a meeting with some sort of shady underworld informant.
Or have the detective figure out the killer's pattern on their own and include the rumour somewhere else in the film.

I was VERY impressed by the use of gunshots as lighting in the finale. An inspired choice!

I can't wait to see what this team does next.

Honestly soo good! The story narrative was super easy to follow and perfectly told through some ripper cinematography, tunes and performance. Rad stuff!

A great story structure for the genre, and a great script. The performances felt nice and genuine. I liked the picturesque opening shot. Some fun touches were the fingerprint and the licking of the blood off the knife.

If you had more time to finetune this film, something to focus on would be the sound levels. You had some great sound effects (e.g. the rain) but they were a bit too loud while the voices may have been a bit too quiet. Overall though, this film was well-executed. Well done!

THE BEST THING: The highlight of this film is absolutely the action! Good choreo, some brutal sound effects and the gunshots in the dark are absolutely inspired - loved it.

THE NEXT THING: Kids playing adults is a common school trap. Makes it hard for the story to be believable when you've got a teenager saying 'you're too close to this case, take some time off' lol so it's all about knowing your strengths and if one of those strengths is that your teenagers, tell a noir story that only teenagers can tell. There's some really promising stuff from this team, I very much look forward to seeing next years entry!

Fantastic sound effects, fight choreography, and a healthy amount of fake blood. The flashes for the gunshots definitely made me sit up and go "ooh".

Joel tells school teams to "act your age" every year and I'm not saying he's wrong but I get how annoying it is to hear it when you very rarely see short films made in the noir genre that fit your age range. I'd recommend you watch Sub-Par Cinema Society's submission this year. Reputation does a really good job of fitting the noir genre whilst being accurate to the age of the team. Don't be discouraged, team! Creativity is one of the few things that thrives when you lock it in a box with no sunlight (like an editor)

"Great job team" – a quote from my notes on this one.

I sincerely hope you come back next year and blow our socks off.