Thanks for the rating, Steel Potato, us in Jenni's Angels are used to doing comedy, so the more serious film was a bit out of our comfort zone.

I suspect Arborgeddon will get audience choice, it was just so much fun. Nailed the genre.

Shame you couldnt make it Bdigs, there was some fine films on display, however, nothing compared with Dan Slevins mc'ing. The highlight of course being his catch phrase

"LETS GET READY TO CRRRRRRUMBLE!".

cheers DS

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: icwProductions / Genre: Romance / “Notes” [Disqualified]

A social introvert writer hammers away at his work as his mate, ‘The Pud’ constantly tries to get him laid through blind dates and his female neighbour constantly leaves him notes by his door. He doesn’t however communicate very well in the real world, only on the written page and so this causes problems. The actor playing the writer was very good.

Story: 3.5 / Acting: 4 / Elements: 3.5 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 3.5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks a lot man. We all really appreciate the reviews you put up here. Must take a lot of time and effort.
It was a shame we are out of competition, but our 7min cut was a real disservice to the acting talent involved in our film.
They're not getting paid, so the least we can do is let them shine on screen for a few minutes in front of a receptive audience. What a great audience last night. Thanks for the almost rapturous applause everyone. I'll let Benjamin know you enjoyed his performance.
Big ups to Jenni's Angels, Head on a stick and Jato Unit. I think one or all of you are going to the finals.

Hey thanks for the Electric pink review. I like that you noticed our costumes, sad we got 2nd in audience fave but couldn't really not with the great Eat Kitteo piece. Our team spent our after drinks yelling "I'm OK". And the old lady with the penguins was awesome.

electric pink

Thanks so much for your great review Steelpotato!

I'm from Head on a Stick and was really excited to read good things about our team first thing this rainy morning. YUSSS!!

I really enjoyed Heat 8. Glad we were able to make everyone laugh so much

Big ups to everyone who participated!

Thanks Robyn. Good to know it was all fair & square! My comment was a bit tongue in cheek, or at least was intended that way! ROCK ON!

GM.

It's such a shame this film wasn't eligible. You totally would have had my vote.

Thanks for the reviews, SteelPotato!

Agreed - I liked this one a lot

I really liked a lot of the films in heat 8 - but I want to give a particular nod to Jato Unit, because their film this year was awesome and clearly showed a huge leap in skills from their entry last year, in pretty much every single way - story, acting, technical, etc. Nice one, guys!

~`morgue (Jenni's Angles)

I also thought the Brothers Cage movie was hilarious!

WELLINGTON HEAT 9:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Halfway House / Genre: Romance / Missing In Action

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Just a few of us / Genre: Nature Run Amok / “Man is a Bird of Prey”

Another puppet entry, this one much more 2d though as we didn’t get much detail of the main character, just their silhouette. Whilst this quest to find a bird of paradise had really nice lighting and an original score, it was awfully slow paced. The ending however had some neat effects when he got to a religious idol and ended up in the water.

Story: 2 / Acting: 2 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 2.5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: The Justice League / Genre: Family / “Puddle’s Paradise” [Disqualified]

A family gets in the car for a summer getaway, and sing ’99 bottles of V on the wall’ only to be constrained indoors when they get to their destination because of heavy rain. The TV is also dead and so they have to play a board game. This used the old cut off their heads so we can dub them later and make it sound good trick. Usually that’s ok in a grindhouse film for a laugh or 2, but this did it for about 2 minutes and was jarring.

Story: 2 / Acting: 2 / Elements: 2.5 / Technical: 1.5 / Overall: 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Killah Walz/Orca / Genre: Politically Incorrect/Religous / “Otack Otack Otack Fall”

Oh my, this was an original; think Shock Corridor meets Arthaus from 48 hours a few years back. Doctors consult each other about the nasty (x about 30) case that they have to deal with. We see the catatonic patients go about their daily routines, having ‘pill time’ and ‘tv time’ for example. Despite their zombie-like state, one patient has voices in their head. This had an amazing ambient soundtrack and looked terrific; we all know shooting a lot of white is very hard to do.

Story: 3.5 / Acting: 4 / Elements: 4 / Technical: 4.5 / Overall: 4.5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Kleos Production / Genre: Real Time / “Rock-a-Bye Baby” [Disqualified]

We open on a girl throwing a rock between her hands, her ‘baby’. Then she gets a visitor who reveals a few things about their relationship which are quite sad for the audience. Well shot, but I don’t think sitting around when I think of the real time genre, and could have done without name-dropping Russian Ark.

Story: 2 / Acting: 3.5 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 2.5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: knaw Films / Genre: Dance / “The Butoh Artist”

A guy digs himself into a hole when he tells a date that he is an excellent Butoh dancer. He has actually only looked at the cover of a dance magazine for inspiration. However, a real butoh dancer overhears him and is determined to train him so that he can get the girl. Cue montage. Lots of top down camera angles and the butoh’s makeup was impressive but this was really a case of style over substance.

Story: 1.5 / Acting: 3 / Elements: 2 / Technical: 4 / Overall: 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Last Minute Productions / Genre: Parallel World / “23 Minutes” [Disqualified]

Seemingly inspired by Polish-Japanese cult classic Avalon as Alex Puddle tries to push his new interactive videogame which is ‘more real than real’. However there are flaws in the system and not everybody loves the game designer, who needs a good dose of (virtual) reality.

Story: 2.5 / Acting: 2.5 / Elements: 2 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 2.5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Le Strange / Genre: Revenge / “Retribution’s Child”

Not actually disqualified as the voting sheet said. Dan pointed it out but I hope that didn’t count against them for audience votes. We see the revenge being taken out on a body with a fake head ala Mr Potatohead, but not quite so charming. Ears get cut off and the body gets stabbed, whilst we intercut with flashbacks and find out the reason for the revenge.

Story: 2.5 / Acting: 3 / Elements: 2.5 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 2.5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Liquid Chicken / Genre: Big Twist / “No Warrant”

Shot on a red camera, a cop gets vigorously interviewed by Keisha Castle-Hughes’ character about some suspect operations he’s undertaken recently regarding drugs which don’t quite add up; lots of arrests but no product produced, for example. Meanwhile a couple of women watch the action on a monitor as he is hounded and seems like he is about to crack. The twists are big and we do get an M Night reference.

Story: 3 / Acting: 4 / Elements: 3.5 / Technical: 5 / Overall: 4

Hey thanks Morgue, your comments are really encouraging. I feel our process is still lacking a lot of refinement but with this being the third year we have entered 48hours I am very glad we are making noticeable development. I am happy to bow in defeat to you guys this year and there we many films we really enjoyed in heat 8.
Also cheers for the review Steelpotato.

Anyone who is curious here is last years attempt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kpu-KIYq9Y
(It was basically an excuse to have a crack at green screen)

I've got to echo Morgue's comments. You guys blew me away this year. Quite a big leap from last year. And certainly your use of 'it doesn't fit' had me in stitches.

Great job!

Jackie (Jenni's Angels)

My reviews of Heat 8

Heat 8, Wellington 48 hours furious filmmaking competition 2009. I’m making special mention of how the prop was used in each review since I was impressed with the diversity of interpretation.

*By Another Verified Idiot "Murder 101"
An educational film set in an educational institution. Some good laughs in this one, and generally the format of the classroom final exam in murdering worked well. I thought some shoddy editing let them down. Spooky implied reality with the cloned victims though. Rock used to kill someone by a Goth after voodoo didn’t work.

* He who likes boats" You Are My Rock"
This was a real time movie that was both confused and confusing. They made some funny jokes with time ticking past and nothing much happening but then it seemed to be trying to tell quite a sad story. Just at first I thought it was going to be a Memento homage, but it wasn’t. I don’t think. The flashbacks didn’t give us any extra story. The rock in this one….well, there was a rock on top of Mt Vic. Or it might have been the girl. Not too sure.

* Head on a Stick "Arborgeddon"
A freaking fantastic nature run amok film which totally nailed the genre. Our hero is creeping through the office the suspense is racked up as a body is dragged away. Evil plants are attacking! So many good moments….so many awesome bits. Plus a jump scare right at the end. Loved it to bits. The rock was a game of rock, paper, scissors and quite nicely used.

* Helen and the Cockroaches" Pun’s Labyrinth"
I found myself thinking while I watched this, that I could have tightened up the script some. Overall a sweet comedy about too shy guy going to pun world to learn to be funnier. Terrible puns all the way through, looks like the team had a heap of fun making it. The rock started out as a paperweight and then turned into Duane Johnson The Rock wrestling action figure. Someone had to do it. Awesome.

* Hi-Deaf "Blink: and You’ll Miss"
A conspiracy film that hit its beats well, showing the conspiracy to be true and then how those in power can manipulate the naysayers. Lee found it difficult to follow, but I got the whole story. I wasn’t sure there needed to be quite that much drug use or swearing in it. Didn’t add that much. The rock was drugs though, which is a clever use.

* HMS Awesome" The Brothers Cage"
Nice twist on the family movie genre, this was about a man who is told that Nicholas Cage is his brother. It was a bit weird and stalkerish but good acting and script fully had me on side by the end. It was lovely. The rock was thrown into the ocean at an emo moment.

* icwProductions "Notes"
I loved this movie, and was gutted that they were disqualified. A romance film about an awkward writer trying to find love. Mostly by being set up by ‘Pud the bud’ Alex Puddle. His next door neighbour leaves him notes, that he corrects the spelling on. It was very honest and sweet and well acted. The notes were wrapped around rocks, apparently cute girls next door have an endless supply of rocks in their handbags.

* ID TEN Ts "So Many Reasons"
A one man team animated film of the M. Night Shyamalan Big Twist genre. A quiet, clever little film with a nice twist. I believe the rock was right at the end….

* Jato unit "Faith in a Recession"
Horror Film, starts with a dead body in a bathtub. The man in the apartment doesn’t answer the phone. A hippy walks in, he’s an angel. The other guy is a devil and they’re going to fight over who gets the soul of the dead guy. Devil: “He’s a suicide, he goes to Hell.” Angel “Hey, it’s a recession, we have to diversify.” These guys really lifted their game this year, I thought this was a very clever and nicely shot film. I especially loved how they turned the required line into a ‘yo mama’ joke. There were rocks when the Devil switched locations to a more hellish landscape than the botanic gardens.

* Jenni’s Angels "Dedication"
I’m still too close to this to watch it objectively. Some sound issues meant a couple of Jon’s important lines weren’t too clear and I noticed the gladwrap but otherwise I found it very moving. Again, pretty much biased here. The rest of the audience laughed at our one or two little jokes, but once it got serious there was respectful silence. I was pleased with how it went down. It’s so much harder to judge than a comedy audience reaction though! We had a diamond ring being a rock.

All in all, I feel like it was a really high standard over the whole heat.


Cross posted from: http://jennitalula.wordpress.com/2009/05/1...-48-hours-heat/

Heat 7 - "How to be an original NZ Gangster"
Our last gag was taken off when the organisers put all the movies together for the viewing. It was a little rap that we made up. Will post it all on youtube soon

How old is your team? It seemed quite young - are you in the running for best teen team? Because if you are you should especially hold off on youtube..

Thanks for the review (and of course SteelPotato too). I think we're all just stoked that people enjoyed (ie laughed at) our movie. I thought there were some strong films in heat 8. Be interesting to see if anyone makes the final.

We are all 21 so thought we'd be out of the running for the teen team?

ah right, my bad - I suck at telling ages; thought a few might have been 17-18 and had older actors (which is ok for teen teams)

Heat 9 was really fun, with some really good films. I especially enjoyed “Otack Otack Otack Fall” great location, cinematography, music and humor. I was a bit disappointed that my film (23 minutes-thanks for the review potatoHead!) played in 4:3 squeezed. I can't really complain because I was disqualified for late entry, but it would have been nice to see it in it's true 16:9 aspect ratio. I noticed another film with the same problem. Consumer and Prosumer DV equipment do all sorts of flagging of anamorphic material. I wonder if somewhere along the line the tapes weren't interpreted properly in the DVR system that was being used or if it was an issue with the layoff. I'm fairly confident that it was laid off correctly, I monitored and watched it back in 16:9.

Handing in of digital files would be great, but probably a discussion for somewhere else. If there were specs that were posted like PAL-DV anamorphic, etc.. I wonder if people would actually be able to pull it off or if it would be a mess of various formats making it more complicated to put it together into a viewable program. Anyway, a whole lot of fun and my first time directing a 48 hour film. I learned alot.

Since most people have itunes on their systems (with quicktime) I wonder if using an Apple TV to screen the films would be a good idea. That way, the handin format could just be to do a quicktime conversion to AppleTV.

just a thought.

thanks to all the organizers for putting on an awesome event!

cheers,

Morgan

Cheers for the heads up on Otack Otack Otack Fall Morgan, I heard the story about how your team's tape got lost while it was being run into the venue, how heart breaking. It was a great wee film though, you guys must have been happy with what you came up with.

Thanks, missed out by 25 seconds! Good job on your film too!



2009 - The 10th Anniversary (Romance)
2008 - No Root No Ride aka Just A Bit of Kiwi Humour (Horror)
2007 - The Prevert IS the Prevert (Grindhouse)
2006 - Rhonda, Furious Sex Machine From Hell (Romance)
2005 - Cathode Ray and the Blah Blah Something (Musical)

Any idea when last nights heats Audience Faves will be posted? ie Heat 7 and onward

heat 8 from memory, apologies..


Educational - By Another Verified Idiot - "Murder 101"
Exam day at the Dahmer school of, you know, killing people. Laced with helpful hints on improving your success and style ratio with different murder implements throughout; as an educational movie should be. Unfortunately, Billie's katana technique was flawless, so we could not pick up any new or more refined ways to disembowel people. The closing reminder to enroll now lacked a contact phone numer, unfortunately.

Realtime - He who likes boats - "You Are My Rock"
A lot of running up stairs and flashing back to an architect's bureau. My interpretation was that the main protagonist has lost his girl, then his mind over the loss, and is now looking for her where they used to spend time. (My interpretations are known to hit someone two miles off the mark, so YMMV)

Nature Runs Amok - Head on a Stick - "Arborgeddon"
I've not watched "Chip: An Actor's Actor", but I've seen pictures of the make-up artists on the flickr thingy - reckon he would have been right at home here. Kerry Post in a supporting role; nobody but her could come up with such a perfect plan for retaliation and escape. Shame her acting became so .. wooden .. towards the end. I was waiting for the potted plants in the lobby to do their thing, but the jump scare worked equally well.

Parallel Worlds - Helen and the Cockroaches - "Pun’s Labyrinth"
Gosh, I lost my bearings - and I'm not even a skater! *rimshot* If that one didn't make you groan, you'll feel right at home in parallel pun world, where steel proves no match for wit. Guest appearance of action figure Johnson. Upbeat performances all 'round, and even a bit of a song and dance.

Conspiracy - Hi-Deaf - "Blink: and You’ll Miss"
Grainy footage, excellent colours and atmosphere I thought. The evil corporate head in his evil corporate boardroom was suitably unlikeable. The good underground blogger was partaking of every drug known to man, it seemed, and "the Puddle" was excellently annoying in his paranoid ramblings. Felt a tiny bit disjointed, but then what fun would a coherent conspiracy flick be?

Family - HMS Awesome - "The Brothers Cage"
Guy finds out that he's the brother of Nicholas Cage on his 30th birthday. While watching The Rock, I believe; props for that! While he keeps reaching out to 'Nick' (as Captain America would), his celebrity brother refuses to acknowledge his existence.

Romance - icwProductions - "Notes"
Didn't feel too long to me. Pedantic writer looking for love doesn't realise it's living right next to him. Awfully sweet movie, overall. Alex 'The Pud' going well over the top and oscillating there for the duration. True greatness when he retrieves his last candidate for the writer.. 'retrieve' in the hunting dog way of meaning.

Twist - ID TEN Ts - "So Many Reasons"
Boy meets girl. Girl is suicidal drama queen. Boy tries to talk her out of the whole killing herself thing.

Horror - Jato Unit - "Faith in a Recession"
Horror this was not, but everything else was really, really good. Am not a camera-weilding dude, but someone very good at it apparently once said that every single shot should stand up to the test of being frozen, extracted, blown up and printed as a work of art. Is to say, Jato Unit have delivered one hell (heh) of a fine-looking effort. And I liked the double meaning of pawn/chess throughout the act.
Mild spoiler alert - if goody McAngel hadn't compulsively fixed the bullet wound: couldn't he just have made off with the soul? He would have had proof that it wasn't a suicide..

Revenge - Jenni’s Angels - "Dedication"
Jenni's Angels must have had fun with this one. Very moody and fitting shadow-against-a-steel-garage-door shots, and costumes. For my taste and feelings, the Revenge genre was beautifully, err, executed.


If heat#8 is an indication for the other heats, then I'm not sure why I should feel for the poor judges right now - the bar has been raised yet again, and it was a pleasure and a privilege to see everyone's interpretations of their genres.

Great, really enjoyed my first 48 hours experience and enjoyed seeing what the other teams in our heat could muster.

Does anyone know how much of a bearing the audience favourite vote has on making the city finals?

We only had a small number at the screening, while some other teams had huge numbers to vote...so that makes it slightly unfair.

Not a lot really (as far as im aware). Judges pick the finalists from all the films collectively, not one from each heat or anything. I guess in theory, all of the finalists could come from one heat, if the heat was that good.

Think as many as 4 have made the final from one Wellington heat in the past. Think Christchurch may have even had 5 make the final from one heat! so no, audience favourite isn't too much of a factor, but this year I think only 1 or 2 films not in their heat's top 3 would be a chance to make the Wellington final.

Okay. Yeah I just thought the voting system could disadvantage teams that don't have a big presence at the heats.

Nobody should have a big presence at the heats (well compared to previous years anyway when Masonic and Will She Wait would turn up with 80 people). The 25 maximum has shown that people can't sway the votes this year (so far)

Thanks for all your kind words about Notes. It was a painful choice to disqualify ourselves by resubmitting it but was worth it to see it intact on the big screen.



I swear will never ask any of my friends to skank up for a film ever again...it was way too disturbing!

Yep, winning audience favourite is no guarantee that a film will be a finalist. The judges' selections for the finalists come from all eligible films in the heats.

Oh, but no! She was, uh.. classy!
I wanted to congratulate her personally.. could you send me her phone number?

Thanks Thomas that is a very generous review, our camera man will be especially happy. All the guys think its a bit classic that we are starting to come across as a bit of a technical team, considering our lighting secret consisted of a random idea at 1am on sunday to tape a towel around the light in the room for the final scene.
Very glad you enjoyed the film.

Audience Faves for Heats 7, 8 & 9:


HEAT SEVEN

1. Hammer Time - How to Be an Original New Zealand Gangster - Educational
2. Golden Carrot - I Love You This Much - Romance
3. Donnie & The Darkos - Uncle Alfie and The Puddles - Family


HEAT EIGHT

1. Head On a Stick - Arborgeddon - Nature Runs Amok
2. Jato Unit - Faith in Recession - Horror
3. Jenni's Angels - Dedication - Revenge


HEAT NINE

1. Killah Walz / Orca - Otäck Otäck Otäck Fall - Politically Incorrect / Religious
2. Liquid Chicken - No Warrant - Twist
3. Knaw Films - The Butoh Artist - Musical / Dance



Thanks to all the volunteers and counters.


DS

--

Wgtn Mgr

Wow, so Wellington heat 10 was very....interesting.

Not an audience fit for comedies it seems. Quite interesting when a large majority of the films were completely warped and insane! Perhaps there was too much subjective humour in the house?

More likely me turning up with 80 rather than masonic but then ... that WAS our cast/crew size

hehehe.

but anyway mr potatoe ... what do you mean you weren't posting the reviews realtime from the heats!!!

hehehehe

completely warped and insane is an understatement!!! Dan was still shaking into the next heat!

HEAT 12:

Loved the Conspiracy film - forget what it was called.

Initially I thought turning Conspiracy into Mockumentary was a cop-out, but they delivered an excellent short film - by of course making the... well, I won't ruin it. Well done team! (whoever you are)

Anybody else on these boards that were tonight?

yeah that conspiracy film was totally ace. watching our film made me want to shoot myself in the face. what the hell happened to our audio? ah well, i guess that's the price you pay for filming the screen at 6.51. strong heat on the whole though, was really impressed by the quality of some of the films, and the fact that somehow everyone made it to the finish line... though maybe it would have been better if we hadn't.

Totally agree!
My top film of the night.

As for ours... Just stoked that people laughed at the right bits!

Yup, Liked the Conspiracy film "One flu over the bees' nest", wasn't it. I liked our closing song better though Fun evening all around, I thought.

Apparently as few as 122 Wellington films are now still eligible out of the 169 that went out on Friday night…

WELLINGTON HEAT 10:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Blind Vision Productions / Genre: Educational / “Meteoritis: The Day The Earth Got Ill” [Disqualified]

Tape finally found for this team who were supposed to play in an earlier heat. Anyway, a guy giving a tour of Te Papa shows the group a computer (such an ancient artefact apparently!) and then gives us a history lesson about ‘meteoritis’ and its lethal effects many years ago; the effects of the virus being spread through any form of electronic communication. If you had it, you were dead. This was quick and reasonably slick, with a good script. Shame it was dq.

Story: 4 / Acting: 3 / Elements: 3.5 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 3.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Little Indie / Genre: Real Time / “Real Time Magic”

I was really sad at the end of this because the producer had told her team not to come, thinking the film wasn’t any good…well you were wrong! This was really charming; a one shot take of the morning after a one-night stand between a business woman and a charming part-time magician who showed that you shoudn’t judge a book by its cover (he created a bit of mess and had piercings/tats). It had clever camerawork and genuinely funny lines, plus believable chemistry between the two leads.

Story: 4 / Acting: 4 / Elements: 4 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 4

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Look Up Productions / Genre: Horror / “Sack Face”

We opened with a bunch of kills by a sack-masked assailant who then took photos of their victims. After this we were given a split screen showing two retail workers going about their daily lives, before their paths intersected when they saw each other at lunchtime. Unfortunately later in the day one of their cars broke down, revealing something more sinister about it all. The extreme number of stabs the killer did at the start got kind of funny, although this had a mean streak at times which was good for its genre.

Story: 2.5 / Acting: 3 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Lost Breed / Genre: Family / “I’ll Let You Be in My Dream if I Can be in Yours” [Disqualified]

Wow. A bunch of people wore bizarro plastic masks, ate bacon and eggs and created psychedelic shots with lightbulbs. Had me bursting with laughter on several occasions. Perhaps the weirdest 48 hours short I’ve ever seen.

Story: 1 / Acting: 1 / Elements: 1 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Lovely Bongo Drums / Genre: Revenge / “Stone Cold Retribution”
Michael Wang comes home and faces the wrath of Alex Puddle. He keeps coming up with reasons for Alex’ possible annoyance at him, but none of the reasons seems to fit. The actor playing Alex was roaring, articulate and over the top like a cross between Dr Evil and Dracula.

Story: 2 / Acting: 3.5 / Elements: 3.5 / Technical: 2.5 / Overall: 3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Corporate Robot Junkies / Genre: Politically Incorrect/Religious / “Jesus Christ: The Lost Revelation” [Disqualified]

Jesus wakes up with a beautiful girl in bed, then proceeds to hit his pipe and perform a few turning water into wine miracles for his friends. A chance meeting with God during a night on the town when he is high off his face, where he can’t tell if the woman from the bar telling him she is her father really is, or if he is just tripping, leads him to question the life he is leading. Editing was clearly inspired by Requiem for a Dream but the film felt unstructured.

Story: 2 / Acting: 2.5 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 2

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Meathelmet Productions / Genre: Musical / “Grave Side Story” [Disqualified]

Mostly sung acapella, a girl dies and then the grievers have to deal with a low budget, nasty funeral company. We are shown a number of the company’s shady practices through song. Pretty busy film although technically not very good, there was a decent little number at the end paying homage to Rocky Horror.

Story: 2 / Acting: 2 / Elements: 2.5 / Technical: 1 / Overall: 1.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Miramar Ladies Knitting Circle / Genre: Parallel World / “Or Else” [Animated?]

Not quite sure if this fits as animated as they used really strange computer graphic heads for all the characters although the backgrounds seemed to be real. A woman is told by an interrogator to tell them the information they want or else her memories will be wiped. She tries to fight them and save her husband from being implicated in murder.

Story: 2.5 / Acting: 2.5 / Elements: 2.5 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 2.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: The Misfits / Genre: Big Twist / “The Fatalist”

Loud film had our main character always frantically making sure they had their rock near them every time they woke up. They were paranoid and it had a creepy soundtrack, but then they hear voices in their head and see things out a window. A phone call has their friend advising them to take more pills. Of course, inside the house is black and white and outside the house is in colour…

Story: 2.5 / Acting: 3.5 / Elements: 3 / Techncial: 3.5 / Overall: 3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Moffilaide / Genre: Romance / “Love Splosion” [Disqualified]

Or, Romeo and Juliet meet Scanners. Definite contender for best disqualified team this year has a forlorn looking main actor in leather jacket having a secret power, which comes to fruition whenever he gets mad. However he comes across a beautiful girl playing tennis against a couple of men in short shorts and very dodgy moustaches, with them playing brutal, sending down aces and slams at her. After secretly falling in love through a dating montage, all seems to be going well but there is the problem of the overprotective father and the fact that our lead’s secret power is not well accepted in society. Will love find a way, or will she be doomed to private tennis lessons forever?
Farcking funny, sped along like a rocket and superbly acted. What a shame.

Story: 5 / Acting: 5 / Elements: 4 / Technical: 4 / Overall: 5

Rest of last night's reviews will be done by 5 tonight. I have a test this afternoon. Oh and I hate mockumentaries when it's not a team's genre and no zombies are involved

Definitely take care of the test first dood!

No pressure from here

None at all

[tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap]

apologies in advance to anyone who sees our film tonight (canterphase 2077) due to technology fails what you'll see is a rough slopped together version we editing in 2 hours (and was handed in late anyway, blast) riddled with cringeworthy mistakes. If you enjoy any of what you see we'll be posting the finished version to youtube on friday.

Moffilaide's entry was truly awesome - such a shame about the disqualification - what happened?

Thanks man that helps ease the pain. We were quite happy with our effort and did manage to complete the film in under 48hours but technology let us down when it counted. With 2 hours to go the 'print to video' process decided to make things fun. 7pm passed us by while we were whispering quiet words of encouragement to the computer. Still not entirely sure why it wouldn't copy over. Oh well. Stiff upper lip.

Hard luck, Moffilaide. Just checked some of your other stuff on youtube.

WELLINGTON HEAT 11:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Moit! Films / Genre: Politically Incorrect/Religious / “Who’s Your Father?”

Cracking start to the heat as a Reverend explains what he does; he sees despair all around him and feels it is his calling to help. It is no coincidence that Sunday is his best day, because he gets a great, appreciative audience then. Actually took me a bit by surprise with where it went.

Story: 3.5 / Acting: 3 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: The Motherlode / Genre: Horror / “Alone”

This got my and my friend’s audience vote because it made me lose the sandwich I was holding with an amazing jump scare! One man alone in his house shows his isolated existence by looking at pictures of his family, eating from cans of food and coincidentally having a copy of Matheson’s I Am Legend by his computer for when he does a video blog. Then he starts to see and hear things and ends up investigating the attic. All the while his family are trying to convince him to stop the isolation and come back to them. I repeat from notes “SANDWICH – LOST!”

Story: 3.5 / Acting: 3.5 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 2.5 / Overall: 3.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: mrs e movies / Genre: Educational / “Bienvenidos A Nueva Zelanda”

Took the piss out of New Zealand brilliantly, the entire thing was subtitled and to save on budget constraints no human actors were used, just Noddy-like dolls. Pretty much everything came under fire from frozen mutton to the ferry. Light-hearted however and got a deservedly huge audience response.

Story: 4 / Acting: 3.5 / Elements: 3.5 / Technical: 3.5 / Overall: 4.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: The Mudcrabs / Genre: Parallel World / “Apart/ment”

Good effort on the head-trip parallel world subgenre here as a landlord came to talk to tenants who were moving out, and said how they reminded him of the previous tenants who had lived there. This had a cracking soundtrack which made up for a very grainy picture, and the landlord walked down the fine line of grim mocking and evilness really well. The tenants we see left because the apartment kept playing up with faults such as flooding, and making them feel cold towards each other. It had a terrific use of the required line.

Story: 3.5 / Acting: 4 / Elements: 3.5 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 3.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Ne Regardez Pas Le Museau / Genre: Musical / “The music of a Mind”

An emo guy wonders why they should get up as they are stuck in a rut. But then he sees the girl of his dreams, only for his dreams to be shattered. There was a montage of sadness and then he gets even more emo and goes crazy. Clearly a younger team that didn’t want musical, but they tried their best.

Story: 1 / Acting: 2 / Elements: 2.5 / Technical: 2 / Overall: 1.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Nimlin / Genre: Romance / “Romance in the Rock”

A woman mechanic keeps being chastised by her boss for taking forever to do seemingly simple repair jobs. All the while she listens to the radio as she works and grows increasingly fond of the DJ’s voice, which had some pretty funny shots such as her twirling her hair and getting lost in his voice (not literally). Eventually his Lamborghini comes in for repair and she tries to hatch a plan to meet him. Looked like a nice day up on the coast for a simple yet effective love story, although I would have liked to have seen more of the two love interests actually interacting.

Story: 3 / Acting: 2.5 / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3 / Overall 3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: Ninja Babies version 2.0 / Genre: Real Time / “Collision Course” [Disqualified]

A jogger, a woman driving her brats who won’t keep still and a drunken party all have their stories intertwine. The tension kept increasing, and it was funny when a drunken guy at the party hit someone with a guitar. The team didn’t turn up for the heat.

Story: 2.5 / Acting: 2.5 / Elements: 2 / Technical: 2 / Overall: 2

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: NITRO / Genre: Family / “World to Me”

Alex only has three months to live, and so implores for people to help him out with one final favour. His dad is harsh and cheeky, but actually believable saying that they will never get to go mountain climbing together like he did now. Yet we see the young man show a strong sense of spirit, as people do their best to help out his final request. Impressively toned down from previous Nitro efforts, the sense of love and warmth was strong. Annoyingly had slight motion problems, my friend said maybe reverse interlacing? Forgot about it after a couple of minutes though as film was good.

Story: 4 / Acting: 3.5 / Elements: 4 / Technical: 2.5 (4, but problem with output deck - had submitted a clean tape) / Overall: 4

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: No Batteries Required / Genre: Big Twist / “Swine Flu Over A Puddle”

A monkey tells us the story of a pig that went and looked to recover an important stolen rock a dog told him about. The pig was an impressive show-jumper and swimmer to be honest. Not convinced about the big twist though

Story: 2 / Acting: 5 (for the pig) / Elements: 3 / Technical: 3 / Overall: 2.5

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Team Name: No Class Productions / Genre: Conspiracy / “Decaffed”

Entirely dubbed, nice and clearly but not perfectly in synch which added quite a bit of comedy value to this entry. Three friends have coffee but one of the guys doesn’t think that what they are drinking is full strength. The girl doesn’t believe it at all, but the other guy thinks he maybe onto something when he gets no buzz from three flat whites. The plot thickens with a Frenchman with an outrageous accent thrown into the mix for good measure. The ‘heavies’ reminded me of the bad guys in Diva.

Story: 3.5 / Acting: 3 / Elements: 2 / Technical: 2.5 / Overall: 3