The Black Hole

By: nfb

"The National Film Board of Canada, in association with the Cannes Short Film Corner and partner YouTube, welcomes you to this NFB competition, now in its fifth year.
It's your turn to choose. Internet votes will decide the best film, and the winner will be announced at Cannes on May 21. The prize: an HD MINI-DV camera and a mobile studio including laptop and editing suite.

Director: Diamond Dugs
Running Time: 2'34
Country: U.K.
Category: Comedy

A sleep deprived office worker finds a Black Hole whilst photocopying late one night Suddenly the possibilities seem endless. Will greed get the better of him?

Phil & Olly aka Diamond Dogs met in the last murky years of the 20th Century at one of Wimbledon School of Arts now legendary parties. They teamed up in 2003 and began shooting no budget promos whilst busting their balls as Art Directors to pay their bills. Phil & Olly continue their careers as editor & art director respectively to fund their directing projects in a world of ever shrinking budgets.
The boys are currently in production on music videos for Will and the People and The Enemy and in pre-production on a 30 second Miller Light commercial. They are also penned to shoot a 4 minute short for Future Shorts in conjunction with Samsung called Spontaneously Capture your life and in pre-production with The UK Film Council in association with Virgin Media Shorts on a short film project called The Archaeologist."

REVIEW

Concept
Strange, bizarre, peculiar – you won’t go wrong with any of these words while describing Black Hole. The idea is totally out-of-this-world yet the message is simple. God provides enough to satisfy our needs, but not our greed.


Direction
Director does not take any risks and I am fine with it. Though I do feel that the short could be a bit long to show how our protagonist gets erm associated with the hole, but apart from that its fine. No faults, no fun, work done.

Acting
When things start getting weird around you people generally tend to get surprised or scared. Well, they at lease show some emotion! The guy in this short shows none! Or maybe 0.5! This short features only one person so the producer could have at least gone for a better actor. For the most part of the movie he seemed drunk to me!

Conclusion

Black Hole is very different from other shorts I have seen. It pushes the boundaries of reality and literally breaks them apart, but it does this with a message in mind. Delightfully simple yet capturing our imagination is what Black Hole is all about.

It could have been so much better if the actor, could, you know, had tried to act! A great plot ruined!

Score: 6.5/10 (I would have given it an 8 if it had not been for YOU KNOW WHO)

INSiDE

By: Insideshort

"DIRECTED BY Trevor Sands
©All rights reserved
See the high resolution version at:
www.insideshort.com"

REVIEW

Concept
The concept is not new and there have been many feature films about this, but the way it has been shot is brilliant. Though it does make a couple of factual mistakes, everything else was fine. Do remember people its just a short movie, a fiction and we can certainly give it a little bit of leeway.

Direction
Probably the best-directed short movie I have ever seen! Every shot was perfect and the camera work awesome! Its not often you see such nicely directed shorts as many amateurs are in the field too. But, surely a professional did this? Especially the last scene where the viewer will be just blown away by the twist.

Acting
Damn it! I can’t criticize this movie in any department! The acting is what brings the concept and direction together and if done nicely you can forget the plot holes completely. And in this short it was pretty great. There were quite a few actors from a little girl to an old man and everyone was up to his task. Not one actor disappointed.

Conclusion

This short needs your full concentration from start to end. Not because it’s very confusing, but because the hard work people have put in it, deserve this! One little thing I need to add here is that the soundtrack is pretty well put. It does create the required tension and suspense in the viewer and keeps him on the edge.

Lastly, I have rarely seen a short put together such nicely. Watch it and savor it.

Score: 9/10

The Window

By:DarkHeartProductions

"From the makers of "Black Button" comes the third short film from Dark Heart Productions - "The Window".

- Finalist in the upcoming ROME INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
- Shortlisted for TROPFEST, the world's largest short film festival.
- Front Page Feature on www.youtube.com.au

"Julian feels compelled to travel to his local pub. On arrival he finds his friends and family there celebrating, and they have some important news." " 

REVIEW

 Concept
The concept is pretty great, however the twist comes too late in the film to save it.

Direction
Its nicely done and you don’t see any major faults in direction, editing or camera work. However, sometimes the camera closes up on the people a bit too much for my liking. However, the last scenes where the whole story comes together, the director is pretty much spot on.

Acting
My major beef with shorts are that generally acting is pretty poor. And this short suffers in the same way. Moviemakers should at least go to the trouble of having trials for the actors.

The main actor was very dull in his delivery and half the times he seemed to be in a rush to speak! The guy playing his dad however was brilliant. His speech, his expressions were some of the best I have seen in short movies. You might have seen him in other shorts too as he is a professional actor and it showed.

Conclusion

Sometimes it’s nice to have complex storylines just to keep the viewers on the edge and interested. But, with a muddling storyline comes great responsibility :) – you need to make sure that everything is tied up properly in the end and it does not leave the viewer confused or disenchanted in the end. The storyline as I have said was nice, but neither acting nor direction could match it.

Score: 5/10