Like Bending Spoons
Last night, I went to The Big Shave, the graduate screening night for film students at super TAFE. (OK, that’s a little harsh. The film programme seems to be quite good, actually.) The best fifteen short films produced this year by graduating1 students were shown, with a vote at the end for the best film.
Sadly, with work today, I decided to skip the after-party and announcement of who won, but it was certainly an enjoyable night. As you’d expect from a set of student films, things ran the gamut. There were a couple of pretty straight-up drama pieces, some experimental stuff, some obscure mood pieces — pretty much the array you’d be used to if you watch Shorts on Screen.
In the end, I voted for — and I’m risking bodily harm saying this — The Heretic, directed by Shane Bransby, which was a hilarious and inventive stop motion film using, of all things, Lego. I won’t give away the plot, since it features a wicked twist, but should the film ever find its way to some sort of release, even if it’s just Youtube, I’d highly recommend it.
There were a couple of other films that made me wonder what the hell is in the water supply at ECU, though. It’s not a student film night without those! (Also, there was a disturbing amount of location shooting in toilets, and I still don’t want to know where the sound effects in Flush’d came from.)
It was genuinely good fun, and it was nice to do something university-related that doesn’t increase my exam results anxiety. Two weeks to go…
1Graduating is probably a misnomer, since there were definitely productions by people who weren’t actually leaving the university or graduating with anything, so far as we could figure out. Then again, the graduating classes lists were apparently wonky as well, so perhaps SCCA’s just using a different definition to everyone else for eligibility. Not really a big deal, particularly since I’m unlikely to do enough production work to qualify for it in any case, but curious.