Average: 2.3 (5 votes)
The Technological Thriller
Christchurch > 02
Zac Neill

You guys ran into the classic 48 hours trap - you tried to fit a feature length film in 5 minutes.

Too much narrative, not enough character or story development meant that the audience couldn't invest in the story in front of them.

Whether you could've told a simpler version of this story so that characters could be established and your filmmaking prowess could be shown is another issue, but oftentimes less is more!


A doctor/scientist invents a product that he trials on his wife/daughter.

I've seen a bit of this already in 2018 where text on screen is used to show the passage of time and this short seemed to have a bit of over-reliance on it as a device. Likewise, the film became a bit telly with the news reports given a lot of exposition. Well acted though and an ambitious effort to slot into five minutes.

This film had a lot of promise but fell a little flat on the 'thriller' side, becoming more of a tragedy film than a tense one. Strong performances from the leads kept it in tack however which was really good.

NEXT YEAR: It's already been said make sure you don't bite off more than you can chew, and I'd also add some of the audio needed to be balanced a bit better particularly the audio coming from the TV.

A nice doco-style shaky-cam - I usually hate that effect because it makes me feel ill, but you didn't overplay it and it worked. The film had a good premise, but lacked a twist at the payoff. Perhaps there's another 2 minutes of story waiting there to round this off..?

I feel like this film could have been better if it had opened on a daughters struggles rather than the fathers research breakthrough i think this would have helped with building the relationship between the father and daughter and helped the ending
One of my pet hates after watching these films for a few years now is teams that shoot at broadcasting school it a big world out there go and explore it
Over all in all technical aspects it was a good film well done

Alexander Jones
city manager

I agree with the above reviews that say this feels like a larger movie cramped into a short film.

I would also say that it seems like the obvious first choice when you hear the words "Techno Thriller", so I was hoping for something a little more original.

I think there's a lot of potential for this team, the writing shows promise and I'd encourage you guys to maybe focus on smaller stories than global pandemics for next year.

As for your title, I can't imagine there would be a better title for this film in particular :)