Protocol

Hostage drama was a good (if familiar) choice for one-room I thought, with an interesting-enough looking space and a steadicam floating about to capture it. Unfortunately the sound was out of sync at the screening (the submitted file was fine, I understand), which made it hard to get the full visceral impact of the piece (I will definitely re-watch this one once it goes up in the Screening Room). The chief baddie had a very slow, broken mode of line delivery, which got a bit wearying after a short while. Maybe this was just the actor trying to remember his lines, I don't know. But probably my main issue with the film was that the plot kind of flatlined most of the way and only ramped up the drama right at the end. I would have liked to see things get more and more tense, more claustrophobic, more dramatic. I never felt the threat of the balaclava'd goons as much as I wanted to. The end came quick, and had a bit of WTF about it. But maybe it will make more sense on a second viewing. All in all, despite this, a decent effort.

A One-Room/Crime film this kicks off with four hostages being bundled into a room. The boss then delievers a lot of dialogue explaining that he needs them to complete the building of a sort of dooms day machine (I guess!) The hostages realise that they all work for the same company and eventually look to take matters into their own hands. Unfortunately the screening of this was dogged by some tech issues (problems on both sides!) and the sync was thrown out. It had already been disqualified anyway so any chances weren't hurt and the team was really sporting about the situation. Looked good and the switches to security cam footage was a nice touch. However, too dialogue heavy which got rather tedious and a FTW ending that came out of nowhere! Better luck next year!