Pandora's Night: Deleted Scenes

This film was incredible. The 'deleted scenes' felt absolutely like legitimate deleted scenes in the way they were edited. The whole film's story was very well told, with some great moments of humour, and very intelligent use of on set practical effects.

A collection of deleted scenes from the alien contact feature, "Pandora's Night". Given the nature of their 2012 short "True" and last year's trailer for "Every Romance Trailer Ever" this year's creative effort is therefore rather typical of the type of approach seen in a Strang Entertainment production. The deleted scenes tell their own version of the actual story and they totally do their job in leaving you wondering why they were left out. They vary in length, have a variety of actors and at times lack the polish/production given to the final choices that made the feature film eg green screen visible in the background. It's clever and an original choice within the 48 and will certainly be high on my rewatchability list. It worked before with something like this making the CHCH finals and "Pandora's Night: Deleted Scenes" will also be a strong contender. It takes a risk and although potentially a bit light on story it's a great example of stylistically doing something different which was Ant's brief pre-comp.

In classic Strang fashion, this film felt very true to what you would see on a DVD. There was just enough to understand the story but also written in a way so that you could understand why the scene would not be in a full length feature film! Loved it.

My legitimate pick for Ant's Risk award. What I love about Strang Entertainment is that they always seem to be trying to eat the competition from the inside out by creating short films that maybe aren't actually short films at all- and this is the most ambitious attempt yet. In previous years 'Story is King' has prevailed over the competition, and with it being thrown out this year and teams given an emphasis to try something different, Strang really devoted themselves to this ideal to make a film where the intense lack of narrative IS the narrative itself. It might take a couple of rewatches to fully understand the nuances and implications of the scenes that were deleted, but even if you don't follow it, the ingenious ending is enough to push this film into the grand finals alone.