A Slice of You

When the pizza girl arrives at a group of teens house, one of them falls for her in a big way and does his utmost to see her again. ripfocus have been in city finals over the last couple of years and as such have forged themselves a bit of a reputation. This short is probably not as sharp as their previous efforts– editing is a bit clunkier and the audio a little messy in places. There’s some good writing, some more cliched bits and also what I’d term a bit of “Classic TBALC Back and Forth” which...worked. Every year my Year 13 film class make “Updog – the film” as an early filming exercise so was highly amused at your use of the ageless internet pun/meme. I believe your music was original? Kudos for that.

This film ticked all my boxes. You guys have such great humour and your timing for your jokes were near perfect. I got a real 'Edgar Wright' feel from this one and I may have kinda freaked out a little at some points of your film (Dude, some of those transitions were freakin' awesome) Fantastic music in this one as well! Keep up the great work!

I really liked this film, charming and well executed. Plenty of touches of gold that elevate a simple idea and simply constructed film to greatness. Great performances and direction. Great work team. As always, nice work shooting on a phone, You seem to put this out as a disclaimer, but it’s actually one of your secret strengths.

Very confused as to why I'm only the 4th person to review such an excellent film. Mark my words ya'll, rip focus are the team to watch out for in the foreseeable future of the competition, filling the hole in our hearts left by Pigs Guts' desertion, with hints of TBALC humour, and even a little Les Cousins Dangereux if I do say so myself. Perhaps this is the result of young filmmakers being influenced by 48hour films of the past and learning all the right lessons. There is so much I love about this film that it's gonna be difficult to concisely put into words. I think what stands out the most is the subtle but effective world building done in this movie. The film makes you ask so many questions that it never answers, but this isn't a detractor because by the time you've started wondering, we're already catapulted into the next scene. Things like: -Why are they slurping puddles off the coffee table at the beginning? Why/How are they scoring them? Why was C'larence not as good, apparently, at slurping? -Why the hell is his name C'larence? -What the heck is the other guy's name?! -Why do they all sleep in the same bed? All of these things and more are hysterically underdeveloped, and I mean that in a good way. This is the opposite of exposition, where we just have to accept that this is the world of the film, and the implications here are so funny and bizarre that I'm still laughing about them as I write this. Then of course there's the excellent music in this film, which 100% deserved to take home the award for "Pizza Girl", ("I don't order pizza for the pizza anymore" makes my heart sing). I also loved the "Love is a Tasty Feeling" song in there as well, with Sarena's "PEPPERONI CHEEEEESE" putting a stupidly big grin on my face whenever I see it. The film excels here on the marriage of editing and script, with those quick cuts and hilarious lines of dialogue taking us by the hand and running headfirst into wholesome absurdism. I have a couple of points of constructive criticism here; as much as I love this film, I really would love to see rip focus do even better next year. I'd say my biggest problem with the film would be that the story follows a guy trying to get his pizza girl back, so he keeps ordering pizzas, and eventually he gets the right one- not a lot of conflict here, just a devoted lover. If he'd worked out "Oh she only delivers on Fridays" or "Oh she only delivers when you order olives as a topping" or even if he'd defied odds and left the house and tracked her down himself, this would have really energized the story. Of course these plot contrivances are completely masked by the music, editing and humour, but when you watch the film as many times as me, you start to notice these things. The other way in which I think you could improve might strike a chord, and I hope we can still be friends: I'm not convinced iPhone is the best way to go here guys D: You seem really proud of this fact, but in the 2018 landscape of the competition, slick camerawork is starting to become just as important as story- and while the shot sizes are great and the focus isn't ripped, some nice juicy dynamic range or 2-4k resolution would really up the cinematic elements of your films. I'll end on a positive note for your continual journeying into 48hours: I like your comedy more than your drama. While "A Ripple in Time" was dope, "A Slice of You" is something very very special, and I think that comes down to your senses of humour, so my advice for next year would be ignore the pleas that we don't get enough dramas in 48, and instead keep digging into your comedy chops. As for your title, "A Slice of You" is perfect. I love it.

Finally got to see this film at the finals and so happy I did. R.I.P Focus are clearly the team to watch in CHCH for sure. I loved this film and I felt like it was one of the best musical non-musicals I've seen out of CHCH. Some of the the humour was amazing! Well written, super well timed and really well edited. I can't remember if this was nominated for art direction but if not it should have been and if it was it had to be close to winning. Those uniforms and That stack of pizza boxes!! WOW! Amazing commitment. And of course that soundtrack was next level fantastic. Well done Serena and to the team for the use of the soundtrack. Although those credits did run quite a long time to allow that last song in. But totally get why too. Its such a great song. Perhaps next time you could put some bloopers into the credits to keep the laughter and energy going in the crowd right to the very end. The acting was excellent too but if I am looking for any areas of improvement to mention I feel like there were just a couple little moments that lost my complete belief in the film world I was watching. Maybe a little smile here or there that looked almost like trying not to laugh rather than that character genuinely smiling. But thats a tiny thing to mention off a near perfect comedy. Well done guys and can't wait to see your next film. At the rate you are improving I expect to see you holding an Apee one day for sure. Keep it up!