An Appointment with a Poo

Some flies discuss the seemingly impossible to comprehend scale of their universe. What I liked: Some fluid green screen, cut together nicely with POV of flies. Out of focus background action from girl on bed. What I wanted: I felt there was no payoff as I wanted the fly to get to the poo!! 4/7 mini-guns from me.

Great idea and dialogue, very funny

Things begin with establishing shots of a literally cosmic scale, downsizing to a fancy aerial flyover shot, to a shot of a house, to a hand-held fish-eye POV, and eventually to a micro scale, where we meet our characters: two flies. And it eventually turns out that the scale-shift at the start isn't just a fancy effect, but also kinda sorta relevant to the deep philosophical questions being discussed by our dipteran protagonists. But before we get to that heavy matter, the conversation first focusses on matter of a more fecal variety, as one fly is keen to find a pile of poo to feast on. The chatter swings from such base topics to existential considerations, and one of the flies thinks he may have cracked the secret of living beyond their one-day life cycle. One of the first things you notice in this film is the effect used for the flies - they are simple, cute and colourful toys essentially, but puppeted via greenscreen to excellent effect I thought - even the shadows mapped well onto the background. Even more effective in terms of the story was when we saw the flies in flight, both using the greenscreen effect and also POV with the fish-eye effect. I wish there had been more of this overall, just setting the scene and building the flies' world with their routine of flying, eating, copulating, whatever. The first scene in particular felt like a big wasted opportunity - why have two characters stationary while talking, when they could be *doing* things at the same time, for both visual interest and narrative advancement. Still, the final scene with the flyswat makes up for that, with excellent comic timing of the foreground conversation with the out of focus looming threat in the background. Overall, despite a bit of telling not showing that was slightly frustrating, this was a neat wee film with a strong point of difference to keep it interesting.

The Nimble Marmoset has gone into detail with the plot above so read that one. Nice fly puppets, well keyed green-screen and an overall good looking and sounding short. I agree that more could have happened but you went dialogue heavy and I'm actually pleased you stayed true to that. Nailed some deeper meanings/understandings and I took from the musings that in life, often the simplicity of it is the best outlook. Great voice acting too so well done.

Terrific concept with great humour! Very clever writing with excellent nod to the compulsory elements and the genre!

Truly clever way of tackling this genre, the script was brilliant, I tried really hard to see the wires and only caught a glimpse of something at one point so that was very well done.

This would be so much stronger if it was just half the length. Great idea well executed otherwise. Fantastic start to the heat.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this film the more it went on. The absurdity of the title and opening cosmic shots set the tone for something non serious. But this film does so well to balance the high quality with low quality with perfect artistic choices over when to push each. The script was excellent and I will be sad if it doesn't get a nomination for best script at the finals. Perhaps slightly drawn out for an excellent small concept. The final shot with the kid in slow motion in the background was amazing. It was a great start to the heat and I could see this in todays top 25 list. (although I only have Heat 9 to draw from). Well done.

Great movie to start the heat off. The opening scene and the seeing the world through fly eyes was such a strong setup. Clever script and best line of dialogue of the heat - "It works like kind of a refracted silhouette, not a real silhouette because that would be lazy". The girl in the back kept the movie in reality. I loved the framing of her blurred in the background and looming forward. Story wise I would have liked to see something at stake/a struggle for the flys. Although the ending was very satisfying, leg droop and all.

This movie was so much fun. Well written, and wonderfully executed. One of the few dialogue heavy films I’ve seen this year that really works.

Clearly a lot of hard work and passion went into this film, and if our shortlist was 30 films long, rest assured this would have been on it. Like I've said for a select few other films, we actually rewatched this film on the judging night, and when we got such a high caliber of films this year, deciding what went on the list and what didn't actually came down to really looking at each film and comparing them on a micro scale. So with this all being said, it might be helpful for me to explain what went down. First of all let me say, that there are some amazing ideas in this film, and a lot of ambition with a clear handle on story telling and especially dialogue, as well as some great green screen work. I would have liked to have seen a little more action in the story, and driven a little less by just two fly toys chatting. Rowan mentioned he thinks this film could have been half as long, and I think this is definitely part of it, but to build on this, I would say that if you had done away with the ultra long opening sequence and started it with the flies talking, I would have loved to have seen the surviving fly actually try and enact his dead buddy's plan to achieve immortality. It really felt like that was what you were building up to, and so for it to just end with the lead going to enjoy his meal of poop, I was actually a bit let down. To forego the appointment with a poo to honour his friend by finding a puddle and unlocking eternal life (and maybe he could have even tried to bring his friend back from the dead), that would have hit a lot harder. I understand how frustrating it is to have someone just come in and try rewrite your story, and especially someone in my position, so if I can put it another way, it all came down to the whole "show don't tell" rule of filmmaking. You painted a wonderful picture with the dialogue here, I would have just really liked to have seen this picture take place. I hope this helps guys, and if this has all left you more upset, then also just consider that the quality of films this year was actually so high and so consistent, that I think this could have absolutely made the finals in a previous year- so it's not that this wasn't worth it or quality on it's own terms. It's a great little piece and you should all be very proud. As for your title, "An Appointment With a Poo" is a great little attention grabber and really suits the film.

I enjoyed this film due to its pure silliness. When watching this film I got the distinct impression it would have be load of fun to make. What this film lacked in its visuals, it made up for in engaging dialogue, some of the most entertaining I have come across in this competition. The final scene with the sneaking of the young actress built the tension wonderfully. I hope the Mike and the team keep entering this competition!