Pray, Love, Eat

I never thought an insect could disturb me in this way.
Good job.

Not sure what to make of that, it's a neat little film. Nice and quirky with a decent pay off at the end of it. Maybe I was just distracted thinking about how you would go about filming this. It immediately reminded me of that Snail film which won in 2018 but with its own unique spin on the idea.

Hahaha Craig, I just watched the snails one, that's hilarious!
I hadn't even heard of 48hrs until three days before the comp actually, I'm a recent arrival to NZ. =)
I was hanging out with my praying mantis buddies in the veggie garden during lockdown, I'm a horticulture and photography student. When I heard about 48hrs I decided to make a film about them. I'd seen them mating the week before and took that photo and it gave me the idea to make something about the dating life of a female praying mantis.
After I filmed her on her dates, I amazingly found a male hanging out on some kale, and filmed him, and then filmed them 'meeting' each other, and then to my horror they actually started mating... And I just kept filming... It was a very confusing time, I was making an insect porno that could potentially turn into a snuff film that I had accidentally caused... It was raining, I had an umbrella over my cameras, it got dark, it was so weird, and they were still going at 2am when I went to bed! I don't know what happened to him, I think they get eaten about 30% of the time. =(
Lena reappeared two days later and laid her egg sack in my doorway. She did a wiggly dance goodbye and I haven't seen her since.

Yeah, that's pretty disturbing and a long, long 3 minutes! It's one of those that you don't want to watch but can't take your eyes off of it. Funny, nicely shot and some great voice-acting. Plus "Sarah's Story" above is equally disturbing. Great stuff!

This quirky, insect film made me laugh several times. It reminds me of Absurd Planet, but more twisted. Lena's inner dialogue is priceless. Well done!

Really enjoyed this. Voice-over was great, and loved the behind the scenes explanation above of the filming!

Definitely agree with Stu on this one! It was so strange but I definitely couldn't stop watching. Also big flashbacks to the Auckland winner in 2018, La Coquille like Craig said!

I thought most of the shots looked nice and the shallow depth really helped. Some good gags in there.

Impressive how you managed to capture this all for the competition!

Interesting wee film. I enjoyed the first minute a lot. It then went all over the place and lost me but I'm sure you were trying to be a bit random.

With voiceover stuff I think it's better to have the character moving (preferably the head) when they're speaking but i know from past experience how hard that is come editing time.

Great writing! Some awesome coverage of your actors too, well done. I really enjoyed this.

Oh wow 😲 That was...something alright.

I am actually deeply disturbed. There was so much weird chat going on when they were having sex. So many emotions. JUST GET OFF HER JEFF!

That really was quite an experience. I think I'm actually a different person after having watched that.

Great job on the characterization of Lena, I really warmed to her. I was also impressed with the economy of story telling. You got so much into three minutes.

I don't really know what else to say. 😶

I really enjoyed this, dark and quirky just like I like it! Haha. Footage looked pretty good, i loved the bits where the male was talking and his mouth bits were moving along too. That was cool, though obviously hard to orchestrate for the whole lot.

It also reminded me of La Coquille. I admire your perseverance sticking it out in the rain to get it filmed, haha. And great ending! Oh oh and I loved the little slug that just swung by to sniff her butt, great addition, haha.