Him & Her

An exceptional red curtain opening shot sets the stage for GREASE-inspired retellings of how a romance came to be, with the screen real estate being very cleverly choreographed at all times despite having only one performer on the team.

Clever quips and lyrics, along with quality melodies meant that the music here was entertaining. Due to the rapidfire nature of the lyrics I completely understood the team choosing to use subtitles to show what was being sung, though this created the issue of having to choose between reading lyrics or focusing on actions on screen, with something almost always going on.

The moments where the film truly shone for me were when the multiple performers looked like they were in unison reminiscent of Busby Berkely.

I could see you being up for a best performer award in Christchurch, and in terms of presentation this was a solid film, but it fell down for me in terms of plot development by being 90% set on stage and covered by wide shots. HAMILTON is cool and all, but when what the lyrics are singing about is the beginning of a new romance, I couldn't help but feel like I was watching a stage show and being talked/sung at. I needed more connection with the story for this to really work effectively as a film. The ending almost got there, but it felt like the resolution was going to be more of the same rather than an emotional release in my book.

Story: 1.5/5
Technical: 3.5/5
Elements: 3/5
Overall: 2/5

As a disclaimer, I typically hate musicals, but I think this was an incredibly creative use of the genre. The first couple verses and Him/Her chorus are a banger, but then it did begin to get a little too High School Musical meets Hillsong for my liking. I was wondering why it never returned to the Him/Her chorus (or perhaps it did, and I’m misremembering)?

My thoughts on the song itself over, the performance / lip syncing and compositing in this film are an incredible feat, not to mention the elaborate amount of costumes! An incredible achievement for 2 people to complete in 48 hours.

I have no idea what happened at the end though. You might have to explain that to me. If you had stuck the landing this would have been my number 1 of the evening,.

An ambitious musical from ripfocus with a crazy amount of compositing/twinning/cropping/masking - whatever you did to pull off this one performer, performing multiple roles, schtick.

Also a brave choice to make this a musical, within a musical. We are an audience member watching an energetic stage-show! This does mean a lot of sweeping wide shots which I guess is what we'd take in as an audience member. Quality music and lyrics although putting the lyrics on screen is always a cop-out in my book as it starts to look like a sing-a-long - have confidence in your songs!

My take on the story & ending is that devastated by the end of this relationship this retelling takes place in the theatre-of-his-mind hence his insistence on getting a run-through that is perfect. Could be miles off but I do like that sort of thing.

Probably my favourite ripfocus 48hr film.

Wow wow wow. The amount of effort that must have gone into this to pull this off is staggering! Even though I'm not a huge musical fan I can appreciate the work that is on display here. Great stuff.

This is probably the most I've been genuinely impressed by a 48Hours film in a long time. This is a technical feat, the likes of which I can't imagine taking on. To think there was a point where all the footage was captured and you had to just be like "Well. Time to edit this thing". Astonishing!

This is a super interesting nomination for Best Performer too, maybe the first time an actor has been nominated not necessarily for an amazing portrayal of a character, and more because of how HARD and EXHAUSTING this looked to perform.

I also love the decision to set it all on a stage - a sneaky way to achieve the Ultra while also not having to bother much with art direction or locations.

The songs are great too, well deserving of the win.

The ending seems to be a contentious topic, though it's not something I'm especially turned off by. I do think it needed a twist, and I liked that it ended with a format break, it maybe just could have been a little clearer?

I'm also torn on the subtitles - on the one hand I feel like it takes me out of the film, but then on the other, the lyrics are a little hard to decipher at points - and this could have maybe been solved by a better sound design.

A technical feat, probably deserved more awards love, and personally I think could have been a great addition to the Grand Finals.

My favourite rip focus film to date. By far. Wait actuall A Slice of You is pretty good too.

Things you got right: uhh and incredible technical feat, the likes of which still boggle my mind to this day.

Things to work on for next time: I just encourage you to keep pushing the bar. This was the much needed gearshift rip focus needed after A Nipple in Time, and I think shifting those gears even more will bring out something even more special.