Misogyny And Magic

A really great looking film, enhanced a lot by a great use of location and some pretty fun characters.

A lot of good stuff here - a clear narrative, good comedy, character arcs and an ending! Woop!

I admire this film's seemingly earnest attempt to hang a lampshade on misogyny, though there's a fine like between making fun of sexism and being sexist, and while this film gets it right for the most part, I felt a couple jokes were still a little below the belt.

Sorry about the DQ, I think this team has a lot of potential and I can't wait to see what they do next!

Things you got right: Great location, a fun experimental story, some good laughs

Things to work on for next time: Up the stakes, try out new stuff and maybe submit the right version of your film!!!!! I wanna see you guys soar.

A fun little adventure complete with in & out-of-place costumes and fake beards. I liked the way you handled the dragon scene - showed a bit of the old 48HOUR imagination. Lots of nice looking shots in places and the story was a complete structure.

That said, I was left unsure as to what your message was here in regards to misogyny or sexism. In the end it was a motivating factor for the secretary who despite looking disgruntled every time she was marginalised actually had a premediated plan to see all the males dead, and she saunters away when the job is done. So does this film fall into the "female revenge" trope? Or, is it just a light-hearted adventure not to be taken seriously?

Unlucky with the DQ 'cos this is the sort of film that gets short-listed.

Solid little adventure story about a wizard, a warrior, and a secretary going to slay a dragon. Well-shot, fun costuming, good use of a cornfield location, and a pretty terrific "something invisible" - I wondered if anyone was going to do offscreen/missing VFX, this team did, and it's pretty funny to watch as a warrior just disappears and gets killed offscreen, or a wizard fights with an unseen (but supposedly enormous and dangerous) foe. It all leads up to a twist ending that puts a neat bow on the proceedings, though it does create its own issues.

Have to concur with the other reviewers: putting "Misogyny" in the title means the film is guaranteed to be scrutinised for its gender content, and while I think there's a solid intent here, the execution ends up backfiring. It's okay to show people being misogynistic in a comedy as long as the joke is on the misogynists, but the early jokes at Betty's expense feel as if the film's trying to get laughs out of the insults themselves - largely because due to the voice-of-god narration and focus on the more traditional fantasy characters, the story isn't told from Betty's perspective until the very end. Additionally, having Betty slay the dragon in the end is clearly meant to be a statement against the other characters' sexist attitudes, but giving her the motivation of causing her colleagues' deaths makes her seem like less of an unlikely protagonist and more of a secret villain, which just perpetuates a different kind of sexist trope. Satire is hard to nail!

Well-made at any rate - hope to see this team back again, and hopefully qualifying. And I see the story team was gender-diverse, but if you're writing about misogyny, put a woman on your actual scriptwriting team!

A wizard, a warrior and Betty need to slay a dragon to claim the reward and thus off on a deliberately mysognistic adventure they went, with the fighter and the spellcaster putting the woman in her place at several intervals.

A clearly deliberate attempt at satire; a character is called Antifa for crying out loud! Nevermind that the dragonslayer works in an office and that they openly admit to not using VFX because of the cost.

Technically there were some really nice touches here. The point of view shots from the beast they were hunting were particularly well done, selling the illusion of a mystical flying creature well and the red filter topped this off. The costumes albeit a little low budget sold the heroes a the stereoytpes they were meant to be, and sound was particularly strong.

Now whilst the film looked great, I have a bit of a weird nitpick which is how you framed the film. I loved the cornfield location, but just the camera shot choices throughout of being mainly medium shot with plantations visible either side of the character meant it all felt a bit crammed. I was aching for a more cinematic approach given you clearly have the chops to handle your camera really well.

Betty was well developed I must say, taking the barbs and ending with a satisfying story arc. However that satisfaction does depend on if you feel the satire box was ticked hard enough. I did though it being morally ambiguous at best meant it was not quite a home run.

Story: 2.5/5
Technical: 3/5
Elements: 3.5/5
Overall: 3/5

Cool film!

I enjoyed the story as it progressed - there were definitely some laugh out loud moments, whether intentional or not. The shots were all good, the audio was all good - but that's probably where it ends for me lol

I felt the story and the characters were recycled (obviously and probably intentionally). Using an invisible dragon was an easy way out to have something invisible in there - but meh. The adventure didn't feel adventurous enough, I didn't like the ending - but meh.

Your actors did a good job. Loved the logo animations in the beginning as well.

Overall - good effort team!