BRAT SWAP

Be careful what you wish for, especially when what's on offer from a dodgy TV host may not necessarily be the upgrade to the zombified juvenile delinquent teenage son you are so desperate to get rid of.

Whilst the choice of the 3 girls was comedically done, I found this very much veered into talking heads territory. Good payoff but it just felt like the reason for swapping and then meltdown leading to regret that bookended the film should have had more weighting than the choice of girls?

Camerawork was good as the film looked nice, and sounded clear also with lines delivered well. Just a script that wasn't my personal cup of tea.

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

Really awesome work with visuals, costume, location and lighting to really sell the idea of the reality show. I feel though that the majority of this film is a great set up, but for me is missing a meatier story. ie I would have loved to see the reality segment finished within the first 2mins and then the aftermath of the swap becomes the majority of the story. Although I do think the way you ended it was successful, it could have been cool to get a deeper look into the consequences the mother may have had to deal with.

I agree with a lot of what is said in the reviews above - particularly that the aftermath of the swap maybe would have been a better place to focus the story and expand upon the ideas and the characters and their motivations.

The story as it is feels more like a comedy sketch - though the length of a short film, and personally I think I found myself getting over the joke fairly early in.

Effective performances from all the actors though, the brats were bratty, the kids were cute and the mother was suitably privileged and oblivious. Her shrugging and agreeing to buy beer with her son at the end was a great emotional resolve too.

The host of the show is maybe a good indicator of the ways in which this film stopped just short of going the extra mile here though - while his performance is good, I don't recall the last time I saw a game show host with a scraggly beard and several facial piercings. Coupled with the "studio" very clearly being just a dim living room with some posters hung up on the drab white walls, the X factor this film was missing is better art direction and production design.

Some work is done to be fair, the host is wearing a suit, and clutching some cue cards - and the lighting work is very intentional - but imagine how much better this film would look if you'd scored an actual studio, an actual Steve Harveyesque host, built an actual set? Obviously this is much, much more work, and I'm sympathetic to time constraints, but when it comes down to it, and audience isn't going to forgive needing to meet YOUR vision half way. We only get to see what's on screen, not what you're wanting it to look like, and so the solution is either go whole hog and improve the production value, or change your story to one which works with the assets at your disposal.

Challenge for next year: I think you've got a great set of actors and a really clear creative vision - I'd like to see that applied to a story which doesn't require the audience to do the heavy lifting when it comes to suspending disbelief. If all you have access to is a living room, make a real cool story set in a living room. Or if you have a mate that works in a library, or your mum is a manager at Kmart or something, hit them up and see if you can set your film there.

What AJ said really, but I'll say it again.

Performances all round we're pretty great, loved the kids.

I assumed that maybe the reason for the dim lights was it's sort of an underground illegal thing, but I agree with the comments above that a 'game show' style set and lighting probably would have given this more of a lift.

Overall a very solid effort :)

From the team that once was "Balloon Dog Incarcerated" this is another fun-filled film.

As others have mentioned there's a good stable of actors here and a range of ages which should serve you well into the future. The concept for this is solid enough and I think a novel way to approach the Swap genre. I do tend to agree that the whole thing being a game show was a little tiring as not really enough happens. Love the Wolfman-esque host and Sonya is equally well-played.

In case you weren't there, (are you based in Nelson?) this was well-received by the crowd at the heat live screening and looked and sounded great on the bigger screen. Nice work!