Office Dispute

Thought this was fun. The actors had great charisma, taking the mick out of themselves and the setting yet also inhabiting the characters consistently enough to not break immersion, and bring the viewer in to the appropriately ridiculous scenario. Stradling that line is more difficult than it looks for a 48 hour film! Nice work.

Loved the first half of this film -- great acting, editing, sound effects, and use of genre, it felt very Edgar Wright. Felt like the middle part lagged a bit and lost some of the magic, unfortunately.

Really fun film with some great techniques used all around. The colour grade worked really well for the genre too. Good effort.

This is a fun ride through some of the worst elements of office culture all wrapped up in the tropes of a western.

There are strong performances all around - from our Murrayesque boss, to our ambitious colleague, to our fish-out-of-water cowboy, to our mysterious mentor.

The first half is really well-paced, the humour lands and things feel like they're setting things up nicely. By the end, the dick references are wearing a little thin and the final confrontation is a little bit, well, soft for my liking.

Certainly, the Moorehouse overbridge has never looked better and there's a lot of nice cinematography going on. The aspect ratio change for duels/gunfights is so, so common in the competition this year and thus really cool the first time you see it (as was the case at the live screenings) but a bit tired by the time you've trawled your way through the screening room.

Overall, this was loved at the live screening and will be a fan favourite at the CHCH final too. It has the necessary ridiculous scenario that is loved in the 48HR comp. Great job!

Great performances from the leads. The can-shooting sequence was perfectly done and had the crowd howling. The film really encapsulates the spirit of the 48hours well. It looked like the team had a heck of a lot of fun making this as it translates onto the screen. I just hope Pavlova Western is a genre next year and you get it again because I want to see more adventurers from our self doubting but ultimately, bloody-nice-guy gunslinger.

had the pleasure of seeing this on the big screen for the first time and i LOVED IT!! I think it really sums up what this competition is all about and manages to balance humor and plot perfectly. Really great use of genre here team. I think the shooting jokes got the strongest laughs from me and my team all night

In many ways, OFFICE DISPUTE feels like classic 48Hours - this story is the kind of thing you'd see doing very well in the competition nationally in like 2007 - 2012 or so, and it was awesome to see that kind of story approached with modern filmmaking and a good camera. Lol.

Having worked as a Yoobee tutor, I've seen Victor play one thousand different characters over the years, but this is the first time I feel like I've seen a role written FOR him, and his moustache. His performance as Dick the cowboy elevates the film significantly, as does some gut-busting hilarious dialogue peppered throughout (I especially love the whole bit with the Stranger saying he won't give up his secrets before divulging them with zero pressure from Dick).

I do have a couple of notes - firstly, as cinematic and pavlovian (the dessert not the dog) as the duel scene is, in front of the train tracks with Pac N Save in the background, it does seem odd that a film where the central joke is "It's a western, but get this... it's set in an office!" would entirely abandon the office for the second half of the film. I wonder if narratively it would have made more sense to have this scene in another part of the office?

Secondly, I think thematically, it took me a few watched to fully grasp your film's thesis statement (which, for the record, good on you for giving your film a message - you don't see that often in the competition). I believe you're trying to say that "being kind" is not always the best course of action and can muddy up communication - but this went over my head the first few watches and I had no idea why Dick and Janice were trading passive aggressive compliments. It was in a later watch that I realized they're complying to the office's "Be Kind" rule, and while maybe I'm just dumb, I think we needed to be reminded of this in the edit - perhaps before Dick engages with Janice at the start, he needed to glance at the sign again, so he and we the audience can go "ah right, he needs to be cordial".

Still, these are minor.. uh.. disputes, with an otherwise very tight and incredibly funny film. I think it shoots for the stars in some areas, and even though there are some misses, it's a lot more compelling for trying.

Challenge for next year: I'd love to see Emergency Continuity return! There's a cartoon-in-real-life style to this film which I think will get you far, and I implore you to keep telling comedies with meaning.