The Magician’s Misstep

It's an interesting 48 Hours short, technically the story plays out pretty well. Particularly in the way it sets up ideas. Mostly the payoffs needed more energy from the performances to land the way they should. The "find him" line at the end probably could have been cut for better results.

This was a really fun film that almost came full circle in delivering a clever full circle slice of life/death short. Take heed other 48 filmmakers, you do not need to try and cram a full narrative feature into your 5 minutes, with this ode to SANDMAN's serial killers via an exclusive magician's club showing a great example of how to pace your film in this comp.

The performances were well done; mostly static in staging yet brought to life with well sold facial expressions and clever dialogue as the escalating stakes crept up throughout the film, making us as a viewer aware of the importance of the terms and conditions brought to light at the start of the film. A really clever use of warning.

Technically pretty good! I thought the production design was really good once the lead character arrived at the club after an initially little bit flat domestic based start, but from there the lighting was excellent as the story unfolded.

Use of humour was well done and the push pull of the jolly magician versus more sinister panel gave this an uncanny vibe, that had been hinted at early on from the moment the invitiation was presented.

For mine the initial slow start and slightly tonally off ending were the main minor quibbles I had with the short, but overall I really enjoyed it!