As someone who follows the Down Under film scene pretty closely it's always cool when new talent springs outta the shadows and grabs you by the balls/throat/vital organ.
That's how it felt earlier today when someone sent me the trailer for Chad Aston's Wounded, a crazy 300-style medieval combat short film, that like many genre shorts these days is a culled down version of a planned feature film. Here's the synopsis:
Encouraged by film schools or the seemingly hundreds of short film competitions that run in every corner of Australia each year, Aussie short films tend to fall into two categories; either they are arthouse dross about working class child protagonists or they are one-note comedies.
However as the team behind Blue-Tongue Films (Spider, I Love Sarah Jane, Miracle Fish, Lucky) have shown pretty consistently, short films can also be gripping and original genre pieces that forecast good feature talent.
Let's hope the team behind Wounded also have the goods to make that leap.
Check out the trailer embedded below
That's how it felt earlier today when someone sent me the trailer for Chad Aston's Wounded, a crazy 300-style medieval combat short film, that like many genre shorts these days is a culled down version of a planned feature film. Here's the synopsis:
1431 AD, the Hundred Years War rages throughout Western Europe. An English army is slaughtered by mercenaries hired by the French. Two knights and a foot soldier manage to escape only to be hunted down in an enemy infested forest.
Encouraged by film schools or the seemingly hundreds of short film competitions that run in every corner of Australia each year, Aussie short films tend to fall into two categories; either they are arthouse dross about working class child protagonists or they are one-note comedies.
However as the team behind Blue-Tongue Films (Spider, I Love Sarah Jane, Miracle Fish, Lucky) have shown pretty consistently, short films can also be gripping and original genre pieces that forecast good feature talent.
Let's hope the team behind Wounded also have the goods to make that leap.
Check out the trailer embedded below
that doesn't look good.
"Aussie short films tend to fall into two categories; either they are arthouse dross about working class child protagonists or they are one-note comedies."
Simon, must say I really can't agree with you there. I know about 5 years ago this was reasonably sad and true, but I've worked on a number of shorts in Melbourne over the last 4 years, and almost none of them would fit into those categories.
While there's still a prevalence of one-note comedies (which sadly seems to be the simplest, least challenging route for short films worldwide), I personally feel the prevalence of short film festivals & competitions around Australia has actually fostered and encouraged a far greater range of subjects and styles.
I think the above quote would be a more apt description of many Aussie feature films.
ultra slow motions are hilarious.