Student work gets better and better

There was a welcome freedom from boy's fantasies in this year's end of year show for the Diploma of Animation students at Yoobee (previously Natcoll).

That is almost certainly because, in a hugely welcome trend, there were far more women showing their work than previously. Indeed in previous years the course was often 100% male. This year there were four or five women, including some who presented computer generated models as their final work. (Modelling is usually a boy thing - they make monsters and machines of mind boggling complexity and ingenuity.)

Of the models my favourite was "Time Guardian" (by a girl) - a creature designed in three versions - good, neutral and evil. Models are usually presented as static images, shown from all angles and at various stages of development. "Time Guardian" was presented in an engaging way with narrative and poetic quotation on screen.

There was still a lot of "boy stuff" - but considering most of their job prospects are in the overwhelmingly male gaming industry, this is not surprising. Because I'm a girl I enjoy the girls' work more, but a boy produced the dear little dog creature running over to its mother and a cute tale about a little witch, so I hope I'm not too biased.

The Diploma of Digital Filmmaking filled the second half of the show. This course has always had more women in it and my favourites (below) are by men and women.

The films from this course were almost all excellent. Something new to the course was photo animation, where still photos are animated against background scenes. This is surprisingly effective, making a moving "collage" image.

Some of the films suffered from the undergraduate problem of starting with an abstract idea and then using the most obvious symbolism and images to portray it. A bit more brainstorming of ideas was required.

Favourites in this category "How to Get a Girl in 6 Days" - a gorgeous wee thing with heaps of humour and charm - and "The Fort" - well observed drama about childhood.

A boring and pretentious movie about a boring and pretentious movie maker (yawn)

Early in New Zealand film making, or at least early from my point of view (the early '80s) there was a trend to making deadly boring and pretentious films and call them deep. Unfortunately for the industry, Vigil, an early example of this type, was a hit with the critics and up and down the country film makers tried to emulate it.

For me, until I married a film maker, NZ movies were a gloomy no-go zone. Let's face it, even the good ones are seldom a laugh a minute - The Piano, Once Were Warriors, even Whale Rider.

So here we have The Russion Snark, a boring pretentious movie, a throw back to 1983, about a boring pretentious film maker - and the critics don't seem to have learned much - they like it!

1. If you're making a movie about something boring it has to be interesting, or at least funny. There's nothing funny about this movie.

2. Main characters, no matter how flawed, need to have some humanity, Misha (the pretentious Russian film maker) is childish, humourless, self centred, lazy, deluded and immoral.

3. Characters must be believable - Misha's foray into petty crime makes no sense, and his "redemption" at the end comes out of nowhere. We absolutely do not believe this is the same character.

4. His beautiful wife, who has put up with him for a long time, deserves, when she leaves him, better than the writers deliver. When she goes back to him it's a kind of defeat. We don't believe he's a better man.

5. When they sail off into the sunset nothing has been achieved, unless you believe Misha's a better person (yeah, right!) - to me it seems certain the whole sorry mess is due to be repeated at another location.

6. Most of the movie is Misha staring gloomily into nothing, Misha's awful black and white movie, and Misha groaning on about art and meaninglessness. The whole plot (such as it is) is crammed into the last quarter.

There are two good things - the black and white photography is terrific (just FARRRRRRR too much of it) and the actress playing Misha's wife Nadia is mesmerisingly beautiful.

How to succeed in movie making - drop the F bomb as often as you can

For completion's sake - this is a quick note about the Auckland final of the 48 hours film making competition. As we were disqualified for lateness, we were not in the running but we did win an award for weirdness.

The Auckland finalists were actually all good. Some very slick indeed such as the robot revenge movie with added special effects for director's commentary, Maori language versions and an alternative ending. Probably a bit too clever. There were a couple of pointless ones we had to scrabble to remember later, but the hit this year seems to have been the fad movie genre.

Fad movie? What's a "fad movie"? Well that's what I asked when I first heard of it. But the three I've seen have all been clever and original - including my favourite of the final which was about kite flying and had a sweet ending (unlike most 48 hour efforts which go for shock).

The winner was another fad movie which was a mockumentary about "kid jumping". Funny and original but it had one of those stupid shock endings.

My favourite from the heat - called Circus Animals - defied our predictions and was in the final.

One gripe - I kind of get why film makers liberally drop the "f-bomb" in their productions. But why do they have to do it when accepting their awards? The MC, Oliver Driver, dropped a few, and the winning team called each other "f - ers" and implied the audience were too. They're proud of it - revelling in their licence to curse liberally, as if they think they're making some huge stride towards a better society, or something.

Fashion victims

Who decreed that women don't want to wear skirts any more?

Or, if they do, they're 14 years old, or your great grandma?

Who said that cardigan sleeves need to be so tight they cut the blood flow to your hands? Or that all tops flare out under the boobs so you look pregnant? Or that black or the foulest purples, reds and blues are the only colours to wear?

I made the mistake recently of attempting to upgrade my wardrobe. It was very simple. I wanted two winter skirts, not black (I have three black skirts), and a variety of tops to go with them.

I had to scour two malls to find the skirts. I am a size 18 middle aged woman. The skirts had to be relatively trendy and flattering. I did find two. And only two. There were others that fit - but putting all the detail on the hips of a size 18 skirt is not smart - who wants extra inches there?

As for tops - ALL manufacturers put the shirt buttons exactly where a decent bust makes them gape or, worse, pop open. I have one shirt where they were thoughtful enough to put a dome in the strategic place, otherwise I avoid shirts or provide my own extra precaution. Also, high round necklines make large-busted, no-necked women (like me) look like their head grows straight out of a uni-breast. This year, guess what? A decent v-neck was almost as scarce as a decent skirt.

Maybe if I was shopping at the top end I'd have more luck - but we don't all have that choice. If there's any manufacturer reading this - please note - different shaped women need different shaped clothes.

Meanwhile I have a teenage daughter who is interested in a career in fashion. Maybe I'll be able to get her to make my clothes?

Killings and uncomfortable laughs easy outs

It's "48 Hours of furious film making" season again. We attended "our" heat last night.

It was 9.30 on a Friday so they obviously thought they could play their most offensive entry. As my 14 year old daughter said (she is very wise) "it's easy to get uncomfortable laughs". My 15 year old daughter hit it on the head when she declared none of the films in our heat to be finals material.

To me they were mostly distinguished by almost every one ending in a death. I have decided I like my short films to be simple, so the one room movie where two characters, with almost no dialogue, play a lethal skill game was my favourite - even though it, too, ended in a death.

The MITCIT team (our team) once again foundered on the shores of technical ambition, but we had a great live cast this year (the heroine has received accolades on the review site for her performance). The second version will probably be a masterpiece as the final came unstuck with CG backgrounds and editing.

Shock and grossness and lots of violent death - easy fixes to plots with holes and implausability aplenty. Our script was great, our cast was great - one day we'll nail the tech stuff, then watch out!

Indie kiwi flick - well worth seeing

Our most recent NZ movie is The Curry Munchers, a low budget indie about the immigrant experience in Auckland. To me it had the feel of many British indie movies I have seen and, although it didn't have the production values, because of its budget, my family, who have seen Gazza Snell, rate it better than that. It is certainly better than Predicament. However, it would be fair to say it is patchy, especially technically, and some of the "crowd" scenes reflect the low budget. But some things they pull off miraculously - like the TV show set up.

The script is mostly funny and subtle, and I'll get to that in more detail - but some of it is a bit over the top. Our biggest belly laugh was in a slapstick scene in which an unconcious person was transported around in a rubbish bin. Silly and unrealistic, but we did laugh and I have seen worse in better-resourced movies.

The strength for me was in the subtleties of the script (yes, the scipt is uneven, but when good, very good). The careless racism of the policeman who will not pronounce Indian names correctly, even when gently corrected, the patronising TV commentators pronouncing the name "Curry Munchers" not politically correct, the agonising scene whether the hero's father fails a job interview, and above all the poignant relationship between the mother and father. They are both struggling in their new lives in New Zealand and yet they are not communicating. If they would just talk ... but then the whole thing is about cultural expectations and how a new country can turn all these upside down.

Most enjoyable - go and see it. It's worth it.

What makes a good story?

What set me off thinking about stories was watching The Time Traveller's Wife on television the other night and really not liking it, but seeing The Lakehouse the previous night and really liking it. And I wondered - Why? They're both love stories with fantastical twists and The Time Traveller's Wife arguably has better credentials.

So I arrived at a kind of philosophical question. What makes a good story?

OK - this is subjective, but not entirely. Often when we're left with a disatisfied feeling at the end of a book or movie it's because there is a fault in the story telling. I recently reviewed an action sci fi script, which is completely not my thing, but it was a good story. It is only partly a matter of what you like, because I should have liked The Time Traveller's Wife.

But here is why I think I didn't

a) The story has a time travel plot, but is nothing to do with science fiction. This is a romance. The time travel is explained as some sort of genetic disposition. That's not the problem. The problem is time travel should have some sort of meaning in the story. It doesn't beyond what a bummer it is when your husband keeps disappearing.

b) The two main characters are creepily manipulative. The time traveller, as a mature man, deliberately goes back in time to meet his future wife as a child and keeps meeting her, in secret, until she grows up enough to fall in love with him. Later he has a vasectomy without her agreement, so she hooks up with a younger him just passing through on a time travel in order to conceive. Further, he disappears on their wedding day so she marries an older him.

Contrarily, in The Lake House, which in theory is just as odd, the two main characters get together in one time zone and presumably live happy ever after. It was based on a French movie, which may explain why it seemed both more romantic and more plausible.

It is OK to have creepily manipulative characters, but I think it has to be clear that their behaviour is seen to be creepy and manipulative and is in some way, condemned. In The Time Traveller's Wife we are meant to think that these are two star-crossed lovers, not a paedophile and a control freak.