Reviews of 'Upgrade'

Here are the reviews of our movie.

Happy Face Films - Upgrade (Sci-Fi; late) 2/5
A woman has an artificial intelligence system running her life. It's like a cross between HAL, the interweb and a sentient blue screen of death. Eventually it crashes and a man explains that it's ruining her life. Gunshots are fired and the software is upgraded.
Reviewed by "robyn"

Upgrade (Sci-Fi) by Happy Face Films (Late entry)
An evil software corporation is producing Robin Slade, a programme so indispensable it is robbing people of their individuality and independence. An interesting concept, but the execution left something to be desired.
Script: *** Acting: ** Required Elements: ** Production Values: **
Overall Grade:
Reviewed by "godfather"

I asked godfather what our overall grade was, as it was not included.

Godfather's response:

"Oh, whoops, sorry. That was bound to happen eventually. I'm afraid I don't think I would have gone higher than C+, just because the runnig time just didn't seem to be long enough to fit in enough of the complexities of the plot to really sell the central concept. Other than the fact that the software company were killing people, it was hard to see what was so inherently evil about Robin Slade. It had the potential to be a pretty good cautionary tale about general overdependence on technology, but thinly-veiled anti-Microsoft stories don't make especially good watching (have you seen Antitrust?). "

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

Behind the Scenes

Hannah and Lydia enjoying "The Last Supper"
Hannah, Lydia and Mike
A very happy director!
Zoe, our camera op.

 

Behind the Scenes 2

Liam our techie, editor and guard
The director looks on as the drama unfolds
Ed, Hana, Mike (Deep in thought) and Phoebe

 

Behind the Scenes 3

All the final paperwork, with a very tired crew
A very tired director!

 

Premiere

Well the premere went well, saw some great films other than ours. Seeing I hadn't fully seen the film myself, I was really surprised at how it looked considering all the problems we had on editing day. We all found it quite funny, considering that no-one had actually seen the finished product, and that we could see all the screwups we made, but it was great fun making it, and great fun watching it.

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

Post-48Hours Crisis

Ok, so we handed our film in with about 20 minutes to spare. And then we get a call on Tuesday night from Ant (the organiser) saying that our tape has no audio at all. Big stress considering we didn't hear this message till after we went to our heat and saw our team with a black mark on the ballot. Unfortunately we are disqualified, but we still get our movie shown on Friday, providing we bring a new tape.

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

Day 3 Summary

Well it's all over now! Our day started with a large horror story, when we were locked ot of the media room due to a small technicality. In the end, it got down to a breakdown of communication. In the end we got in 30 minutes after we would've liked to be in there. So we start up Final Cut Pro and discver that a few of the tapes we uploaded the night before were not on the computer. So after having a few problems uploading, we ended up with all the tapes on the computer. Now time for editing or so we think, as the media room is attached to the hall, and for our house music competition, there was a practice in there. We could edit and upload find during that practice, but after the practice, some individuals had a jam session, which was VERY noisy. Finally we negotiated with them that they had to be silent by 2pm. We managed to edit a bit during that time, but at 2pm, we finally got in to it. Editing like mad to get a decent film, we struggled with clips, sound (one sound clip we put it in and it was perfectly timed first time, YEA!!) and finally at 6pm, we were nearly done. All we had to do was add titles and credits and add even a small voiceover fo Robin (who was the computer software) so we could have he line, "That's what I'm talking about". And no-one knew how to add titles and credits. Stress level=HIGH We had to leave at 6:20 at the latest to get it in on time. We got credits in after working it out using the User's Manual, and at 6:15, we were exporting to tape. In the car at 6:22, shoot off down the motorway, handed in the film with 12 minutes to spare. Got back to Otahuhu to pack up and clean up. Were out by 8:30pm. I'm just so glad I don't haev to stress anymore! Thanks to everyone involved, you made it an amazing experience!

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

Day 2 summary

Finally finished the script at 3:30am, then slept for 3 hours. Fun! Woke up and picked up our main actress from the city after having a nice caffine based drink at Starbucks at around 8am, then had a lovely breakfast at Subway, before someone shoved Mayo under the handle of the Ka. O well, life goes on. Filmed for the morning at Bomac labrotories then moved to King's College for the other 3 scenes. Had a bit of a technological failure at King's, but I shall not talk about it till after as it may spoil our surprise. Editing shall start tomorrow and hopefully go well. Cannot edit overnight unfortunately due to school security issues but hopefully we should be completed and at the end by 7:10pm. Here's for faith!

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

The Script

The script is finally finished! Well nearly. We still have to have a group review of it and add in a few more things, but it's done! I'm actually slightly ashamed of it, and the two people who worked the most on it are VERY ashamed of it. I'm sure it will work out once we review it. Finally off to bed. 3 hours till we have to wake up again!

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

Day 1 Summary

Well it's the end of day 1 and the start of day 2. Had a intensive planning session when myself, Phoebe and Matt got back from the launch. Our genre is Sci-Fi so we've been throwing around ideas, and Sam and Liam have been scripting for ages an hopefully we will have a script soon. Also have been shooting our behind the scenes video throughout the night. We hav a few creative ideas up our sleeve so hopefully they will work. Anyway, here are the detail of what we have to work in to our script.

GENRE: Science Fiction
CHARACTER: Robin Slade - an eternal optimist
LINE: "That is what I'm talking about!"
PROP: A mirror

So much to do and so little time! Good luck to all other teams. Will post again tomorrow (which begins in 10 minutes!).

Swifty
Happy Face Films
Smile Dammit!

P.S. Sugarfree V isn't that bad! We have a case of it! YUM!!!