Strawberry Shorts Film Festival 2008: Programme 4

Zombies and hiphop in rural Cambridge!

Made as part of Long Road Sixth Form College Music Video Course.

This short film is a compilation of different sketches, intended as a pilot for a TV sketch show. These are presented as “runners”, i.e. recurring segments giving the film a unified effect. The themes covered, include relationships, new age mystics, and image-makeovers, which are all relevant to the title.

My main comedy influences include Chris Morris, Monty Python, The Big Train and Not the nine O’clock news.

I have been writing comedy for twelve years, and have amassed roughly two series worth of material.

This film was made in London last year, out of our own funding, of about £300. Actors were paid travelling expenses only.

Clockwork Mouse appears in a tale of boundless greed and its grim consequences.

The Brighton-based Laptop Jams group are world leaders in laptop-driven live entertainment, using their computers as music/vision generators to create exciting improvised performances. The UK’s Bizarre magazine describes tham as ‘an aural and visual barrage so innovative and downright weird, your brain could get bruised’.

On the eve of an historic trial, James Taylor must choose whether a man accused for his brother’s murder should be sentenced to the death penalty.

As he contemplates his verdict and the events leading up to his brother’s death, it becomes clear that the wrong man is in the dock.

Nickgonewalkabout’s search for rainbow energy in condo-culture leads to St Petersburg, Florida and the Treasure Island Drum Circle. A short-film made following moves to censure the group in 2007, and one which proved constructive in efforts to coalesce and legitimise the the spontaneous weekly gathering. A circle unbroken, the drummers remain popular with beachgoers, and while ignoring politics, this film film’s strength lies in it’s acute observation which conveys meaning without words.

Champ desperately wants to fly but can?t get more than a few feet off the ground. He also wants to leave behind some painful memories that continue to haunt him. Unfortunately he can?t do either as the memories start to appear all over his body, leaving no other option but to confront them and watch helplessly as they cover him from head to toe. They tell the sad story of Champ finding the love of his life only to have her stolen away by a superhero with the power of flight, leaving Champ alone, bleeding and missing an arm.

A family meet to discuss their missing father but nothing can prepare them for what happens next . . .