Blue Season (2013)

Although it doesn't manage to get the line of dialogue quite right, this short film was made as part of a challenge where you are given a title, a line and a prop to get into a short film – and then you have 48 hours to write it, film it, edit it and deliver it. I have seen a few of these and few are perfect but most impress in terms of what was done with so little (planning, time, money, whatever). Blue Season opens with a young woman hanging upside down when a wrong number happens to contact her – before he hangs up she cries for help, which he gives remotely the best he can.

There is an solid 5 minute thriller here but unfortunately, while okay, this short lacks the polish and refinement to make it work. It is not in one area that this is the case but rather it is across the board. The writing; the concept is good and offers plenty of danger and mystery to draw the viewer in, however it is an odd serious of plot decisions. For example the wrong number device doesn't work as well as a deliberate rescuer would, while the escape itself doesn't have much tension or substance to it. The rush to urgency is also pretty odd – the score rises the film higher than the material and it feels over done – in particular the building noise towards an ending that we "got" 30 seconds ago already.

The lack of cohesion in delivery jars as well – the wrong number guy being the best examples; he jumps too quickly to pouring with sweat and too much is made of that with close-ups and the camera. His performance was not great either, although Ridley was good apart from some of her early clunky dialogue. The ideas here are all fine, but it jumps around a lot and maybe doesn't always construct the ideal way. It is understandable perhaps to have issues with a film made under such competition restrictions, but it doesn't mean that the film doesn't still have them at the end of the day.