Welcome to “Your Weekly Short,” a LakeFrontRow.com feature that showcases one short from a Wisconsin filmmaker each week, every week. Brace thy face.
With the 48 Hour Film Festival and its subsequent Awards Ceremony at the High Noon Saloon now over, I’m still having a hard time moving on. Among this year’s Sundance screenings, “The Noize (or How A Bunch of Stupid People Ruined My Stupid Day” was one of my favorites. Its host of hilarious personalities in T.C. Dewitt’s fake ID peddler Oliver Cotton and Candace Ostler and Chad Halvorsen’s radio DJs improve upon Firmament Films’ previous entry “The Seven Year Wish,” a short I also enjoyed but felt lost its steam the more it diverted from its humor. There’s no such problem here, as the film sticks with DeWitt and his 30 minute quest to reach the radio station and claim his $10,000 prize.
Co-directors DeWitt, Kris Schulz, and Julia Smith all integrate the three required elements — a pillow; a kleptomaniac named “Sinclair or Sylvia Vandermint”; and the line “Forget everything I just said” — but they’re insertions that never feel like the filmmakers are simply checking off a list. The kleptomania in particular is an element that persists throughout, affecting whole relationships between characters. It’s a complaint Oliver’s girlfriend mentions mid-break up and a sticking point in Oliver’s neighbor’s refusal to lend him his car. Personally, I’ll accept him regardless of his imperfections — or his real name.
UPDATED: Thanks to Firmament Films’ Facebook Page for the tip on Backflip Films, whose graphics and effects work were vital to the great production value.