The Shaman

I watch a lot of short films; partly because I do like the way that the short form has less pressure which means people can experiment more than they could be a bigger feature film, but also the short time means I can see contained work despite a busy schedule. As a result of this I see a lot of sci-fi shorts that are looking to be the next big blockbuster by getting picked up by a studio. Some of these proof-of-concepts are pretty good, and deliver on their own terms as a short film too; however many of them are little more than special effects showreels that deliver nothing to the viewer of the short. I tend not to like them for this very reason.

With The Shaman, there is an element of that. We are thrown into a world that I really didn't understand, and into a battle of effects and noise. So far so dull I was thinking, however the main body of the short is a dialogue scene which is actually quite a good idea and had potential to make the film more than just telling me the producers had access to some very powerful computers. It doesn't quite manage to deliver on this potential though, and the film ended up being one that I liked for trying to be more than just the usual 'sci-fi pitch' short film, but yet it never really sparkled as the design and smart central scene device suggested it would.