Video Review: Das Boot Meets the Donner Party

The Contest
The clear winner of The 2007 Insomnia Film Festival is Apple Inc. What a brilliant promotion of its state-of-the-art digital video editing and special effects products. Apple challenged all high school and college filmmakers to write, cast, shoot, edit, score, and upload a 3-minute, short video in just 24 hours.

The catch? Entries had to include elements from a specified list of special props, dialogue, settings, etc. Of course, there is professional judging, too. The 25 entries with the highest public rating on November 9 at 12:00 a.m. EST will be screened by industry professionals. Contest finalists and winners' names will be announced by Apple Inc. during the week of November 19, 2007.

My Review of 'Yeti on a Submarine'
Wow! Little Rock High School's video team produced a jewel. In barely 2-1/2 minutes a sterling cast (Levi Agee, Cory Baker, Caleb Edwards, Jared Kittler and Will Scott) act interesting scenes shot belowdecks on USS Razorback (SS 394). The plot achieves human interest, emotional undercurrents, and denouement. The difficult is made to look easy.

What really works is casting a malodorous yet warm-hearted crewman as an Abominable Snowman. This superlative imagery was a stroke of genius, quickly evoking recollections of actual auxillarymen. While a few scenes are quite raw (cannibalism is mentioned), facial expressions also suggest aberrant behavior by certain crew.

Drawbacks are indeed minor - one character's foreign dialect was not too convincing. Some might think the casting includes one instance of stereotyping. I think the contrary. Should the judges disagree, however, this deserving video would not have a prayer of winning. That would truly be a shame.

See this amazing video for yourself:



Hat Tips:...

Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum at North Little Rock AIMM Team and Eric's The Sub Report.