NYC V3

RECENT EVENTS On Friday April 27th, the lights dimmed for a screening of Cohort Film Lab’s V3 short films at the theater at Sutton Studios. Though this collection of creative and quirky films all followed a shared theme, they could not have been more different from each other. These five films demonstrate the ingenuity, playfulness, and teamwork of the Cohort participants, and it was amazing to see them screened all together. Split into different genre groups with virtual strangers, these teams had only two weeks to realize their creative vision in a ten minute short. Each film brought a new perspective and techniques in portraying New York. With their guerilla style of filming on subway cars, public parks, busy streets, and cramped apartments, these movies represent a frantic, gritty, and chaotic city. Often adhering to and subverting their given genres each group, this session produced a beautiful anthology of films that are both love-letters and hate-mail to New York City. After the credits rolled on each film, the creatives were able to answer a few questions about their process, the challenges of filming, and different references and inspirations they used. Some answers skewed more technical, like the choice of using steady-cam footage versus hand-held shakey cam, while others spoke about the challenges of collaboration and getting schedules together. As the filmmakers gathered in the front of the screening room, their camaraderie and pride in each other’s work was easy to see. After two weeks they have bonded and shared a special language of exchanging ideas, and though their films are screened and the program is over, the work is never done. TEAM A: Found Foootage- Energetic, often poignant and delicately human, this film eschews the usual horror tropes of this genre for a bittersweet character study following a group of friends after a night out. With a kinetic hand-held cam, the events of their friend's birthday celebration unfold and a steady-cam is used when they are reviewing the videos from the night before. The characters dance, drink, fight, break-up, meet strangers, and come to understand new things about themselves through watching the footage. TEAM B: Mockumentary- Cardio Coven As a staple of community building in New York City, run clubs have become all the rage. The creative team spoke about how the idea came from their impression of run clubs as “culty.” This mockumentary comedy imagines a women’s running club with a dark twist. Following a group of affluent runners who lure transplants into their secret society to purge the city of their slow-walking and buying up all the thrift stores. Employing documentarian techniques and tropes, like talking head confessionals as exposition, and subverting them to create a hilarious and one of a kind comedy. TEAM C: Redemption Story- Why We Stay A slice-of-life story in the vein of Love Actually with a Woody Allen-esque twist where seemingly disparate characters and story-lines