"Some Assembly Required 3" Film Fest by Is What It Is Productions-12/10 to 12/18/04

A Successful Transition of Mediums

Reviewed 12/11/04

Some Assembly Required 3: Short Films Festival
Is What It Is Productions
Studio One Performing Arts Center, Phoenix
(480) 994-9495
December 10th - 18th, 2004
$5.00

When last we saw Tom Leveen and Is What It Is, the decision had been made to close the doors of the theatre company. Now, they have turned their sights on filmmaking. Using a consumer level Sony Digital 8 camera, Leveen has created four short films of varying topics and quality. In the very least, all are quite professionally produced for independent film. His mini film-festival at Studio One in Phoenix was sparsely attended on the opening Saturday night, and that’s a shame, because even the least impressive one is still very much worth watching.

There are four films being presented: the chance meeting-based Ships in the Night, an adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story The Cask of Amontillado, a tense thriller entitled The Hitchhiker, and the quirky Spaghetti (the only one not written by Leveen). Each of the films has something to recommend it.

Ships in the Night, written, directed, and edited by Leveen, follows the unplanned meeting of two college students in a library. The piece almost completely utilizes voiceover as internal monologues for two people initially attracted to one another. Starring Andi Watson and Jason Barth, the piece is a funny observation. Watson and Barth are excellent, and Leveen uses some interesting angles to keep the visuals lively.

Leveen’s next offering, The Cask of Amontillado is not quite as tightly edited as the first. Michael Potter and Joy Brouwer appear as newlyweds who have just inherited a mansion in Italy with a winding underground passageway that harbors a secret revealed in a book discovered by Potter. The scene then shifts back to the time of the book’s writing, where two competing counts (Matt Dixon and Leveen) enact a horrifying end to their rivalry. Michael Peck’s scenic design is quite impressive, but the editing causes some longer lulls in between lines and situations. While the ending of the historic account is effective, the secondary contemporary plot drags and ends much too abruptly. Potter and Brouwer are little more than exposition and do well with their job, while Leveen and Dixon are a bit better.

The best offering of the evening is the psychological drama The Hitchhiker. Dixon is a driver on a lonely desert road who picks up hitchhiker Tim Butterfield. Dixon begins playing mind games with Butterfield, but he is able to raise the stakes as they battle in a high stakes game of chicken with a wonderful surprise ending. The lighting is quite dim, which is effective for most of the time, but it defeats itself with the final revelations. Still, this game of one-upmanship is impressively written and performed. The compositions depend on tight images to establish the claustrophobia of the situation, and the editing is slow and deliberate. All in all, this is a quality offering.

Nearly as entertaining is the final piece, another chance encounter situation entitled Spaghetti. Written and starring Peck, this pleasant and funny piece has him appearing before a studying Mandy Nichols and presenting himself as a quirky stranger raising many questions about the nature of relationships. Despite herself, Nichols finds herself drawn into a conversation with this hesitant, grandiose character who is equal parts charming and off-putting. Though anyone clever enough can spot the ending much earlier in the piece than it should be revealed, it is still a pleasant piece that builds into an examination of modern expectations in relationships. Peck is quite fun as the interloper, and Nichols perfectly follows her character arc to its natural bemused conclusion. Leveen comes up with a variety of compositions that are visual clues to each of character and their situations.

The seventy minutes is never boring and often very entertaining. The festival continues for one more week, while a collection of the four pieces is available on DVD via Is What It Is Productions for $15. I recommend catching this collection either live or at home.

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