Category: Directed by Ien Chi

Tick Tock (2011, Ien Chi)

Tick Tock runs about five minutes–not quite though–and it does so backwards. For most of the short, lead Morgan Ayres is running backwards across campus and through time. Director Chi has some overly pretentious elements–doing named sections in a five minute short (not even) is way too much–but the film’s a technical marvel.

In fact, it’s such a technical marvel, one wonders how he shot the thing, which is unfortunate. The artifice of the named sections pulls the viewer back, giving him or her time to consider how many times through Ayres ran. It’s one continuous shot (or appears to be).

Good lead performance from Ayres and love interest Valee Gallant. They have to act backwards after all.

Great music too.

Chi elevates the college student film; if he’d just toned down the pretense, it would have been even better. As is, though, it’s dang good.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Written, directed, photographed and edited by Ien Chi.

Starring Morgan Ayres (Emit), Valee Gallant (Rena) and Maurice Winsell (Buddy).

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Ditching School to Whistle (2012, Ien Chi)

Ditching School to Whistle has some of the general problems of a documentary short subject, especially one about a quirky topic. Director–and film student–Chi recounts his adventure cutting school to compete in the International Whistlers Convention and he has these occasionally lame moments where his narration pushes for profundity.

But one can forgive such mistakes as Chi’s direction and editing is astonishingly good. All of his filmmaking instincts are right on–especially when one realizes he must have been shooting Ditching on prosumer cameras at best. He cleaned a lot of it up in post; the end product is phenomenally well-made.

He tries too hard to rationalize the whistling convention, offering too much complementary commentary on his interviewee’s lives. So, as a documentary maker he needs to develop a tad, but as a director he probably ought to be teaching those film classes instead of taking them.

3/3Highly Recommended

CREDITS

Directed, produced and edited by Ien Chi.

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