Ursula Promo
2019 · 6m · USA
Directed by Tyler Rubenfeld
Tones: darkly comic, tense
A voiceover actor tries to record a weather alert for a local news app while a storm rages outside. The producer wants more ominous, more urgent — take after take after take.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A six-minute one-take about a voiceover guy faking weather urgency during real weather — that's a high-wire act, and the fact it isn't shouting about itself is the whole point.
One continuous take watching the seam between artifice and real weather collapse inside a recording booth — Pontypool by way of an alt-comedy green room is a tight, formally legible proposition. Yes.
One uninterrupted six-minute take of a voiceover actor recording a storm warning while the actual storm closes in is the platonic ideal of a short-film constraint — the form is the idea. Matt Hopkins doing the work in real time sells it.
Reviews
The fly-on-the-wall approach serves the film well, allowing the viewer space to speculate on metaphorical intent.