2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

It’s the story of every Egyptian household of how dads became over dramatic & keep on making up excuses to save money on electricity bills by turning off the AC. Our film opens with a young boy playing video games, interrupted by his father telling him to stop leaving the door ajar when the AC is turned on. Hence, the entire family, along with random people, repeat the same old excuses they came to know by heart to highlight saving on the bill by turning the AC on. The dads’ broken record of excuses is standard, hence we collected & remixed them, employing an unconventional & fast-tracked editing style using odd framing, strange crops & simple props. The excuses are repeated differently every time with a different person hammering further on the overdramatic excuses the dads constantly mention

Cultural/Context information for the jury

Cultural Insight: After the devaluation of the Egyptian Pound, prices rose significantly in nearly most of the necessity goods & the government announced new electricity tariffs with price increases ranging between 15-36 percent depending on the consumption bracket. The latter was a nightmare for the Egyptian consumers. Consumer Insight: Egyptians started to get high electricity bills although their consumption is not extremely high. It drives them crazy as they start cutting costs by reducing electricity usage such as turning off lights, fans & ACs. They will always come up with illogical excuses to turn off any object run with electricity in an exaggerated manner to lower the usage, even though the weather is extremely hot in Egypt, especially in Ramadan and the intense heatwave when people need ACs the most.

Tell the jury about the elements of sound design.

The story showcases the ballad of the collective broken records of excuses that all dads made up. It’s all repeated following an unconventional visual style & editing technique syncing to every beat of the sound track. The challenge here was the attentiveness to the details of maintaining the beat & different sound effects mixed with the visual style. As it did not only depend on the images interacting, multiplying & recurring but also on taking all the heroes’ voices, objects’ noises & animals mixed into one insane tune. The composer skillfully combined the 5 controllable properties of sound to create a unique piece of music, designed to be synchronized with the actions of the characters & objects on-screen. Leveling all sounds was key, especially when having a variety of sound effects throughout the copy mixed together.