REVIEW: Living With Friends

Family Contact, a Toronto-based film making trio comprised of Zac Tatham, Aaron Manczyk and Efehan Elbi, is about to debut their new web series Living With Friends. After drinking several pints and drunk dialing their agent two nights ago I made a promise that I would review the series on the Daily Pescado. At the time I hadn't seen a single Family Contact film, though after going through their website (http://familycontact.ca) I noticed they have some very enjoyable cartoons and shit.

Living With Friends is a bizarre, unique, hilarious series that would be fun for some of the family. The dry and often awkward sense of humor contrasts the surreal slacker world shared by Zac and Aaron (played by themselves) as they battle eachother for jobs, women, and slinky races. Their boastful series tagline states they are "... trying to make a really good show and make it in an order so it comes off like a TV show." The webisodes are much shorter than syndicated TV shows tend to be (ranging from around five to ten minutes each) they are easy to follow with clear, consistent cinematography and a steady premise for an experimental independent series.

From surfing the internet for costume websites only to pretend to be goth kids in order to impress goth girls to taking a mission through the woods looking for acorns to hock (one dollar a corn!), the friends' back and forth banter is as entertaining as it is genuine. According to Manczyk roughly ten percent of the dialogue is scripted, most of the writing being done primarily through storyboards. Occasionally the sound leveling is off, which is expected when film makers are working on virtually no budget and don't have access to fancy sound equipment and engineering. This results in constant volume manipulation on the viewer's behalf, but the humor and delightful shots make the remote clicking well worth the effort.

I'm quite certain that Family Contact's work will keep improving and will one day be a household name in Canadian film and/or television. Give them a proper film budget and they will give you quality entertainment.

All in all they get 3.5 out of 5. Very fresh ideas, nice camera work. Acting can use workshopping. Proper sound design is needed.

Regards,
J. Pescado