Memorize

It is the near future. The population have been implanted with chips which record their every move. Law enforcement officers can then see exactly what happened at the scene of a crime. One particularly grisly murder needs to be solved and our masked and silent protagonist tracks down the suspects one by one.

Memorize, written and directed by Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Eriksson is seriously cool. I wasn’t sure about it to begin with – it seemed to be so full of science fiction tropes that the territory upon which it treads was in danger of being just a little too familiar.

Yet that is one of its strengths – we are all fully conversant in its imagery and, considering its brevity, that means we know exactly where we are from the beginning. We can just settle in and enjoy the action – and as that constitutes 90% of the plot I’m happy.

Plus, it’s a gadget feature! The weapons effects are truly well done, particularly if you take in to account the fact that this short movie has (I suspect) a budget that doesn’t go anywhere near 5 figures. While many science fiction shorts go for the ethereal and fx-lite option, Memorize is packed with action and extremely well realised effects. Hats off to Ramburg and Eriksson.

Other shorts that are, like Memorize, shoot 'em up or chase 'em down movies sometimes fall in to the trap of focusing on the shooting and chasing with little regard to visual backstory, both in terms of realistic future technology and setting.  Memorize obviously has had a lot of thought go in to both.  

If you would like to learn more about this short movie and how it was made, then visit Ramberg and Eriksson's production blog - I particularly like the weapons and tech concepts they have on it.