Queen's Day

Queen's Day marks the 2nd directorial installment from filmmaker Jeffrey W. Ruggles. Continuing in the direction of his debut feature Bicycle Lane, he continues his work in post-mumblecore exploration, allowing this film/scene to unfold naturalistically but with a controlled visual aesthetic that is underscored with purpose. This is in contrast to the frequently employed early mumble-core aesthetic of found-feeling actor performances and oftentimes wobbly to no visual direction at all which many directors use. Every aesthetic has it's place, but in this case Ruggles synthesizes the directed visual and natural performance worlds quite well, teamed with the phenomenal photography of Mario Panagiotopoulos. Ruggles pulls excellent performances (from himself and especially the remarkably watchable and talented Kristin Slaysman - someone to keep your eye on). Additionally Ruggles pulls an amazing creative support team together from the clean and handy sound-work by Dennis Hamlin to the tasteful and sparse editing of Josh Crockett to the beautiful bass-work of Eric McCann in the closing soundtrack piece. This short film begs another feature and hopefully serves as a tasty teaser to his next larger work.