Albatross | Official Short Film Noir

Albatross - Official Short Film Noir (HD) Tristan, a university student from Auckland finds out about a new restaurant in Rotorua which serves albatross. Tristan travels to Rotorua to try this unique dish, and then immediately jumps off a bridge, why? We're proud to present this film noir inspired short film by FIP Films. Based off of the "Albatross Soup" lateral thinking puzzle with some slight changes by Matthew Naoumov to better fit the film noir genre. Featuring: Directed by: Matthew Naoumov Cinematography by: Matthew Naoumov and Elena Naoumov Edited By: Matthew Naoumov Costume Designs by: Matthew Naoumov Written by: Matthew Naoumov Tristan played by: Matthew Naoumov Hannah played by: Ailey Porter Andrei played by: Lucas Watt Waiter played by: James Stapleton Special thanks to: Meadow Restaurant for letting us film Field Notes: (Spoilers ahead) With this being my last film I had to create for high school, I figured it should be my biggest project yet. This film is based off the infamous "Albatross Soup" lateral thinking puzzle, as I though it was an interesting story to base the film around, plus if you know me well, I would have probably mentioned this puzzle to you at some stage so it was pretty inline with me as a person as well. Originally this film was meant to be longer, especially in the island sequences, however, my lead actress decided to bail on me at one of the worst times possible so some pretty big changes had to be made to the script so that it would work with what I had already filmed with her. Even though I'm a little upset I couldn't make the film like I originally planned, I think it's original version would have been way too long (probably like 15 - 20 min) which would have been over the time limit. Looking back now, having less of the island scenes may have actually made my film better so yeah. Unlike my last film, I wasn't working on this for 7 weeks straight just to complete it, in fact it's production was relatively leisure. However, filming in, y'know the real world presented a whole lot of other challenges. For the island scenes, it took a few weeks before we had a good enough forecast to film, and we could only film on a weekend as the location was an hour away there and back. Plus for the restaurant scene, I wasn't even sure if there would be a restaurant willing to let us film. Luckily we managed to find one, so I'd like to give a huge thanks to the manager of Meadow Restaurant for letting us film. Also this film of course involved going to Rotorua to film 3 mediocre shots (which was totally 100% necessary) although in the end I'd say it was worth it. Of course I can't forget about the bridge scene, and "the incident." Idk why but some guy driving past just decided to yell the n-word at me so I HAD to include that at the end. Every time I watch this film I always see so many things I could have improved, and how much I learned of what to do and what not to do while making it. I honestly think the first scene (The one with Tristan and Hannah) is probably the worst one as the stationary shots make it a little boring, although at least it's kinda funny but it definitely drew on for too long though. In the original script, there was another scene that was basically the same as this so I'm actually really glad I had to get rid of it. Even though I story boarded basically every shot, I could have probably put more thought into the shots. A lot of them a pretty average. Of course there is a handful of good shots but, most of them are pretty mediocre. This really shows just how important pre production is. Also idk if anyone noticed but there's like a billion niche references (18 - 19) in this film, can you find them all? I hope none of you noticed but there is a pretty big plot hole in the film. Because of all the changes I had to make I guess it just slipped through the cracks. The plot hole is; when Tristan leaves a voicemail for Hannah, she knows that he's going to Rotorua to try albatross, so in theory she should have tried to stop him, or should have known that he'd find out about her murdering Andrei. When he returns, she doesn't know why he came back so soon, hence her reaction; "Back so soon? missed me didn't you?" I guess I could just play it off as her forgetting about murdering Andrei, but that's too much of a stretch. Also Tristan saying; "You had to kill him so you could get close to me. It wasn't only about survival, it was so you could be with me." Doesn't feel like a conclusion that was reached very clearly. This once again had to do with all the changes I had to make, as there used to be a scene on the island where Hannah was envious if Tristan and Andrei's friendship, hence the reason for why she killed Andrei. Also, this film won 2 awards at the GDC Film Festival. Best concept and best editing. Very happy for both, especially the concept as I think this was the strongest part of my film. Pretty cool right? © 2026 FIP Films. All rights reserved.