Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving November 2012, four boys in a red SUV pull into a gas station after spending time at the mall buying sneakers and talking to girls. With music blaring, one boy exits the car and enters the store, a quick stop for a soda and a pack of gum. A man and a woman pull up next to the boys in the station, making a stop for a bottle of wine. The woman enters the store and an argument breaks out when the driver of the second car asks the boys to turn the music down. 3½ minutes and ten bullets later, one of the boys is dead. 3½ MINUTES dissects the aftermath of this fatal encounter.

An important example of amateur filmmaking during this era, That Ice Ticket was made by Angela Murray Gibson who ran Gibson Studios in the small community of Casselton, North Dakota. Gibson cast community members in her productions, taking on multiple roles herself, writing, directing and acting in the films, operating the camera during filming, then processing the footage and editing the finished picture together. Here she plays a young woman managing multiple male suitors with the "help" of her mischievous kid brother.