Today a tiny short film I made for $50 in 2 hours with Luke Barnett just got an exclusive release by Variety – not even 2 weeks after we shot it.

I think it’s a great case in point for just making your thing and not worry about the outcome, so I want to share some backstory here.

Last month, Luke called me with an idea – What if we made a short film based on those never-ending standing ovations at major film festivals?

Everyone talks about how bizarre it is that each year filmmakers compete to see whose film will get the longest ovation. And how uncomfortable it must be to stand there for 15 or 20 minutes as a room filled with thousands of people applaud endlessly.

That sparked the concept, which was shot in a single take without any dialogue. The whole thing is centered on Luke’s performance, as he goes through every possible emotion while trying to withstand the deafening applause.

There are a lot of ways we could have put this film together. 

We could have raised money and made it bigger, turning it into a more complex production with a larger cast.

But just because an idea is good, doesn’t mean it needs to be big.

From the get-go, I loved the idea of keeping this as minimal as possible. One shot. A few actors. No dialogue. No music. Basically no editing, other than some minor sound work and adding credits.

That approach would guarantee we could make it, and get it out in a timely fashion before someone else might beat us to the punch.

Once we decided to move ahead, we called some actor friends, met at a small studio, and shot 5 takes of the performance. Take #4 was the one we chose.

It took less than an hour to edit and add credits, and then it was done.

We had considered going the festival route, but after sharing it privately with some friends in the industry, we had an amazing response. And once Variety said they wanted to run it as an exclusive, we decided to go all in on the digital release.

Other short films I’ve made have cost thousands of dollars and many months of my time, only to wait even longer for the occasional festival acceptance which never really moved the needle career-wise.

This one was made for nothing and will be seen more widely than many of my other projects – proving that festival placement is not the only way to get eyes on your work. And reinforcing the idea of just making your art without expectation and trusting that good things will come from it.

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You can also check out the Variety article here.

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