Adam Banks
With each passing year, life seems to get busier and busier, and with this escalation of busy-ness comes an annoying choice: you can either sacrifice something you love doing because the other thing takes up too much time, or you can say “fuck it” and double down on both. For me, Thing 1 was screening and writing about films for Short of the Week (my favorite sidegig ever), and Thing 2 was working as a crew member on feature films (a massive timesuck that I very much love being a part of). In my case, both things involved film, so it was an easy decision to choose the latter option–both.
Towards the end of summer, I started forcing myself to screen more short films (and thus write more) for S/W, and I’m glad I did, because watching more shorts makes you a better filmmaker, or at the very least, a more knowledgeable film nerd. Plus, it’s getting easier to tell the difference between films that are good and films that are great (though the words “good” and “great” both suck as words).
So, what do these shorts have in common besides being featured on our site? They are unique, playful, and surprising. Their creativity warrants multiple viewings. They feature characters that jump off the page like kids closing their books on the last day of school before summer break, and there’s an admirable style to each film that is sometimes hard describe, but works nonetheless. Most importantly, these films are made by filmmakers with a strong, unique voice. In a world where the lowest common denominator is the biggest marketing strategy for getting butts into movie theater seats, a strong voice is refreshing, and it’s what I look for when watching films of any length.
Also, we got Short of the Week sweatshirts this year. Hell yeah.