Awash as I’ve been in music videos for the last week or so, I took a time out to watch a short film some jerk recommended on twitter. The short is the latest effort from director Todd Strauss-Schulson, who’s best known for directing A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, his earlier short Valibation, and more he received some attention for his baller camera test that took the kind of advanced robotic camera rigs they’ve used on, say, Gravity and applied them to Busby Berkely-style choreography. (Someone’s going to smarten up and make that happen one day).
In any event, I found the short film funny and exceptionally well put together and I think you will too. Maybe it’s having relationships on the brain after watching the amazing Her, but I appreciate the cold-yet-hopeful wisdom baked into this story, illustrated and executed with sophisticated stylistic flourish.
I reached out to Todd for some words on where his head was at coming up with it, and he had this to say:
I went through a pretty rough break up this year and it was not great. I wrote and made this in the midst of all that. It’s a tombstone and love letter and I hope you enjoy it.
It may interest you that Mr. Strauss-Schulson is currently in pre-production on a meta-horror film called Final Girls that will bend a story around the horror movie trope of the “last girl standing” or “final girl.” Development was announced a few years ago, and I can now exclusively report that… development continues! There’s not actually any new details to report, except that the production is on track to start shooting in April. That’s good news- I’m excited to see more from Todd & Co asap.
Let me know what you think of the short in the comments.