Short Film Alert: Victor

By Less Lee Moore

Chad Thompson has recently created his first short film, Victor. Over a couple of days during the summer, he and his cast and crew shot the seven-minute film and Chad, who works with Cinema 4D and After Effects as an animator and motion designer, did all of the post-production over the next year. We talked to Chad about the ideas behind the film and what he hopes to create next.

“It’s hard to express how blissful and lucky I felt shooting this,” Chad explains. “I never know if only my closest family and friends are even interested, because so many of the ideas in Victor are humoring myself and my brother, Keith.” Keith, who plays Mr. Angry in the film, is in the band Johnny Headband along with Chad.

The brothers are not only musical compadres, they’ve also been making “absurd videos” since the mid-’90s, says Chad.

“I was really just trying to capture a simple feeling of keeping creativity and ‘making stuff’ in your life, long past when it fits,” muses Chad. “It comes so naturally as a kid, and it slowly gets tougher to get together with your friends and make anything without a grand purpose, or high hopes, or thoughts of financial gain. But all the best times I can think of, I was just getting together with people I loved and making stuff for us.”

So what was the creative genesis behind Victor? “Victor represents that there’s probably a lot of people in your past and present that support you and love you and want you to keep going,” Chad explains. “I guess like Mr. Angry, you can’t always see how many people love and support you until it’s right in front of you.”

This love and support also came in the form of brainstorming with friends and family to create a dolly out of an electric golf cart with a makeshift pedestal on the back, learning how to make props our of Styrofoam and wood, or discovering that a high school friend was able to dig up old marching band uniforms and hats from a forgotten storage room.

What are Chad’s future filmmaking plans? “I just hope I can make another,” laughs Chad. “Right now, my wife and I are working on a short animation that may take six months or so to finish.” Chad notes that he even has a few “live action ideas, which is a pretty big deal to me! It seems like ideas that I want to shoot only come around every couple of years. Maybe Victor will open up a new way of thinking for me.”

Victor will be screening on January 6 at the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan as part of the Mitten Movie Project as well as The Online Film Festival, which runs January 1 – 28. Be sure to check the film’s website for future festival screenings.