Introduction:
This Conversation Has Been Removed is a modern silent comedy about a man and woman who become engaged in a prolonged, hostile exchange over social media and begin to realise something peculiar. The short explores the idea that in the heat of a comment war, it’s easy to forget that the alt-right, manosphere goon / entitled, woke idiot you’re arguing with is actually a person. Someone knows them. Someone loves them. And, occasionally, that someone is you.
Inspiration:
Mark Hennigan (Screenwriter): This scenario is essentially a stress dream that plays out in my head any time I ever find myself tempted to react to something online. I basically wrote this as a warning to myself, and a reminder to think about the limited ways that we do communicate with each other and the profound ways in which we don’t. We all know that the vast majority of communication has little to do with the actual words we use, and yet for some reason we are so drawn to an extremely limited and limiting word-based dialogue online. It’s absolutely not good for us. At the same time though, this is a comedy, because there is something tragically hilarious about how passionate we are about arguing with each other online and how utterly terrible we are at convincing each other.
The Process:
Andrew Nolan (Director): We shot the film in Walthamstow, London, over two days way back in 2024. As the film is mainly just faces responding to phones and contains zero dialogue, it was a bit of a leap of faith in many ways. We’d call action; there’d be a few minutes of near silence apart from our actors tapping lightly on their phones and the gentle roll of a camera being pushed on a dolly by our phenomenal DOP Patrick Jordan. Then we’d call cut and review those subtle moves and performances. Once shot, the task was to inject some pace and comedic rhythms back in during post. Timing is everything in comedy, so Irish musicians James Tebbitt, David Anthony Curley and Dylan Lynch helped us recreate the vocal rhythms of the typed messages through intricate sound design and drums. It was quite a time-consuming process, but we’re really proud of the results.
What It Means to Be a Finalist:
We’re extremely grateful to have been selected as a finalist at Worcester Film Festival, which has, by all accounts, quickly built a reputation as a highlight on the independent circuit. It’s been gratifying over our festival journey to see our 7-minute silent film spring to life when accompanied by audience laughter. It’s also incredible to be recognised with nominations for Best Comedy and Best Editing.
Where to Watch / Follow:
You can follow our ongoing festival journey at instagram.com/thisconversationhasbeenremoved. And if you’re so inclined, you can find our personal handles there to check out our other projects.
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