The Clerk and the Cocksman // First Read Radio

The Clerk and the Cocksman

The Clerk and the Cocksman // First Read Radio

Turning short films scripts into radio plays! First Read Radio is a beefed up table read professionally recorded with voice actors and sound designed by a team of top-notch audiophiles all while under the direction of an experienced storytelling team.

Submit a ScreenplayMore Episodes

One man needs to get out of his slump with the ladies but the headquarters of his mind fall into chaos and the only one that can stop a dangerous coup is the lone neuron from the mail room.

Credits

Written by: Nick Coleman
Directed by: Gary Jones
Sound Supervisor and Editor: Ryan Gottshall
Produced by: Awfully Good Media

Cast

Narrator: Rayne Potter
Steve: Kyle Brady
Agent Cocksman: Sean Crampton
Wernicke: Brian Lally
Brent: Connor Green
Todd: William Gabriel Grier
Boca: Jeffrey Oliphant

Recorded at Spacewalk Sound
www.spacewalksound.com


Kallisti // Featured Short

Kallisti

‘The Original Snub’ of Eris, goddess of chaos, and her Apple of Discord.

A short film about a Greek Myth, Kallisti is a live-action/animation fantasy piece. It retells the origins of the Trojan war - only a different version. ‘The Original Snub’ of Eris, goddess of chaos, and her Apple of Discord. This chapter of Greek Myth can shed new light on our chaotic condition in these discordant days. Directed by Part Bird, the film uses colourful contrasts and miniatures to create the grand scale of the Gods, with a fun added touch of animated blips which give the film its magical tone.

Can you tell us what inspired you to bring this story to life?

I had recently read the works of a few writers from the Psychedelic Revolution.
My last film, QTR is a translation of one of Robert Anton Wilson’s famous exercises from Prometheus Rising.

His works opens a certain kind of wormhole. One off-shoot is Discordianism and its various writings.

The Principia Discordia helps develop an appreciation for Eris and her wily ways.
Plus Greek myths don’t have licensing walls.

Tell us about the stylish direction and the use of mixed media.

I’m a life-long fan of Terry Gilliam and his spectrum of work. The major lessons and observations that I want to put to employ are:
The use of miniatures to achieve a sense of Scale and Cinematic Presence.
A conversation with live-action footage and animation to explore the Fantastique.
Set Pieces that function as simple, yet opulent tableaux for Theatrical drama.
Special Effects and optical gags that are woven into the fabric of the film itself.

What was the most challenging scene for you to film?

Honestly, the bubblegum scene. It was difficult to blow a perfect bubble time after time.
The gum loses its’ chew. Jaws give out. And you shouldn’t pre-chew what goes in Talent’s mouth.
With such an over-engineered film, it’s a great thing that it was bubblegum.

Do you have any tips or advice to offer fellow filmmakers?

Reduce the physical scale to increase the cinematic scale.
A lot of interviews and isms say to figure out 'that one room’ film.
This is my version of that.

What do you hope people will take away from Kallisti?

A willingness to revisit Classics and Epics with a hope to import their truths and not just relay the story.

What are your favorite short films?

Bliss Burger - by Adam Wright

The Box - by Dusan Kastelic

Input/Output - by Terri Timely


The Big Red Bastard // Daily Pick

The Big Red Bastard

A grizzled cop must bring to justice a deadly and mysterious menace who has left his city in ruins and his life in chaos.

VFX Breakdown


Meka Blade // Daily Pick

Meka Blade

After a decade of civil war, two opposing clans are invaded by an outside menace known as The Overlord. In the midst of chaos, three clan members are reunited for the sake of survival. Loyalties will shift, love is reborn and friendships are tested.


Face Down in the Back of The Car // Daily Pick

Face Down In The Back Of A Car

Shot entirely in the back of a car, the film follows three aspiring criminals as they grab a local troublemaker who owes them money, throw him into the back of a car and speed off into the night. The macho facade crumbles, and the journey gradually descends into chaos, as the men drive through the night looking for the elusive perfect spot to teach their captive a lesson.

Director's Vision

It is an ancient cinematic trope: a man is kidnapped, thrown into the back of a car, and led away to a violent end.

In Face Down in the Back of a Car, I wanted to explore what we don’t see in this scenario. The long drive between those two stops where the macho posturing fades, the adrenaline drops, and boredom and awkwardness sets in. A group of men, stuck in a car together, for hours.

These characters had to be real, not the usual romanticised badass hardmen. Beneath the bravado, they are deeply insecure and pathetic - men trying to find redemption through a violent act they are too scared to enact.

This film portrays the emptiness of aggressive projected masculinity - the neuroses that propel it, and the shallow depths that lie behind it.


Flux // Featured Short

Flux

'Flux' is an experimental art film which explores the effects of click-bait tribalism in a consumer, corporate driven age of identity and division.

The film depicts a world teetering on the brink of self-destruction, lost somewhere between harmony and chaos. Written, devised and directed by emerging UK artist, musician and photographer DFTCNT, 'Flux' showcases a dynamic, diverse and bold cast - shot in glorious 10,000 monochrome frames-per-second by the brilliant young cinematographer Henry Gill. The director broke down a few questions from us to tell us about the intentions and depictions in the film.

Can you tell me a little bit more about Flux, how did this film come about?

I had the original idea of the central character in ‘Flux’ (played by Georgia Pirozzi) around 6 years ago but was unable to raise the money for that project. But the idea of the character and basic premise stayed with me.

Then as we were tweaking and mixing the drums on the single ‘Flux’, I could vividly see a tableau of warring characters form around that central figure and the whole journey of the story clicked into place.

Originally I had wanted to cast myself as the central character, but decided that since this was my first proper stab as director, I should focus solely on that. I found Georgia through a mutual friend, and she did a stunning job - I was very lucky to get such a brave and committed performer.

The song sonically explores the relationship between harmony and chaos and the film became an organic extension of this idea, but in a strange way the film existed before the music. The budget on ‘Flux’ was small, but everyone was fully committed and we were beyond lucky to have such a wonderful cast and crew who made it a very special hustle project.

With such a wide range of events and depictions, how did you choose what to show?

There are many strands at work in Flux and it’s hard to pin point clear, single themes, as the whole piece feels interconnected and multifaceted.

Because the idea of ‘Flux’ grew with time while I was working on the music, the characters had time to gradually develop and really wrote themselves. I never necessarily set out to depict anyone or anything. It was often commented upon as we made ‘Flux’, that it was as if the film was making its-self … this made me laugh, but there is a certain truth in it, it was an almost mystical process at times and the outcome feels strangely prophetic.

In terms of events, I never had a specific political or social event in mind. In fact, I had developed the full story of ‘Flux’ before many of the current social and political movements dominating Western media had taken hold. For me, it was about a deeper sense of rising, inner human conflict and entering a new phase of global consciousness. How internalisation leads to alienation and physical violence. And how certain power structures are stoking division and tribalism for their own personal agendas.

I am interested generally in the deep internalisation of people right now. We were assured the tech age would bring us closer and increase our capacity for communication, but instead it feels as a species we have regressed. We stare mindlessly at screens, digest endless click-bait fed to us by profit driven algorithms which feed on our most extreme emotions and primal reactions.

Big tech building and exacerbating identity games for click-bait and profit was definitely a key theme for me. In some ways ‘Flux’ has an almost advertisement quality, some people have commented it looks like a Calvin Klein advert from the 90’s and there is a definite surreal sense of consumerism-gone-wrong at the heart of it.

Tell us about the monochromatic style and high speed frame-rates, how you achieved it technically and what you wanted it to represent?

Henry Gill was the cinematographer and did a fantastic job. Henry and I agreed that the film should have a considered, painterly quality and this would contrast beautifully with the sometimes aggressive tone of the content. In some ways ‘Flux’ is a traditional black and white film. You can turn off the soundtrack and the whole story will still be clear - and it's very much this purist, traditional approach to character, emotion and camera which interested me. I was a jobbing photographer for a few years and you learn simple and pure frames always say the most.

The idea of monochrome appealed to me as most electronic music videos are playing with bold colour palettes right now and I always think if everyone is doing one thing, you should probably do the opposite. Plus the monochrome added to the portrait quality of the shots and connected it to the whole heritage of silent film, such as Dreyer, Lang and early Hitchcock, of whom I’m a big fan.

I always saw the whole film in strangled slow motion, to build that ultimate suspense and tension. We went with an Arri Alexa to technically achieve this. The camera set up was quite complex and Henry had 2 assistant operators (Jannick Fjeldsoe & Kieran Poynter). But setting up each shot and loading the footage was somewhat time consuming and a large portion of the day was often spent waiting around for footage to load. This meant we had to be selective with the footage we filmed and always get straight to the heart of the action, as there was simply no time to waste.

What has this film taught you about filmmaking, and furthermore, society in general?

Filming ‘Flux’ was fascinating as we shot it during the height of the first year of Covid lockdowns in London. So when the characters are venting their rage and frustrations, the actors themselves, many of whom had rarely worked that year or even left the house in some cases, are also releasing their own personal frustrations. The atmosphere in the studio was beyond palpable and it often felt more like a therapy session than a film set. Some of the actors said they felt a true sense of inner calm after the shoot that they had not felt for some time, just by releasing so much pent up emotion.

In such a heightened environment it taught me a great deal about handling performers and offering them a space to quickly access raw and deep emotions. The crew often commented after the shoot that they had rarely felt so connected to the actors on a set - I wanted a true intimacy to exist that would then be reflected in the honesty of the material. I would not recommend that for every shoot as it can often descend into unmanaged chaos, but for this it worked well.

Watching people react to ‘Flux’ has been fascinating. It sometimes seems often how people react is less to do with the film its-self but rather where they are personally (both emotionally and geographically) amid the current global chaos and heightened social tribalisms. So it has received all kinds of feedback and comments, much of which completely contradicts each other. But it does seem to act as a mirror to each person's own experience of the last few years.

‘Flux’ did quite well on the film festival circuit this summer and it was moving that so many different audiences around the world felt as connected to it as they did. I received the kindest comments from everywhere from New York to Iran, Russia to Venezuela, Singapore to Paris - which I suppose proves that the film in some way did manage to tap into something universal.

Do you have any tips or advice to offer fellow filmmakers?

Be brave, make the work that you feel the deepest, rise above, stay calm and never give up. You can do this.

Added to 'The Sound of Shorts' playlist on Spotify.


Order & Chaos // Featured Short

Order & Chaos

Emergence of patterns in chaos or the way we fall in love.

Complexity of harmony, fragile balance between several tension points, emergence of patterns in chaos or the way we fall in love.

True beauty is everywhere.

Hard to reach, ephemeral and mysterious, or simply hidden from us, revealed in a blink or a few time last forever, it shapes our ability to feel, to observe and to marvel about Nature and other beings.

But are we still able to do so ?
Modern life has weakened our eyes, blurred our attention, night skies has been obliterated by the city lights, noise covers silence increasingly.
Everything is going so fast that it requires a lot of energy to freeze frame and contemplate what universe has to offer.

As a love letter to contemplation, Order & Chaos is an attempt to reveal the beauty we forgot or ignored, how fragile and precious its presence is, and why human is progressively losing it.

Can you tell me a little bit about Order & Chaos, how did this film come about?

The idea of this film came after directing my 2 previous shorts (Novae & Intra) that are all about cosmos and astrophysics laws, I wanted to "go back to earth" and to "humanity", creating something more intimate and poetic.

So initially, Voice over is reading out a love letter to a lost girlfriend, telling how much he misses her, how beautiful and eternal she is and how he tried his best to be by her side but it wasn't enough.

At one point, I was hoping the audience would intuitively understand that it's actually Humanity talking to Nature. Humanity is represented by those spaceships called monoliths.

To let you know my initial intentions (but i don't really want to explain the film that much, i prefer audience to have it's own interpretation), I assumed the storyline takes place in a far future, where Humanity within ecologic crisis faded away from the surface of the planet, leaving a naked Nature, gorgeous but somehow corrupted (the color pallet of this film goes to pale white to rotten green/blue).

The monoliths (humanity) have to hatch from the ground, in order to find another place to bloom, leaving a beautiful yet uninhabitable earth, like the voice over realising his ex girlfriend is too good for him, but thankful, grateful for her giving meaning to his chaos.

What about the process, is everything CGI? Or did you use some real photography?

The "making of" (attached just below) explains a lot of my process, there is both CGI (drone shots + monolith) and macro photography (nature, cosmos shots), in order to reveal the similarity of nature's patterns whatever the scale through fractals and fluid laws (like a lighting bolt / a dead tree / or a blob mushroom or cyclone / galaxy), this process to tell that nature's beauty is everywhere but hidden, hard to reach.


A Hole // Daily Pick

A HOLE

The world is on the verge of being swallowed by a black hole. As chaos abounds, one city turns to wealthy entrepreneur, Rob Bilford, whose “Escape Lottery” offers the only chance at continuing the human legacy. Wary of the entire structure surrounding this celebrated lottery, Rana Ralorina, a surfer, decides to ditch her lottery ticket for the chance to catch a cosmic wave. In and outside of a black hole’s gravitational pull, Rob and Rana discover time to take on a new meaning...


Remember // Daily Pick

Remember

Set in 1970s America, we see a snippet into the chaotic life of an Irish immigrant family as they struggle to come to terms with their son's rebellion.


Ghost Eye // Featured Short

Ghost Eye

Johnny Supro is a washed up taxi driver, tired with life and stuck in the underbelly of society

"Ghost Eye" wrestles through the fiery underbelly of society. Johnny Supro is a taxi-driving nobody struggling with pointlessness, booze, and insanity. He lives with Amber and Grace in chaos, codependency, and filth. Deep inside their madness there's an unusual spark of beauty waiting to be discovered. One night Johnny listens to the insane story of a huge man with a bandaged arm. It's going to be an intriguing ride. Directors Wouter Sel & Thijs De Cloedt paint a surreal and grim reality with little place for hope, driving their main character into insanity.

Filmmakers Motivation

Instead of pursuing that perfect 3 act story structure with a happy ending, we prefer taking people on a somewhat discomforting journey, exploring emotions that are rarely highlighted in films. Resentment, pointlessness and being completely stuck in life are feelings we can make a meaningful connection with. They hold an incredibly touching sentiment that is thoroughly worth talking about.

The film definitely takes us on a wild, raw and unique ride. Magnificently narrated by record producer and musician Chris Goss, 'Ghost Eye' really brings forward society's misfits. The peculiar style was intensely crafted by Walter and Thijs, which intensified the story's uncomfortable and filthy setting.

Ghost Eye's Technique

Everything in the film is hand drawn. It's a process that just can not be matched with any other technique. We really want the audience to feel the hands of the makers, because it contains that tiny, spontaneous piece of magic that adds so much character to the film.


Rocket // Daily Pick

Rocket

Barricaded in the safety of a closet, a young couple tries to distract themselves from the chaotic world outside.

Director’s Statement

After doing a couple large-scale shorts I really wanted to make something small and intimate, which led me and a crew of my friends to create ROCKET. I wrote a script that my producer and I really loved and we set out to make it for that reason - because we loved it. Without the pressure of a large budget or crew, we were able to just enjoy the process of crafting this short, which takes place entirely in my roommate’s closet. Though the film's location is small, the world of the film is made large by the talented actors and crew members who brought the script to life. Now that the film has completed its festival run, I’m very excited to finally be able to share ROCKET with the world - a small film with a lot of heart, that was made for the cost of a toy rocket.


Hot Dog // Daily Pick

Hot Dog

A group of coworkers attempt to rescue a dog locked in a hot car. Chaos ensues in a single shot.

Directors Statement

I wanted to throw out all my usual tricks (fast cuts, dolly moves, light cues) and see if I could make something really simple and performance focused -- hence the single shot. But then I got ambitious and my creativity took over and we ended up with this super complicated and choreographed piece. I wanted it to feel overwhelming in its tension and anxiety, and I think doing it as a oner never gives you a chance to catch your breath. I've been pitching it as "1917 but with idiots in a parking lot" and hopefully it brings a smile to people in these dark times.


Meka Blade // Short Trailer

Meka Blade

After a decade of civil war, two opposing clans are invaded by an outside menace led by their master The Overlord. In the midst of the chaos, three characters from these two clans are reunited. Loyalties will shift, love is reborn, and friendships are tested.


Monkey See // Daily Pick

Monkey See

A couple engage in a talk of personal matters, oblivious to the chaos happening all around them.


The old ones call it chaos // Daily Short Picks

Les Anciens l'appelaient CHAOS

(The Old One's Called it Chaos)

One night, Pierre decides to go out of his house to follow a strange white light. His family does not agree with that.