Table of Contents
Peter is irked by a pious article online, so he leaves a comment. Jill reads it, disagrees, and things escalate β quickly. What neither of them realizes is that the stranger they're abusing is lying in bed right beside them. Directed and edited by Andrew Nolan and written by Mark Hennigan, This Conversation Has Been Removed is a wordless comedy about the limited ways we communicate and the profound ways we don't.
It's a small film with a peculiar frequency, and audiences keep dialing into it β most recently at Stony Brook Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Short. Now it arrives at HollyShorts, screening in the birthplace of modern cinema.
Key Takeaways
- A silent comedy that many viewers only realize was silent after it ends β the conceit and the story land at the same moment.
- Built around a deceptively simple image: two people typing in bed, oblivious that the enemy online is the person beside them.
- Made by a wide net of new collaborators, beginning with lead actor Simon Ashe-Browne passing along a script from a writer Nolan had never met.
Below, Nolan and Hennigan talk timing without dialogue, killing a darling that took days to build, and why the person you're screaming at online might be someone you love.
Interview
What drew you to make this film, and why this story, why now?
Mark (writer): This Conversation Has Been Removed was designed to be a silent comedy about a very modern lack of communication. It explores the limited ways that we do communicate with each other and the profound ways in which we don't. Nobody needs a lecture on this, but the best stories all share one thing in common: they remind us of the important things we always deep down know, but often struggle to remember. And one thing we all know, but all struggle with remembering is that that alt-right antichrist / woke, blue-pilled, entitled idiot online is actually a person. Someone knows them. Someone loves them. And, occasionally, that someone is you.
What surprised you most about the filmmaking process, on set or in post?
Andrew (director): When I read the script I thought it was extremely funny. But when making it, because of the complete lack of dialogue, the shoot wasn't exactly a riot. Instead of trying not to laugh because a crackling dialogue scene was in full flow, I'd say "action" and there would be a couple of minutes of silence as our camera crawled slowly towards our barely moving actors. It was also eerie compared to other comedy shoots I've done. We had to trust our instincts that it would all make more sense when assembled.
Mark: As a writer, there are inevitably some things that will just play out differently on set than you imagined in your head. I really fretted at times with the direction the actors were taking the characters, even though they were both brilliant and so, so funny in each individual moment. I thought: can they still land the plane if they drift too far from what I had envisioned? I needn't have worried. Stevie and Simon surprised, delighted, challenged, and then brought the whole thing home. They didn't perform something in my head β they breathed a full life into it.
What moment in the film feels most like you, or like something only you could have made?
Mark: My biggest fear in life is "medium talk." Small talk is dull but fine, and big talks are great. But when you have to communicate actual information in a limited space and time? I hate it. It gives me hives. So this feels like a story that came right out of a fear in my soul, where information without context ruins your life.
Andrew: There's a montage in the middle that I'm really proud of, where our characters are changing positions as they send messages throughout the night. We were nearly out of time on set so we had to rattle through them, but I hope my experience with online sketch comedy helped me collaborate with our incredibly game and inventive actors to find the best and funniest sequence for that moment.
What was the hardest creative decision you made while making the film?
Andrew: Throughout the film the online messages type onto screen. We filmed the messages on old iPhone screens using a macro lens, and mapped them into 3D space as the shots are constantly moving. My hope is that it gives them a real, tactile feel. But there was one shot, of the two characters lying catatonic in bed staring at the ceiling after a prolonged spat. Mark and I had an idea to populate the room with the residue of arguments the film had skipped past β clouds of hurtful words lingering in our characters' minds. We filmed scores of messages individually and painstakingly mapped them one by one into the shot. It took days and days to get right. And then when it was finally finished, I had the sobering realisation that the shot was much more elegant, that our actors' performances cut through more, that the beat was simply funnier without those words in the shot at all. The shot straight out of the camera was all we needed. It hurt, but I guess that's the definition of killing your darlings.
What tool, technique, or collaborator helped most during production?
Andrew: Having Patrick Jordan ISC on board as Director of Photography was an incredible honour. He's lensed some of the best TV comedies coming out of the UK and Ireland and two Oscar-nominated shorts. Without any dialogue, and with the audience required to read long passages of text, we had real restrictions in composition and shot pacing. My history with comedy has usually relied heavily on the edit to control comedic timing, which was no longer possible β we needed to hold shots long enough for audiences to read the messages. Paddy encouraged me to lean into those restrictions and make a virtue of them, and to trust my sense of timing on set rather than in the edit room. Every time I got stuck, he had a smart solution.
What does it mean to have your film selected for HollyShorts?
Mark: I'm from a part of Ireland that even Irish people think is rural and isolated. All of my neighbours are sheep. Things like this don't happen to people from where I'm from. If I told my mam I was going to be a screenwriter when I was 18, I might as well have told her I was going to be an astronaut. To be playing at HollyShorts β to be screening at the TCL Chinese Theatre β it's beyond a dream. I still can't quite wrap my head around it.
Andrew: I love seeing new, incredible pieces of work and meeting the passionate artists behind them at festivals. Looking at some of the legendary shorts that have previously screened HollyShorts, I'm beyond excited to see what this year has in store. And the fact that it takes place at probably the most famous cinema on the planet, in the birthplace of modern cinema as we know it, is truly special.
Where do you see this film going next?
Andrew: This Conversation Has Been Removed is a very low-key film in many ways. It's really just a lot of silent shots of people typing on their phones. But it always seems to spring to life with an audience. They just seem to dial into its peculiar frequency. We were delighted to win the Audience Award for Best Short at Stony Brook Film Festival. We're still early on our festival journey, so my hope is that it continues to be programmed, finding new audiences to make laugh and think.
Main Cast & Crew
- Peter β Simon Ashe-Browne
- Jill β Stevie Martin
- Director/Editor β Andrew Nolan
- Writer β Mark Hennigan
- Producers β Andrew Nolan, Ronan Raftery, Paula Romy
- Director of Photography β Patrick Jordan ISC
- Production Designer β Sabina Pieroni
- Composers β James Tebbitt, David Anthony Curley, Dylan Lynch
- Colourist β Grace Weston
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