I followed an all-time dream and made my first film. I made a film!

For a secret Santa present at work, my housemate was given a calendar of painfully sexist jokes called Jokes You Can't Tell Your Mother! It was an ironic present for sure because every day his workmates—all women—would ask him to read out the day’s joke, and then give him steely glares and silence when he did.

“Why d'you buy me this?!” he’d often find himself saying.

He’s finished working there now. But ever since then, once a week, he’d make these short webcam videos, reading one of the jokes to send to his old workmates, presumably to keep the in-joke going. I saw him make a few of these, and they were hilarious—cute, terrible, low-fi and usually inexplicably featuring our house-mascot, Chutney, a stuffed pink pony, and one of those good-luck-charm waving cat things.

When in-jokes go too far

I’ve always wanted to make a short film, but I’ve never had the courage, the means, or a strong enough idea. Making a short film has been on my bucket list for a long time, so I thought, ‘Screw it! I’ll ask if I can direct his next video!’

There were two things I wanted to do with is video. One, it had to have the best production values I could achieve with the equipment I have at home; and two, I had to film and edit it all in one day.

So here it is! (See below.) It was put together using a cheap Panasonic Lumix compact camera, iMovie, and PowerPoint. It’s funny to me, and hopefully not offensive.

Oh, and the music is an excerpt from Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe’s “Sonata For Cello Alone” performed by David Pereira. It’s a beautiful piece of music, and if I’ve done the wrong thing using it, I’ll be happy to take it down. (Please buy a copy of it if you like it.)