TV & Streaming

If you only watch one new short film this week, make it “Ovation.” That is, if you haven’t seen it already. Over the last nine days, director Noam Kroll and actor Luke Barnett racked up close to a million views across Instagram and X for their one-take short that attempts to answer a question every film festival attendee has asked themselves: What the hell do actors think about during those endless standing ovations?

Inspired by the video of Joaquin Phoenix looking bored and confused during the “Eddington” standing ovation at Cannes, the five-minute film stays on Barnett’s face as he enjoys an infinite stream of applause for his film at the 2028 Cannes Film Festival. He displays an entire character arc without a word, going from gratitude to awkwardness to boredom to illness and finally death — and it culminates with a brutally hilarious final title card.

It’s the kind of concept that every filmmaker wants: fresh, simple, and instantly relatable. And these were the perfect collaborators to execute it: Barnett cut his teeth making viral FunnyOrDie videos in the early 2010s with the likes of Ryan Gosling before writing and starring in the feature “Faith Based.” Kroll’s directed five features, writes a weekly newsletter, and hosts the micro-budget filmmaking podcast “Show, Don’t Tell.” But as Barnett and Kroll told IndieWire during a recent interview, they almost backed out of making “Ovation.”

“I think I texted Noam at first being like, ‘I’ve got an idea we could do for no money really quickly.’ And he liked it and all, but then I talked myself out of it,” Barnett said. “And I was just like, ‘This probably isn’t worth doing.’ And then Noam was like, ‘Just record it on your phone in your house.’ And so I literally just did an improvised one on my phone and sent it to him. Ten minutes later, Noam was like, ‘We got to record this.’”

Kroll believed the concept was so strong it could have worked even with a lesser performance. But once he saw Barnett’s self-tape, he knew the idea had real legs.

“Initially, the thing I loved about it was it could be this Andy Warhol kind of thing. Where even if his performance wasn’t as dynamic as it ended up being, it could still work, just on this art film level,” Kroll said. “When I saw he conveyed so many different emotions in five minutes, I was like, ‘This really actually does tell a story.’ And then it made it really clear I think, to both of us, that it could be done in one take and in this very simplistic way.”

“Ovation” is proof that you don’t need a lot of time or money to make a great short. Barnett and Kroll went from idea to finished product in five days, and their only expense was renting two hours of soundstage time. They called in favors with friends to assemble a crew for two hours, during which they were able to shoot four takes.

The original plan called for an LED or rear projection screen to fill the background with a festival audience, but Kroll realized that simplicity was of the essence on such a small shoot. Instead of creating a digital background, they convinced a few actor friends to lend their services as extras. That added a human touch while streamlining logistics.

“We wanted to do this really quick because we were calling in so many favors with actor friends and people that were going to come and help,” said Kroll. “We literally had two hours booked at the studio, so I felt if we’re going to use the projector and all this technical stuff, it’s just going to complicate it. And really, the whole thing is like Luke’s performance, so anything that’s going to detract from that was going to hurt the film.”

“It ended up working out really well, because the studio had these two big soft box lights,” he said. “It was a very small room, so we had to basically shoot at a 40mm lens, two lights. We couldn’t move the camera. We were so literally boxed in and restricted to what we could do, but it was exactly what we needed. Nothing more, nothing less.”

For most filmmakers, the ultimate goal of a short film is to land a prestigious festival premiere. But despite making a film about festivals, Barnett and Kroll opted for a different approach.

They released “Ovation” online immediately, figuring that someone else could beat them to the concept if they sat on the film for too long. The strategy is clearly paying off. While they they might have closed some festival doors by making the film publicly available, the film’s online response is already a bigger victory.

“We literally submitted it to SXSW and Slamdance the day before we released it. We originally thought like, ‘Okay, this is a good little festival piece,’” Barnett said. “But it was actually my manager, I was talking to her, and she said, ‘Just one thing to think about… How long do you want to wait to release it at the risk of, does somebody make a silly TikTok about it? Or does ‘The Studio’ Season 2 do it?’ I didn’t want this to come out after those things where it’s like, ‘Oh, well they watched that season of ‘The Studio’ and just did a worse version.’”

In terms of next steps, Kroll and Barnett are keeping their options open. Some kind of festival run isn’t off the table, as it’s possible that the film’s online popularity will entice some programmers to waive their premiere requirements. Both men pointed out that festival interest also grows exponentially after your film finds some success at its first one, and the viral popularity of “Ovation” could effectively allow them to skip that first hurdle.

But whatever comes next is almost a bonus: “Ovation” has found a bigger audience than many shorts that make it into the biggest festivals, with the hundreds of comments praising the brutal commentary it offers on the state of indie film distribution. It’s a showcase for Barnett’s acting and writing and Kroll’s directing that has already been viewed over a million times. The online applause is thunderous, and the digital ovation doesn’t end when you leave the theater.