Virginia | A short Film Poem on Addiction ft. Chomsky the Gnome
A good friend of mine Robert Donaghy recently got a prostate cancer diagnosis. He'd been putting off a medical for a while, so he gave up smoking just for the morning, then kept pushing it a little further, by not smoking that afternoon, or the next day, until one day he just decided not to smoke again. He hasn't smoked in over eight weeks now. The health check was the mechanism for identification of an abnormal PSA count (Prostate-Specific Antigen) and was the trigger for further investigations.
A couple of days after quitting, the results came back. Hopefully it seems to be caught early, so we're all keeping everything crossed that treatment goes well. Good luck Rob!
Shortly after the diagnosis he read me a poem he'd written, and it’s such a powerful, honest, heart-felt piece about addiction that I knew immediately I wanted to make something with it. What do you call a music video for a poem? A poetry film? A film poem? Whatever it is, we made one of those. Have a watch.
The poem gave us an excuse to bring back a character we'd always loved. Years ago we created Chomsky the smoking gnome - ironically for a pitch on an anti-smoking campaign We didn't get the job, but we couldn't let Chomsky go. He’s been living rent-free in our heads with his son Klein and his dad Campbell ever since. This felt like their moment and the perfect fit for Rob’s poem. "Mystified and Ancient" is the world they inhabit, we'll be putting more shorts out on YouTube.
This film was made with a hybrid of traditional and AI tools and roles, keeping humanity at the heart of every element!