<\/p>\n
If you only watch one new short film this week, make it \u201cOvation.\u201d That is, if you haven\u2019t seen it already. Over the last nine days, director Noam Kroll and comedian Luke Barnett racked up over 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<\/a>?<\/p>\n Inspired by the video of Joaquin Phoenix looking bored and confused during the \u201cEddington\u201d standing ovation at Cannes<\/a>, the five-minute film stays on Barnett\u2019s face as he enjoys an infinite stream of applause<\/a> 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 \u2014 and it culminates with a brutally hilarious final title card.<\/p>\n More from IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s 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 \u201cFaith Based<\/a>.\u201d Kroll\u2019s directed five features, writes a weekly newsletter<\/a>, and hosts the micro-budget filmmaking podcast \u201cShow, Don\u2019t Tell.<\/a>\u201d But as Barnett and Kroll told IndieWire during a recent interview, they almost backed out of making \u201cOvation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think I texted Noam at first being like, \u2018I\u2019ve got an idea we could do for no money really quickly.\u2019 And he liked it and all, but then I talked myself out of it,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cAnd I was just like, \u2018This probably isn\u2019t worth doing.\u2019 And then Noam was like, \u2018Just record it on your phone in your house.\u2019 And so I literally just did an improvised one on my phone and sent it to him. Ten minutes later, Noam was like, \u2018We got to record this.’\u201d<\/p>\n Kroll believed the concept was so strong it could have worked even with a lesser performance. But once he saw Barnett\u2019s self-tape, he knew the idea had real legs.<\/p>\n \u201cInitially, the thing I loved about it was it could be this Andy Warhol kind of thing. Where even if his performance wasn\u2019t as dynamic as it ended up being, it could still work, just on this art film level,\u201d Kroll said. \u201cWhen I saw he conveyed so many different emotions in five minutes, I was like, \u2018This really actually does tell a story.\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOvation\u201d is proof that you don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d said Kroll. \u201cWe literally had two hours booked at the studio, so I felt if we\u2019re going to use the projector and all this technical stuff, it\u2019s just going to complicate it. And really, the whole thing is like Luke\u2019s performance, so anything that\u2019s going to detract from that was going to hurt the film.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt ended up working out really well, because the studio had these two big soft box lights,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a very small room, so we had to basically shoot at a 40mm lens, two lights. We couldn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n They released \u201cOvation\u201d 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\u2019s online response is already a bigger victory.<\/p>\n \u201cWe literally submitted it to SXSW and Slamdance the day before we released it. We originally thought like, \u2018Okay, this is a good little festival piece,’\u201d Barnett said. \u201cBut it was actually my manager, I was talking to her, and she said, \u2018Just one thing to think about\u2026 How long do you want to wait to release it at the risk of, does somebody make a silly TikTok about it? Or does \u2018The Studio\u2019 Season 2 do it?\u2019 I didn\u2019t want this to come out after those things where it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, well they watched that season of \u2018The Studio\u2019 and just did a worse version.’\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of next steps, Kroll and Barnett are keeping their options open. Some kind of festival run isn\u2019t off the table, as it\u2019s possible that the film\u2019s 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 \u201cOvation\u201d could effectively allow them to skip that first hurdle.<\/p>\n But whatever comes next is almost a bonus: \u201cOvation\u201d 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\u2019s a showcase for Barnett\u2019s acting and writing and Kroll\u2019s directing that has already been viewed over a million times. The online applause is thunderous, and the digital ovation doesn\u2019t end when you leave the theater.<\/p>\n Best of IndieWire<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Indiewire’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you only watch one new short film this week, make it \u201cOvation.\u201d That is, if you haven\u2019t seen it already. Over the last nine days, director Noam Kroll and comedian Luke Barnett racked up over a million views across Instagram and X for their one-take short that attempts to answer a question every film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2093926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[326557,317163,22491,36099,395176,395177,356250,364659],"class_list":["post-2093925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-film-festival","tag-instagram","tag-joaquin-phoenix","tag-luke-barnett","tag-noam-kroll","tag-ovation","tag-standing-ovations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/How-Two-Friends-Turned-Endless-Film-Festival-Ovations-Into-a.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2093925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2093927,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093925\/revisions\/2093927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2093926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2093925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2093925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2093925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}