It’s just another day in a rough neighborhood, as a desensitized man goes about his daily routine while crime and other terrible incidents occur around him. This is Jacob Thompson’s Another Day.
We wouldn’t be wrong in stating that the world has gone to sh*t. Crime is rife, employment levels are low, and the divide between classes seems to increase with every year that passes. Something needs to change and change fast. While only coming in at just over two minutes, Jacob Thompson’s latest micro-short film shows us how we have been accustomed to the poverty and crime that surrounds (most) of us on a daily basis.
Randall (Teej Morgan) leaves his apartment and is instantly met by a drunk homeless man (Jerrod Briggs) begging for change, whilst sitting outside Randall’s front door. Then, whilst walking down the street, he witnesses a woman having her handbag snatched, two men fighting, an ominous-looking guy dressed in all black with his hood over his head, and the sound of gunfire. All this may worry any other person, but for Randall, it seems like this is like some sort of ghetto Groundhog Day. It’s a day like every other.
By the time the ending comes around, we aren’t totally surprised by the rather bleak ending, as the rest of the film had been bleak leading up to it, even though the sound of Paul McCartney’s solo track Another Day plays throughout. I appreciated the use of the former Beatles’ song, as it lightened up the experience and made the sight of such terrible crimes seem trivial and normal.
According to IMDB, the budget for Another Day was a paltry $50, and while there aren’t any stand-out shots in the film or excellent cinematography, it’s still pretty incredible that only that small amount was used. The use of background artists, the street location, as well as the use of McCartney’s aforementioned song, are brilliantly done for such a tiny budget.
There were a couple of issues that, if fixed, would have improved the whole experience even more. When Jerrod speaks to the homeless man at the beginning, his audio is a little distorted, and the use of a simple gimbal would have fixed the massive camera shake when we follow Jerrod down the road too. Though a gimbal and good sound equipment may have not been readily available.
Still, Jacob Thompson, who has featured on Screen Critix in the past with his short films Smoke, and Not For Me, continues to impress with each film he creates. We are sure that he will continue to improve as he creates more films in the future.
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