The Watch - A Short Film by Will Ross

The Watch is a short film made by one of my young students, Will Ross.  I should hasten to add that I don’t teach film studies, film-making or – honestly – anything to do with the silver screen.  However, I do teach English when people listen and part of that is the structure of something short, sweet but very creative. I wanted to share this short as I think it shows great promise both in terms of the way it is structured and put together in general, given that I suspect it was made on a budget of approximately… let’s see… zero pounds.

Created under the Willitham Films™ global trademark(!), this comedy short tells the story of a young chap (a kind of everyman for psychopaths) who has lost his precious watch, and the extremes to which he will go to have it back in his possession.  You do need to watch it to the end to really appreciate its structure, but it has a running time that even a gnat wouldn’t find too challenging.  So, please watch it!

Hats off to Will here.  It’s an entertaining and engaging short, well-paced and with a number of familiar tropes from film history thrown in.  Will is clearly highly visually literate, with a voice perfectly suited for the expressive, wordless performances of the silent film era.  Sorry, I meant face (one colleague who watched this said he was reminiscent of Harold Lloyd). Joking aside, this is the kind of film that only someone who loves film would make.

I am now looking forward to the day that Will is able to extract huge amounts of license fee payers’ money from the BBC (possibly by force) and wreak his own kind of comedy-havoc on to the world in general but on a budget.  I am fairly certain that this will come to pass.