A vision of the past and a comment on the present
This new short film is a charming account of a man called Dave who has devoted his life to fixing old TVs, but it's also a comment on how times, viewing habits and social interactions have altered.
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Credits
View on- Director Jonnie Lewis
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Credits
powered by- Director Jonnie Lewis
A new short film from director Jonnie Lewis is a glance into the past as the star of this short film, Dave, explains his obsession with cathode-ray tube televisions.
The near-four minute film is a short history of Dave's life, his love of old TVs, and specifically his career choice to go into television repairs, despite people telling him it had no future.
Dave tells us about 'first light' [when a TV first shows a spec of light on the screen], and talks if his sadness at the loss of the family TV-watching experience, starting with video cassette recorders. He goes on to talking about social media and the streaming age, which he feels has taken away the social element of watching TV.
"A Bloke Called Dave is about a bloke called Dave," says Lewis," but it's also about me. Dave started fixing TVs because it’s what he loved doing. And he kept doing it even though everyone told him there was no future in it. I started shooting stuff because it's what I love doing, but it's not without threats that leave me wondering what my own future looks like. Being surrounded by Dave's collection of 120 CRT TVs was the perfect place to speak about social media and how content has changed over the years. And the edit was the perfect place for me to experiment with AI.
"The reason that I do what I do is because I love being injected into scenarios that I otherwise wouldn’t have found myself in. Learning about something, developing a feeling towards it and then capturing it in a way that allows me to project that feeling onto other people is always what has got me excited about filming. Social media has changed the way people have been able to portray themselves, and online personalities were artificial long before AI came along. The truth is that without real people like Dave, content lacks all of the human connection and emotion that got me into filmmaking in the first place. It’s the coming together of real personalities and stories both on and off screen that get me excited about creating films and videos."
