“Let’s Make a Dale:” From an Inside Joke to A Crystal Pillar Nominated Fiction Short Film
By: Bora Cecia
Robert Kennedy, a Loyola graduate student, turned an inside joke amongst his friends into a cinematic masterpiece leading to a NATAS Mid-America Crystal Pillar Award nomination in the fiction short film category. Despite being a short form narrative, the production showcases various filmmaking techniques and themes, and doesn’t fail to leave the audience in laughter through the addition of comedic scenes.
In an interview, Kennedy shares the unique backstory on the creation and development of the character “Dale,” an inside joke between friends for almost 10 years that has inspired the production of an award nominated film.
“It started with me and my friend, Nico. We were driving in his car, and on the GPS popped the Town of Wood Dale. Neither of us had heard of Wood Dale, and Nico said, “What if there's a guy named Dale Wood in Wood Dale? And what if he owned a car dealership, Dale Wood of Wood Dale the dealer, the dealership of Wood Dale?’ And then it just spiraled out of control from there,” Kennedy said.
After some time, Kennedy and his friend wanted to create a film together showcasing their funny Dale Wood dialogues on camera. However, an emergency changed the course of the film, pushing Kennedy to think outside the box in conveying this narrative.
“Nico suffered from an allergic reaction to cashews at a restaurant and because of those cashews, I ended up having to make this video on my own,” explained Kennedy. “So, I had to sit there thinking to myself, okay, I was really excited to do a Dale Wood video, but I don't have Nico. How can I make this work? And I thought, well, what if Dale Wood was having an ad for his dealership on the radio? So that was how I came up with the concept.”
The humor aspect would be considered as one of the most prevalent components of this short film. A cinematic technique not only adding a unique flair to the production but also aiding in conveying a deeper message.
“The beauty of having a piece of humor is that it allows you to not take yourself too seriously, and it gave me the ability to really open up my creativity in a way that a more serious video would have otherwise sort of limited me,” Kennedy said. “The big takeaway would be for people to not take themselves too seriously, to have a little laugh,” Kennedy said when asked about the message of the film.
Despite being a short film, Kennedy leaves the audience with a positive outlook and the message of adding humor to the small things in life.
“The big takeaway is just finding the funny in everyday little things. It's wordplay. It's wordplay on a town, on a silly concept and a made-up character that took five seconds to create and has given us years and years of endless laughter. Life is full of so many things, you might as well sprinkle in some humor every chance you get, and that's kind of what Dale Wood is for us [Kennedy and his friends],” said Kennedy.
Kennedy credits the obstacles and unexpected surprises in the creation of this film in pushing his creativity. “Limitation forcing me to get creative was the origin story of how this video came to be and it opens me up to the spontaneity of creativity in whatever project I have going on in the future.”
Watch the Crystal Pillar nominated work “Let’s Make a Dale” linked here.