From the moment I read the synopsis of this short film while I was at the Austin Film Festival, I knew I had to see it. Written and directed by Emily Everhard, the synopsis for Special Delivery reads:
“A Foley artist for pornography falls in love with a porn star during an ADR session.”
For anyone that doesn’t know what a Foley artist is, their job is to essentially make the realistic sounds you might hear in a movie or even a video game. I don’t want to give away any of the bits in the short, but some cool examples of this from other media are using coconuts to simulate a horse walking, using celery for breaking bones, or even using rain to create the sound of bacon cooking.
As you can imagine, being a Foley artist for pornography seems like fertile ground for comedy, and boy was that the case with Special Delivery. Right at the start I let out an audible belly laugh and there were more to be had in the brief 10 minute runtime.
What surprised me the most though was just how genuine I felt the romantic part of this short was. I’ve seen massive Hollywood features that had millions of dollars, A-list stars, and a feature length runtime and they couldn’t make me feel the warmth that this short did. It’s no surprise that Special Delivery won the Enderby Entertainment Filmmaking Fellowship and the Audience Award at AFF. Writer/director Emily Everhard absolutely crushed this and so did her great cast and crew!
Speaking of the cast, Kate Owens kills it as Sandy the Foley artist who takes her job VERY seriously and Rob Kellogg is fantastic as Tad, the pornstar who comes in for the ADR session.
By winning the Enderby Entertainment Filmmaking Fellowship Award, Emily will take a week-long trip to Enderby’s Los Angeles offices to benefit from their guidance, and for the opportunity to shadow executives and filmmakers on-site.
Verdict
If it isn’t clear, I absolutely loved this short film. The concept alone is brilliant, but the addition of very genuine portrayals from Kate and Rob ensured that Special Delivery exceeded my high hopes for it.
When the short is available for the public, we will update this review so you can see this one for yourself because it’s absolutely worth your time!
Adriana Wiszniewska