'Afternoon Delights' Reveals The Dark and Humorous Side of Practical Jokes

Contented Brothers has released a 5-min short film titled ‘Afternoon Delights’, to demonstrate what’s possible when agencies ‘relieve themselves from archaic agency process and bureaucracy’.  

The 5-min film, created in less than 4 weeks from script ideation to screening, and on a near-zero budget, was directed by award-winning documentary maker, director and exec producer at Contented Brothers, Chris Smith – whose recent work includes the documentary feature New Town Utopia.  

Afternoon Delights is a dark comedy that is sometimes sad, sometimes funny, showing the journey of a practical joke gone wrong.

Very wrong.

Yet while the film tells a captivating, if a little macabre, story, the point of Afternoon Delights was to prove that smaller, nimble agencies and production houses can use their agility to their advantage by tearing down the bureaucracy and process that tends to come with the territory of larger organisations – and create high-quality work doing it.  

“We wanted to free ourselves from the usual parameters of a client brief, to demonstrate how creativity and savvy production skills can produce effective results even when set against limited time and budget.” said Contented Brothers Co-Founder, Birdie Hall.  “Increasing threats from budget cuts, in-housing and new players entering the market, means that agencies are under more pressure than ever to create great work for their clients that meets business objectives… and often for a fraction of their original fee - just to stay competitive. This pressure isn’t going anywhere, and so we wanted to try and change our mindset in how we respond to it, show ‘cheaper’ doesn’t necessarily mean poor work  – and have a bit of fun at the same time.” 

Contented Brothers took the small budget they would spend on entering awards and instead put it into the film.  It has already been recognised at the Atlanta Comedy Film Festival and was screened at St Albans Film Festival. 

“After deciding to make the film we held a script competition – which provided the basis of the story for Afternoon Delights,” said Smith.  “We then set about location scouting, casting and crewing up in an incredibly short period of time. We knew the lead role was important as it required an actor who could demonstrate a range of emotions in a short space of time - at the same time building an empathic relationship with the viewer. We approached Ronald Pickup, who’s a fantastic icon of British stage and screen - and thankfully, he was up for it.” 

“It’s easy to talk (and edit) endlessly when it comes to a client project but giving ourselves the timeframe and near zero budget really helped to focus our minds” said Hall.  ““In an ideal world you would have endless money and time to work on a project but right now, we rarely have that. We invested in creating Afternoon Delights to challenge our team, grow our skill set, and learn how far we could push ourselves – which will benefit our clients and the agencies we partner with more than a trophy in a cabinet.”