You’d easily be forgiven for assuming this was a trailer for an exciting new drama, or perhaps promoting something through a wary narrative. After all, Kerith Lemon’s debut short film is highly polished, with a brilliant pace – and truly resonates with you.
After a fruitful career that started in PR, Kerith has worked in advertising through to film production with names that include L’Oreal, Nickleodeon and MTV Games. But it was in 2010 that she decided she was just getting started; “I was basically selling products and reached my limit in 2010 and wanted to be on the creative side – I wanted to start making films,” says Kerith. “I wanted to make something that was mine, I wanted for it to be my own”.
She quit her life in New York and moved to Paris for 6 months, volunteering at Sundance Film Festival where she worked in the Press Office, steadily building from there. Skipping some years ahead, she became increasingly aware of the digital epidemic that was taking over society. Kerith feels it could be our overworked nature that drives us to blindly pick up phones in our down time and start scrolling, scrutinizing life through other users’ pictures. Which is what inspired her to write. “This whole obsession with social media and the connection to devices formed part of something I really wanted to say”, she adds.
“I was with my husband and we were both watching TV whilst being on our phones and I just couldn’t do it any more…”
Kerith’s poignant film, A SOCIAL LIFE, centres around a 20 something Meredith. Like most of us, she’s attached to her phone. Unlike most of us, her attachment is closer to an addiction. Documenting her everyday life, we see that everything that Meredith is doing is staged: she’s caught in a web of silence and loneliness that she has spun by her obsession of craving approval via her digital life. But once the glass shatters, the stark truth is revealed – as though waking from a slumber, Meredith realises she needs to live her life rather than pretend to live it.
In those 8 or so minutes, any audience member will be able to identify with Meredith because it’s a life we are a part of. This was the foundation that Kerith was inspired by, and something that she experienced herself: “I spent so much time staring at a screen. One evening, I was with my husband and we were both watching TV whilst being on our phones and I realised I just couldn’t do it any more. I saw some articles about social media and it put a name to how I was feeling.”
Whilst this film actually opens the floor to a discussion worth having with ourselves, you may notice that there is little to no dialogue. But dialogue is unnecessary when the story is beautifully told through Kerith’s direction of Meredith (played so naturally by Rosalind Ross). Not only this, but you’re pulled into the web further with attractive photography and gripping visual effects.
“It’s the first thing I’ve written and directed on my own, and I could not be prouder.”
Kerith tells me that a lot of people had their own opinions about her film along the way: “I’ve been asked a lot if this is a cautionary tale, or if I am vilifying social media. And I’m not, I believe in it.” Whilst social media is a double edged sword and it has been revolutionary, it’s important to exercise caution and quite rightly, Kerith advises: “I think it’s important to be aware – especially for those who are born into it. It’s a habit, that we just pick up our device without thinking when we’re bored.”
Even as she faced difficulties in the process of scripting and then producing A SOCIAL LIFE, she persevered: “I sat down every morning for a couple of days and just churned out the script. I will say that what ended up on the screen is very identical to the script. It’s the first thing I’ve written and directed on my own, and I could not be prouder.”
A SOCIAL LIFE will be released online on March 14th.
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