In the past few years, we’ve seen many filmmakers innovate in the comedy genre, utilizing wholly original filmmaking techniques and stylized humor. However, one of the most uniquely impressive films we’ve seen from any filmmaker, let alone in the comedy genre, is only available on YouTube.
Let’s talk about Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar’s Rap World.
Plot and Production
The film follows a friend group of twenty-something burnouts who fight against their party-oriented temptations to do their best to complete a rap album in one night in 2009 in suburban Pennsylvania.
The original idea for the film actually came about in 2020 when O’Malley and co-writer Jack Bensinger incorporated old camcorder footage of teens playing Guitar Hero into one of their other projects.
In October of 2020, the pair began production on what was originally going to be a series of short-form skits to be uploaded to YouTube. After these skits didn’t turn out the way the team was initially hoping, they shelved the project for six months before re-editing it into a ten-minute short film. Sensing improvement, the team got together, rewrote a new script, and shot over 70 hours of footage over the course of two to three years, subsequently edited by Bensiger. The team utilized rap music figures for help with some of the music, but maintained a sense of improv on set to elicit the more low-quality elements of the songs. Obviously, these ones are the funniest to listen to.
The Absolutely Hysterical Humor
‘Rap World’Credit: Conner O’Malley
As someone who studies film for a living, I really do my best to avoid speaking in superlatives when it comes to works that I particularly love. However, I must say that the quotable line-to-runtime ratio for Rap World is perhaps the most extraordinary I’ve seen in a comedy film in my entire life. Admittedly, the sense of humor of the film is one that I have seen annoy certain people, so if you don’t find the film funny within a few minutes, it likely isn’t going to wind up being your cup of tea.
With that said, even after watching the film my third, fourth, and fifth time, there were points I had to pause the film because I was laughing so hard that I was missing line reads that I wanted to make sure I soaked in again. The humor moves so deliciously quickly that by the time you’ve recovered from one side-splitting joke, they already have three more in the chamber ready to fire.
The film clocks in at an extraordinary 56 minutes, and the commitment, not only to throwaway jokes, but simultaneously crafting jokes in the first five minutes that don’t have a complete payoff until the final minutes of the film is a genuine masterclass in both writing and performance.
The film does a beautiful job of not only making sure every character is fully realized with their own quirks, but have valid reasons for reacting the ways they do throughout the film. Much of the humor is built around awkward encounters, or genuine stupidity, but the film still treats its characters with enough respect to make sure that the audience laughs with them, and not at them. For how irresponsible and negatively self-fulfilling many of the characters are in the film, you still desperately want them to succeed.
Furthermore, the commitment to maintaining period accuracy, not just in things like fashion and music trends, but production design and home decor is genuinely inspiring. Characters will enter a bathroom with a tacky midwestern mom-coded Paris-themed foot mat lying on the floor, and you’ll instantly be transported back to the late 2000s, independent of any outside influences informing you of the setting.
Why This is So Inspiring to Indie Artists
Rap World was not made by local artists. Many of the actors and crew members are SNL alums and well-known comedians. This makes their boots-on-the-ground filmmaking style for Rap World all the more inspiring.
There is obviously a trend of artists using tremendous resources once they are at their disposal. And why wouldn’t they? It makes sense to do so. But for a film like Rap World that thrives on the more grungy, imperfect aesthetic, O’Malley and crew’s commitment to remaining small and mighty just shows that no matter your skill set, you can make something truly special out of very little resources. Some of my favorite jokes in the film are the sharp, intentionally choppy cutaways to a still image marked up by tacky-looking Impact font out of an Adobe Premiere preset. So if you take anything away from this article, or the film itself, take away this: play around, make anything and everything you can. Throw all of your ideas at the wall. Some will stick, and some will collapse to the ground. But if you’re lucky, you may just strike cinematic comedy gold.
