Spotlight: Jackyll Ramone

When you’re being a little casual and randomly throw out some questions to someone you’ve only interacted with online but never met in person, you always wonder if the response will be as fresh as the first spring leaves on a birch or as lifeless as driftwood washed ashore from some remote, desolate place. But when the reply mentions The Ramones and an iconic muscle car, you know it’s not driftwood, nor is it even birch—this is Oak-level stuff we’re talking about!

Jackyll Ramone is in charge of Gruesome Nonsense productions, and they have delivered a solid work of high-quality content for some time, and it is a pleasure to be able to present their material at Shortly.film.
We can indulge you audience with three magnetic films; part one and two of Black Gloves and Crimson Dolls and the tingling unease of Il Segreto di Lucy.

Shortly: How did you first get involved with the short film format?
Jackyll: Unfortunately, nothing but practicality. I started making ‘shorts’ when I was about 12 years old, but they were basically just scene ideas, not structured stories at all. I learned how to make proper shorts in film school later on. Like most fellow students my aim was at feature length, but I figured out a way to fit my stories into the format without too much sacrifices.
Now, I don’t even see the point of producing a feature, myself.

Shortly: How did you first hear about Shortly.film?
Jackyll: I was looking for alternatives to Youtube and Vimeo on Google. I spotted an article on a website (I can’t remember the name because I didn’t pay attention),

It was a Top 20 list or something like that of these alternatives. Shortly ranked quite high so I checked it out along with 2 or 3 others. Shortly was the one I liked best, because of its presentation style, the way the videos were proposed and organized. The rules were logical, simple and fair, so I decided to get in touch.

I liked the speed and quality of the communication and, as the exchanges progressed, I quickly realized that I was dealing with people who really loved film and welcomed creators without snobbery.

That the material would be appreciated for what it is, with no hidden agenda (which is quite refreshing these days…). So, I thought it would be a good match.

I also like the name.

Shortly: What do you find attractive about the short film format?
Jackyll: My vision of a short, at least the way I make them, is of a hyper-concentrated, 120 mins feature film story, scaled and compacted down to about 15 to 40 mins while retaining the same narrative structure.

Most features suffer from padding. I can watch 2,3 or 4 short stories in the same amount of time I’d watch one feature. That’s neat for I’d love to watch 50 films a day on top of having two full time jobs, being a workaholic myself.

Shorts also offer (by necessity perhaps) the opportunity to jump right into the thick of it. I don’t mind long buildups, and mood setting… but it’s a different kick. A quick fix of sort.

Gruesome Nonsense productions are entertainment-driven projects, which I prefer, but for message-oriented, opinion-driven, activist projects, shorts have that sucker-punch quality.

They are for film what the Ramones are to music. Tosses you in a corner, delivers what it has to say right to your face and gone before you realized what hit you.

Shortly: You use a special technique in your films that gives them an almost comic book feel. The effect is mesmerizing and draws the viewer into the story. How did you develop this style of storytelling?
Jackyll: That idea comes from the Buena Vista book and records collection from the 70s and 80s. Some were film adaptations. Mostly Disney stuff but you could also find Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones and few others too.

There were two formats: a 20-minute soundtrack with a small 24 pages of images, and a 60-minute soundtrack with 50 or 60 images spread over 36 larger pages. Some had narration, others did not. So, you’d listen to a condensed version of the film and look at images of each key moments and fill in the blank by drawing on your memories of what you’d seen at the cinema, or by using your imagination if you hadn’t.

Apart from the novelizations, these were the only way to relive a film you loved before it came out on VHS, sometimes years after its initial release.

I wanted to create something similar with my own stories, but I didn’t have the means to produce books and records, and nobody would have bought them anyway, so it was easier to make videos that combined still images and soundtrack.

The goal is to try and tell a whole scene in one single image. If that is impossible, or does not feel right, you do it in two or three, but it’s important to focus on the most important elements of each scene and translate them in as few images as possible and I use movement or animation only at specific, important moments for dramatic impact.

One big advantage is I can use stock images along with my own material. Since every element is photoshoped together, you can work with actors or models one at a time, there’s no lines for them to learn, so no multiple takes because of mistakes and so you can pretty much cover a lot of material in a single day of shooting, with that. A single person can handle a whole production if need be.

Shortly: Do you think the short film format has a future, or is it just a steppingstone to full-length feature films?
Jackyll: It has a future. It’s just a different niche. Time-saving issues aside, the length of a film doesn’t matter to me as a viewer, all that matters is what I get out of it intellectually and emotionally (I understand it’s a different matter for a cinema exhibitor, a film festival selection committee or a distributor, though). Some stories are best told in 3 hours, others in 10 minutes. So what?

For me, there’s not much difference between watching a 20–30-minute indie sci-fi short and watching an “adventure of the week” Star Trek TV episode.

As a producer, I’d have no problem switching from one format to the other over the course of my career if I could afford to do both.

Shortly: What’s next in the pipeline? Can we expect more short films from you?
Jackyll: Oh yes, there’s a back catalog of productions that I’m in the process of updating and upscaling, as Gruesome Nonsense Productions has been around for some time now. Only the online presence is relatively recent, although we’ve been there on some level from day one, but the physical experience was a priority. For years, I personally rented out theaters and organized themed soirées where I presented new GNP shorts as well as works by other creators I liked or who fit the bill. COVID has put an end to all that. It’s now exclusively an online thing. But we don’t just rely on past “glories”, we try to keep an old-new-old-new release pace, and offer a traditional film, followed by a video slideshow, then another film, then a slideshow and so on.
At this point, I should point out that 90% of our material is AI-free. Only our most recent productions rely exclusively on AI for audio dubbing. We’re just starting to incorporate AI-generated visuals, but only to solve problems or to buy time when the deadline is too close.

We already have a few other approved productions in the pipeline, at various stages of completion plus four completed projects waiting for the right time to be released.

‌Shortly: If you were a car, what car would you be?
Jackyll: Film car? BATMAN 1989 Batmobile hands down!

But let’s set films aside here for a minute and talk strictly cars? I’d go for a black 1968 Dodge Charger… (Ok that’s the car you can see in Blade (1998) …. See what I did here?)