A new film from writer/director Kevin Meggs (When Pigs Fly) and Max Hendrickson raises issues about a new phenomenon called FOMO – fear of missing out. The way social media works encourages us to be increasingly anxious about missing out – on parties, new trends, news, announcements… everything. But when you’re glued to your phone, you’re more likely to miss out on a whole lot more of reality. This is the case for the protagonist in FOMO.
As the young teenager walks to the bus stop, he is bombarded by notifications and messages. The sound design of the film really accentuates this and creates stirrings of anxiety within the viewer. As seen before, Meggs shows exceptional attention to detail which results in the highest quality of filmmaking. The integrated text portraying the definition of FOMO is a brilliant touch. While waiting for the bus, the teenager finds himself suddenly sucked into another world.
Hendrickson pulls out the stops here in his animated interpretation of a digital entity, featuring a world of endless scrolling not entirely dissimilar from our day to day use of social media. It is this distant mirroring of reality that makes the film so effective. The film is cleverly edited, making good use of its interesting concept and inventive style. The visuals are well-developed and well-thought out, all contributing to a sense of urgency and fear. The entire world Hendrickson has created embodies the difficulty of tuning out the incessant chatter of social media; the difficulty of finally deciding to put the phone down and turn towards an external reality.
FOMO is a good example of inventive filmmaking from two promising young filmmakers and is available to watch on YouTube now! Link below.