best played loud

Short, Drama, Music | 2022 | USA | 21 min

A '60s music duo's dreams of breaking into the music industry are thwarted when forced to face a dark secret that could cost them their lives.

IMDb

SYNOPSIS

Jackie, a young blonde folk guitarist, sits silently in a dark room. Before she can finish wrestling with her thoughts, Rome, another young, long-haired guitarist, pulls her into a recording booth and begins to lecture her. As Rome concludes his rant, she pushes the door open and retreats back into the small recording studio, where they continue to argue. The two of them speak in code, implicitly referencing a secret "thing" that needs to be dealt with. Eventually, they yield to one another.

Later that day, the two arrange a performance in a lavish-looking restaurant. Rome is surrounded by friends who carry on loudly, while Jackie, sitting alone, stares from across the room, going virtually unnoticed except for Rome’s "Lady Friend" perched silently on his lap. Eventually, Rome and his friends exit, leaving Jackie and Rome’s "Lady Friend". She approaches Jackie and sits across from her. What follows is a coy dialogue regarding the nature of Jackie's role in their dynamic.

After the concert, Rome storms out of the restaurant, throwing a tantrum in front of Jackie about the strings of his guitar snapping during their performance. Rome claims that they are a lost cause, yet again referencing their undisclosed "problem", stating that he isn’t going to sit back idly and allow their lives to unfold. The two leave the restaurant and hunker down in a seedy storage unit, bickering over something unseen in front of them. Their discussion quickly morphs into a spat about the trajectory of their music careers until they are interrupted by a loud clunking noise. They turn towards the sound, and the root of their problem is finally unveiled.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

"Best Played Loud emerged when I was a senior in high school, struggling to figure out the best way to channel my artistic ambitions. I wanted to portray the 1960s, the period when the film is set, as a decade undergoing a cataclysmic shift, depicted in this film by the transition from folk music to the rock and roll scene that defined the era. This idea led to the creation of Jackie and Rome, a music duo grappling with this very shift while also harboring a dark secret that could potentially ruin them and their ambitions. As a young person finally discovering how I wanted to express myself, this film felt very urgent at the time, as it was made against a backdrop of an art form and an industry that were going in a different direction."

— Jake Abraham