Dad's Dead

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Dad's Dead (short version)

Dad's Dead is a short British film written and directed by Chris Shepherd. It lasts seven minutes and mixes animation with live action to explore how memory works. It was commissioned by animate! and funded by Arts Council England, and first aired on Channel 4 in 2003.

Ian Hart is the narrator. He looks back at his youth in Liverpool during the 1970s and 1980s. He remembers his best friend Johnno, who seems popular but is cruel and violent. Johnno cheats, steals, vandalizes, harms animals, and even tricks the narrator by saying his father has died.

The film shows Johnno beating the narrator, then taking him to a house where a blind man lives. Johnno vandalizes that house, leaves maggot-filled food, and spits on the blind man, who does not know what is happening. In the end, the narrator is knocked unconscious as Johnno starts a fire, and the narrator is wrongly jailed for it.

At the end, the narrator’s elderly mother opens the door to her Meals on Wheels helper — who is Johnno, entering her home with a cruel laugh.

Production notes: The film stars Ian Hart and others, was produced by Maria Manton, edited by Seb Duthy, with music by John Moore. It was shot on DV and Betacam SP and edited with After Effects and Aura. It later appeared as an extra on the Sunshine DVD (2007) and got a remastered HD version in 2011. A sequel called Johnno's Dead was released in 2016.