So, in honor of Academy Films’ 40th anniversary, Healy set out to survey some of the most groundbreaking moments in the production company’s history—and explore the impact of those shorts on visual culture and cinema more broadly. “It’s an amazing back catalog of projects, and it could have ended up as essentially a chronological account of Academy Films over the years,” says Healy. But what really became exciting was examining “the artistry that is possible within these forms when you push the limits.”
Established by the visionary producer Lizie Gower in 1985, Academy Films served as an early example of a production company that grouped all of their work—creative and commercial—under the same umbrella, refusing to discriminate between the two. It was this, and the company’s knack for “talent nurturing,” as Healy puts it, that helped to grow its tight-knit creative community. “One of the most interesting parts of making the book was discovering how it really does take a village to make these films,” says Healy, citing, in particular, the storyboard artist Adrian Marla, whose work can be seen in a section of the book about Glazer’s memorable late ’90s ad for Stella Artois featuring ice-skating priests.
Equally, the book suggests a new way of looking at the commonly perceived hierarchies of filmmaking: that you might start out with shorts and music videos, but then “graduate” to making features—as if the latter is inherently more prestigious. “I think this book is a bit of a riposte to that idea,” says Healy. “Something that John said to me during the making of this is, ‘Yes, that may be for brands, yes, that work may be for a musician, but these are all my films.’ He really does see them as his films. And I think that approach is something that you can see across many of the directors in this book.”
Most of all, however, Healy and the Academy Films team are keen for Short Form to inspire a new generation of aspiring filmmakers—and to serve as a kind of toolkit for anyone seeking to create work in that vein. “The audience we had in mind was not only the people who might have been there at the time, but also anyone creative trying to make work in our current economic climate. I think there are a lot of lessons to be drawn for them too.”
