It was Sundance 2013 where young director Damien Chazelle debuted a short film called Whiplash that went on to win the Short Film Jury Prize. The short served as a way to secure funding to produce the full version of the film, which ended up premiering last year at Sundance 2014 and was one of the feel good success stories of the year, going all the way to the Oscars this year with a few nominations under its belt. Because the feature film was based off the short, the Academy nominated it for Best Adapted Screenplay instead of original, as weird as that is.
The original short has hit the youtube and is finally available to watch for all of us who weren’t able to find our way to Sundance two years ago. The short film runs 18-minutes long, and revolves around the now infamous chair throwing scene, where Andrew sits in on one of the practices for the first time.
J.K. Simmons was originally cast as Fletcher (thanks to a connection to Jason Reitman), the role that would land him his first Oscar, but Johnny Simmons (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower) was cast as Andrew in the short (with Miles Teller playing him in the feature film). You got to wonder how he feels about how insanely successful the film went on to be. He’s gotta be wondering what could of been… There also a few familiar faces in the band such as Nate Lang, who plays the original lead drummer, Carl Tanner, in the feature film as well.
It’s certainly weird to see Simmons in the role, but I’m sure if we saw this before the feature it would be a much different watch. Either way, it’s interesting to see the short that started it all and to see what changes they made in the film.
Enjoy it below.
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