I remember being 17 years old when Eric Striffler released his then newest short film and thinking it was incredible. When I first started to get into filmmaking in 2010 I of course was inspired by the likes of Christopher Nolan and David Fincher to make a film, however the ones that truly lit the fire in a way of "oh yeah, I can actually do this" were YouTube content creators, mainly Ryan Connolly (Film Riot), Chris Stuckmann (specifically his short 'Life of a Detective') and of course Eric Striffler. Seeing what each of them were able to do with little to no budget was what kept me thinking of ideas for shorts and in 2011/12 I was making all sorts of daft projects. So being a huge fan of Pretty Much It when Eric was building up the release of 'It Happens Fast' I was super excited, I was anticipating this short film almost as much as I was hyping up for 'Looper' and 'The Dark Knight Rises' and when 17-year-old Oscar first watched it on day one I was amazed by the premise, the shot composition, the acting, this was only something I could have wished to achieve in my filmmaking endeavours. 

​

I remember sometime back in 2015 a friend and I were trying to brainstorm an idea for a short film, up until that point all we had done were daft comedy shorts and I wanted to try to step into something a bit more "serious" and creatively challenging. To stimulate inspiration I showed my friend It Happens Fast to communicate the type of thing I wanted to do, which was something I really needed to re-watch at the time to put me in the right mood. We never ended up making a short film like that, but it was something that truly helped keep me motivated when we were struggling through another project of ours that was practically a living hell.

​

Cut to January 4th 2020 and instead of catching up with Wrestle Kingdom 14 I decided to watch It Happens Fast for the first time in 5 years and still I throughly enjoy it. It's not as mind blowing as it once was to me, but that's because not only have I evolved as a film fan but Eric has also evolved as a creative. Watching this feels like I'm watching some of my old short films, but a lot more superior than whatever I have made; from this I can see not only how big on an influence Eric Striffler has had on me as a creative, but also how far he has truly come since the old PMI days.

​

Watching this short is like watching 'Following' or 'Clerks' in the sense of films that may not be the greatest cinematic achievement but are ultra important to me for inspiration. Without realising it Striffler has been a huge inspiration for a lot of my recent short films and it all started with 'It Happens Fast'.