With 'kamikaze,' Director Ray Smiling Ensures No One is Bored

      “Like everyone else, I spend too much time on the internet,” says writer-director Ray Smiling, whose newest short film, “kamikaze,” recently won awards for best experimental short and best cinematography at the Salute Your Shorts Film Festival.

      The film, influenced by fashion photography and the French New Wave among other sources, tells a tale of betrayal while also examining the art of image creation.

      However, when Smiling aimed to enhance the visual storytelling in cinema with “kamikaze,” he drew inspiration from an influence that some filmmakers may dismiss: internet meme culture.

      “Kamikaze” presents a sleek, straightforward narrative — during a fashion shoot in Coney Island, a model named Knives (Dominique Babineaux) finds herself trapped between a narcissistic social media celebrity (Waylon Rose) and his overbearing photographer girlfriend (Clementine Chalfant) as their relationship falls apart.

      At one moment, a character experiences a revelation likened to a car explosion, prompting Smiling to include a shot of an actual explosion, resembling a meme, within the story. This is the film’s most daring and experimental segment, skillfully captured by Timothy S. Jensen.

      This moment is also the one that resonates the most.

      “If I’m critiquing image-making, I’m going to employ every aspect of image-making in that critique,” Smiling clarifies. “In many frames, the composition is a direct nod to fashion photographers. Moreover, the pacing, particularly in the swift montages, mimics the experience on Instagram where you’re just flipping through images.”

      The film is expertly structured and paced—never feeling rushed or too slow—and Smiling attributes this partly to his filmmaking instincts and an understanding of internet users' attention spans.

      “I always envision that when someone is watching what I create, their fingers might be hovering over the ‘Close Window’ button,” he states. “I’m like, ‘Alright, cool: You’ve got a limited amount of seconds before they exit, so you need to do something to grab their attention and say, Hey, hey, hey, hey, come back, come back, come back.’”

      ‘Kamikaze’ Director Ray Smiling on Advertising and Filmmaking

      Writer-director Ray Smiling, courtesy of the filmmaker

      Having grown up in Brooklyn as an avid movie lover, Smiling recalls that being a filmmaker “always felt like being an astronaut; it seemed like a fantastic job, but I didn’t know how one became an astronaut.”

      About ten years ago, he began working at Mishka, a creative streetwear brand with the motto “wear your weird.” When the video director position opened up, Smiling volunteered to take over.

      “They said, ‘We can’t offer you more money.’ I replied that it didn’t matter to me. They appreciated that,” he remembers.

      This opportunity led him into advertising, and upon joining sets for commercial shoots, he quickly recognized his true desire to direct.

      “And it took me about eight years to achieve that,” he reflects.

      Bypassing film school, he opted to learn through paid experience. He swiftly cultivated a bold, dynamic cinematic style, influenced by filmmaker, music video director, and video artist Kahlil Joseph, whose work demonstrated to him that “you can essentially do whatever you want with editing. As long as it feels right, you can make it work,” Smiling observes.

      His recent victory at Salute Your Shorts — one of our 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee — marks the latest milestone in a career that is, much like the car in “kamikaze,” igniting with success.

      Dominique Babineaux as Knives in “kamikaze”

      In addition to his advertising endeavors for brands such as Adidas, Beats by Dre, Under Armour, and the NBA, he directed the television show Khaki Is Not Leather and the short film “Play This at MY Funeral,” alongside a new short he just completed. He has also recently finished writing a feature film.

      Throughout his work, he consistently asks himself:

      “Am I boring someone? Am I boring someone? Am I boring someone?”

      Respecting the audience’s time allows him to earn their attention when he invites them to pause.

      “When I say, ‘Let’s simply gaze at the ocean for 30 seconds,’ it’s a deliberate choice,” he emphasizes. “I aim to implement that with precision.”

      Main image: “kamikaze,” directed by Ray Smiling.