15 Second Film: The viral sensation changing the game for short film
21 Jan 2026 | Molly Lipson and Julia Black Jackson
On a busy New York street, a woman rushes over to an unsuspecting member of the public. Behind her are five people carrying an assortment of video and audio recording equipment. “Do you want to make a short film?,” she says. “We have actors, a crew, all we need is a director, are you in?”
Within a matter of hours, this randomly selected person is the new Scorsese.
It’s not a gimmick, or perhaps better put, it’s not only a gimmick. Each video, which is posted across the channel’s Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, depicts the filmmaking process from start to end, concluding with the final film as created by this newly-inducted director. The film, unsurprisingly, lasts around fifteen seconds.
15 Second Film’s brilliance lies in its artful weaving of the ever-popular street interview with actual – and often very good – filmmaking. The series pushes the boundaries not only of short film, but short content in general. It’s undoubtedly meta – short form content about making short form content – and it’s also deeply insightful and entertaining. Watching a nervous passerby transform as they take to the director’s chair and begin making confident creative decisions is as delightful as some of the comments under the posts: “This is my favourite form of chaos lol,” and, “How are people so creative 😭.”
With the first ever episode released only in July last year, the show’s rise to viral fame is testament to its innovative and groundbreaking take on filmmaking. One of 15 Second Film’s most recent directors was real-life Jersey Girl director Kevin Smith. “I've had a lot of people who aren’t in the film world tell me that we make it seem really accessible to make a film with very little,” says Becca Ford, the show’s host and assistant director. “I think it shows people that you can make a film whenever you want, just grab a bunch of friends together and do it.”
The films themselves, and therefore the episodes, vary wildly in style, tone and substance, as you would expect when randomly selecting a director based, in large part, on “vibes”. Created by Jeb McCormick, known better as his online alias worldofjeb, knows what makes good content, but he’s also an avid film fan. In this series, which is produced by Fallen Media, he gets to combine his expertise with his passion. “The audience is drawn in by getting to see the process along with the payoff, which you don’t see in a lot of content. It’s very rewarding,” he says.
Here, we speak to McCormick and Ford about the show’s online success, its creative influences, and the impact they’re having in the worlds of short form content and filmmaking.
Short Stuff: Can you share a little about your background prior to 15 Second Film?
Becca Ford: I grew up doing theatre, I sang in a renaissance-themed choir for many years, and I think that developed my brain to be a little fantastical. When I started going to school in Philly [Philadelphia], I was making weird little movies, and then I moved to New York and started going to school there to study film and acting.
Jeb McCormick: I’ve been making videos on social media since high school, actually with my grandma. Then I moved to Philadelphia for college and started making short animations and prank videos. They started to really pick up traction but after a while I started to get a bit sick of it, so I moved into making films. I really fell in love with that. I came back to doing content and when Fallen Media reached out to me and asked if I wanted to do a show, I said that I’d love to do something related to film. That’s where 15 Second Film came from.
SS: How do you select members of the public to become the director?
BF: When we're scouting for people to direct, it’s like this part of our brain turns on, sort of like people-watching but in a more active way. We ask ourselves, is that person interesting? Do they look cool?
JM: It’s actually the worst part about the show to me. I feel so guilty because I'm scanning around and basically thinking, does this person look “cool”. It makes me feel like a jerk, but you have to do it!
SS: What are the markers of someone being cool as far as you think of it?
BF: There’s a certain feeling that I get when I see certain people – have they got a story behind their eyes? Is their gait a little funky? I think we usually always agree.
JM: Yeah for sure. There’s an episode with this guy named Lefty who is this older New York guy that we found going to a bodega and he was hilarious off the bat. He loved the idea, and I think it comes across best when someone really buys into it and they're very much themselves.
SS: Why do you think people enjoy watching these so much? What do you think is behind the amazing engagement the videos get?
BF: I've had a lot of people who aren’t in the film world tell me that we make it seem really accessible to make something with very little. I think the most valuable resource we have when we're shooting is people – we have someone to do the sound, actors, videographer, and then you get to direct it. I think it shows people that you can make something whenever you want, just grab a bunch of friends together and do it.
JM: I also think it works because when you watch the episodes, you can see how many different types of people take up the director role. You might see someone who seems similar to you and think, I could do this. In terms of it being good content, coming from a social media background and looking at analytics and engagement, the hook is really strong here. It’s such a huge question – “Do you want to direct a short film?” – and then you see the interesting person that's about to do it – as a viewer, why wouldn’t you want to see that process? And that’s what makes the actual films good – on their own they’re very short, so you’re drawn in by getting to see the process along with the payoff, which you don’t see in a lot of content. It’s very rewarding. And also, it's not brain rot content.
SS: So true! Who comes up with the movie posters that we see on the Instagram grid? We love them.
JM: Me! Or our other incredible editor Isabella Mule – when we’re editing we make the movie posters from a screenshot or a still from the film. Recently though we’ve been taking photos on set for the posters which I think we’ll keep doing.
SS: Do you have any particularly memorable moments since you started making 15 Second Film?
BF: We have to talk about Nicole. She was with her brother and her brother’s friend, they were all in high school and the second we went up to them, she in particular was like, I’m so down. She was so excited and asked if she could use the film for her portfolio because she was applying to colleges to study film.
JM: Having a high school kid who’s thinking of making films and then have something like this happen is, for me, the best case scenario. It’s kind of a dream come true for myself as a kid who grew up on a farm and this kind of thing would never have been possible for me. If I’d gone to New York once and got stopped on the street, made a film and had it up on iMDB, that would have changed the course of my life creatively. I love that we might be able to provide that kind of opportunity for someone else.
SS: Do you have plans to scale up? What’s next for 15 Second Films?
JM: Thankfully we have Rowan and Andrea, our big producers behind the scenes, who are always trying to move the show forward in really good ways. We have some really cool opportunities coming up…We definitely want to go to different parts of the world to get completely different perspectives. We’d love to have well-known directors on the show as well. I'm always trying to think of ways to lean it towards the art side, try new things, experiment a bit. We’d love to do silent films, for example, and maybe shoot on film. That would be cool.
BF: And aside from that, we're gonna experiment more with the films themselves. We're still in a process of figuring out what more we can do in fifteen seconds, as much with what we do on set as with editing. I'm really excited about that.