//assets

press

assets for programmers and press. high resolution masters on request at iv@esque.design.

press kit pdf · 4 pages · 618 kb [ download ]

//key art

key art, horizontal jpg · 1600 × 1035 · 67 kb [ download ]

//stills

still, the bar, wide jpg · 1600 × 844 · 138 kb [ download ]
still, the run, wide jpg · 1600 × 844 · 84 kb [ download ]
still, the old man jpg · 1600 × 844 · 121 kb [ download ]
still, bedroom jpg · 1600 × 844 · 85 kb [ download ]
still, the run, close jpg · 1600 × 844 · 64 kb [ download ]
still, window jpg · 1600 × 844 · 53 kb [ download ]
still, floor jpg · 1600 × 844 · 36 kb [ download ]

//press notes

press kit, pdf pdf · 4 pages · 618 kb [ download ]

//production notes

stop it. was shot over three days in Los Angeles, with a cast of six. It runs 8 min.

A man’s worst day keeps repeating, and every time it starts over his own head supplies more advice about how to fix it. Affirmations, breathing exercises, a voice telling him to sit with the feeling. The comedy is aimed at all of that, not at him. He is having a terrible time.

We shot it in three days in Los Angeles at the end of May, four crew and six actors. Mary Holland produced, designed it and plays Katie. Samuel Diaz shot it on a Sony FX9 with two Angénieux zooms, the 15 to 40mm and the 30 to 90mm, so we could reframe inside a take instead of stopping to swap glass. Edward O’Neil did the sound and wrote the score. I cut it. Because the story loops, we shot the repeated beats from the same positions and let the performances carry the difference. The finished cut runs eight minutes, and most of what came out was explanation nobody needed.

[locations, camera and lenses, colour and post, and any supporting fund or lab.]

fuller notes to come. ask at iv@esque.design if you need them before then.

//for editors

stills on this page are cleared for editorial use with the credit “stop it. (2026), dir. hal whitman”. do not crop the key art. high resolution masters on request.

//logline

An anxious young man’s mentality becomes his reality as he attempts to break the now literal loop of depression.

//synopsis, short

Finding that negative thoughts reset the day, a young man is stuck in a loop of self-deprecating madness. Once he cannot have a negative thought, that’s when he can get through the day.

//synopsis, long

An anxious young man wakes, moves through an unremarkable day, and wakes again to the same one. He is unaware of the repetition. What reaches him instead is a montage of self-help madness his own brain triggers on cue: affirmations, corrections, encouragement, all of it in a voice that sounds like his.

Each pass through the day tightens. The faces around him, in a bar, at a window, on a street, begin to carry the same expression, and the advice speeds up to meet them. The film holds on those faces long enough for the resemblance to become uncomfortable.

What the loop is for, and whether it ends, is settled in the last minute.

//director biography

short, 50 words, for catalogues

Hal Whitman is a writer and director working in short-form narrative, based in Los Angeles. stop it. is his most recent short film. He is developing further short work in the same register: small casts, interior pressure, a voice that will not stop.

long, 150 words, for press

Hal Whitman is a writer and director working in short-form narrative, based in Los Angeles. His films are built around a small cast and a single interior pressure, shot close and cut so that the audience arrives at a feeling slightly before it arrives at the explanation.

stop it. is his most recent short. It follows an anxious young man whose day repeats while his own brain supplies a montage of self-help advice he never asked for. It was made with a cast of six and a crew small enough to fit in the rooms it was shot in.

He is developing further short work in the same register, and a first feature drawn from the same material.

//technical

original titlestop it.
directorhal whitman
year of completion2026
runtime8 min
country of productionUSA
languageEnglish
subtitles availableEnglish SDH
aspect ratio16:9
shooting formatdigital, 4K
sound5.1
frame rate24 fps
exhibition formatsDCP, ProRes 422 HQ, H.264
screener linkon request
premiere statusseeking world premiere

//press contact

press and programmingiv@esque.design
distributionseeking