//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 jpg · 1600 × 844 · 68 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 11 min.

[production notes. 300 words. method rather than intention: how it was shot, what was decided on the day, what changed, what was cut.]

[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 relives the same day until the self-help voices in his head turn into a montage he cannot switch off.

//synopsis, short

An anxious young man’s day keeps repeating. He does not notice the loop. What he notices is the advice: a rising montage of self-help slogans his own brain supplies, in his own voice, until the encouragement becomes the thing he is trying to escape.

//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
runtime11 min
country of productionUSA
languageEnglish
subtitles availableEnglish SDH
aspect ratio1.90:1
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