Sundance Film Festival

With the recent popularity of free, user-generated content on websites like YouTube, where video is most often viewed in short bursts, original short films have been able to find a new and eager audience. No longer confined to being seen one theater and one festival at a time, shorts can be uploaded by the filmmakers and watched by anyone in the world who has a fast enough internet connection.

This trend seems to favor comedic shorts more than anything else, and Dan Beers’ short film FCU: Fact Checkers Unit definitely falls into that category. To show at Sundance 2008 is prestigious for sure, but at this point, it seems like almost an afterthought. This short is something of an internet sensation, having appeared on Will Ferrell’s FunnyorDie.com site, and now on YouTube and virtually everywhere else with embeddable video. It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have Bill Murray in your movie.

In addition to directing, Beers also co-wrote the short with its two stars, Peter Karinen and Brian Sacca. The set-up is simple. Two guys who work as fact checkers and take their job very seriously (way more seriously than their half-awake, banana-chomping editor) are assigned to check whether or not Bill Murray has a glass of milk right before he goes to bed at night. Read On and watch the entire short at Scene-Stealers.com