Senior Vice President of Finance & Chief Financial Officer, RAMBUS INC
SHOWTIME - Director Commentary by Desmond Lynch
This is the conclusion of my behind the scenes series on the production of my short film; SHOWTIME. This is the directors ...
About Desmond Lynch
Desmond Lynch, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer at Rambus, presented the company's third quarter fiscal year 2024 financial results on an earnings call in October 2024. He reported revenue of $145.5 million, with product revenue of $66.4 million, which he described as up 177% sequentially and 27% year-over-year, driven by continued strength in DDR5. Lynch stated that the company ended the quarter with $432.9 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, and delivered $48.6 million in free cash flow. He provided guidance for the fourth quarter, projecting revenue between $154 and $160 million and non-GAAP earnings per share between $0.52 and $0.59. Separately, in May 2025, Lynch released a director's commentary for his short film "Showtime," in which he discussed the production process. He described the exterior shoots as stressful due to a lack of budget, noting that the crew could not close off streets and had to cut takes for safety. Lynch stated that the film is "based on a true story" and described it as "very bleak, very sad, but also unfortunately true," addressing themes of people "dealing with all the nonsense" they have to endure to get by. He also mentioned plans for future projects, including a short film titled "God's Country" and a feature film in development.
Transcript (19 segments)
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Desmond Lynch0:00
Hello, my name is Desmond Lynch. I'm 26 years old and I'm a filmmaker. Today I am doing the director's commentary for my short film, Showtime. So, let's begin watching the film.
So, the first scene coming up is the exteriors. The exteriors for me personally were the more stressful aspect of the filmmaking experience, just because we didn't have any money, so we couldn't close off the streets or make sure people didn't come out of their houses, that type of thing. It was just classic guerilla filmmaking and was chaotic. I remember the night we filmed it was a Sunday and the road was especially busy. So we'd have to cut a take midway through to clear the road and maintain safety for the cast and crew. It was very annoying. It only took us about two or three hours, but it was also cold as well. Cold March in 2023, I believe. So yeah, based on a true story, but difficult.
Yeah. So we did that. This was the first take of the bottle opening. I always like that because the bottle opening of the fridge kind of shows a lot of character of Camila and who she is. Yeah. That's a good shot.
And that's a new location. That window is not in the living room, it's in the bedroom. We had to swap it out because in the story that's supposed to be one big room, but of course in that location it isn't, because the living room in question didn't have a window looking out on the street. So we had to cheat it to make it look like it was the same room, but it was actually two different rooms.
So, in the background, you see our lovely art director, Lucy, put up some very shitty curtains and also a blanket just to cover up a cabinet that we just couldn't move because there was no space to move it. And it had a bunch of stuff in it anyway, and it would have been too time consuming to move. So we had to just cover it up with a blanket.
So, flashing lights, red and blue. The cop cars in the province are just blue lights, so the red moon isn't the most realistic, but I felt it translates better for international audiences who have red and blue lights in their own countries. People understand what it's supposed to mean, so it's good.
Yeah. So, this one was the first day we shot. I think we did about three different shots here: medium shot, medium close-up, and then close-up. The big thing I was always stressing to my editor Mercer was I wanted to cut on movement because I felt it added an energy to the scene that we couldn't really present otherwise, since it was a very static scene. He's only sitting by the window looking outside. If it was just one big long take, it would get very visually boring very quickly. Even though the performance is good, visually it wouldn't have been as compelling as cutting back from various different pieces of coverage. Being able to cut on movement on the slightest things, like head movements or even the movement of a bottle, adds a lot of energy to the scene, which was a little lacking in the first few cuts.
Oh, this is where the film gets a little weird.
So yes, sound design was one of the big creative challenges for this film. First off, we had to get a perfect sound on the production, which I think Patt and Mercer knocked out of the park as they always do. I worked alongside in post-production my good friend Eustus, the dialogue editor, who basically fixed all the mistakes I made in my initial sound edit. The big thing we were trying to achieve was not necessarily realism. It's a mix, almost absurdist to a degree. It's very based on vibes. So we wanted this part of the dialogue to have more impact. Initially I wanted to take away all sound effects, all the chaos from what's happening outside, no more screams, cop cars, voices, and just have silence. I was even saying to remove room tone and atmos entirely and just use solo boom audio of that performance, but he pushed back, saying it would be too surreal, like recording in a vacuum. Having something very faint to imply the presence of the room was one of the big things he was pushing for, because he didn't want that vacuum effect. That was one of the only creative disagreements we had, but he knew more about sound than me, so I just took his word for it.
Yeah, Oria is great in this scene. I think we did a bunch of rehearsals in pre-production. She was in Wexford, I'm in Belfast, obviously, so it was just Zoom. We pretty much rehearsed almost all the dialogue for the scene for the film itself. This scene and the corridor scene we pretty much had nailed down, because almost the entire film was just her. If we don't get it right, it'll fall flat.
Yeah. Good thing Oria, of course, is theater trained, so she's used to doing these monologues. The big thing is in the film nothing really happens. She's just watching something off-screen happen, and what really tells the story is her changing mood, how she goes from tired to a bit more excited, having fun. We learn about her by watching what's happening from outside, and then by the end she kind of crumbles apart because her life is a bit of a mess. It's not ideal, and she's not necessarily a good person. She's one of those people you kind of like but also don't like. She's kind of divisive, I think.
And there's Sean Conville, the legend. God, he looks so high. Yeah, so Sean was the one and only choice for Kenny, just because look at him, he just works on so many levels. I think he's known people like this and he has a good voice for it as well, low and a wee bit posh because he's from South Belfast. For the local people here, I think that contrasts well with Camila who's from West and Sean who's from South, so it sounds more interesting.
That's mold. I always forget that's there. Lucy put that up. There's fake mold in the corners and left-hand corner up there alongside some boxes. She put up this red Chinese calendar as well. That was one of the big things we liked. She stressed about putting up color boards and props that would fit into the aesthetic of the art department and look good on screen. There's a lot of natural reds, like that fire blanket box, and there's a manual on there as well.
So, two lenses we used for this: the 75 millimeter for very tight close-ups, and the 25 for coverage of the scene. I think Sean, whenever he was going ham on that fridge door, accidentally bumped into Tom's camera and nearly knocked it out of his hands. Tom was like, 'That was a bad idea,' and he took a step back so he wasn't standing right beside Sean. He switched to the 75 to get a very tight close-up on Oria, you know, breaking his camera from Sean's antics.
And this is the final scene of the film, which is my personal favorite, just because it speaks for itself. It looks beautiful, it's acted wonderfully, and I think everything just works. This one was one of the more difficult things to shoot because it was the ending. We had to get it right. I think we did 14 takes of this one shot.
I remember that day. This was our second day. We had done rehearsing in pre-production. We woke up early and me and Oria were just in the quarter. I had my viewfinder and I watched her via the camera while she performed to it. On the day, initially I thought it was just going to be one big static wide and she'd stand in the center and talk to camera, but I thought visually that would be a bit static and boring. So I felt if she moved, it would be a lot more visually interesting. We had to figure out the blocking: she comes out the kitchen door, stands there for a while, moves over to the wall, then to the door area, then into the center, then up the stairs. It looks good. We blocked it out in a way that looks cool and makes sense for the character to move like that.
We did that a bunch of times before any of the crew showed up. Then once the crew showed up, Tom and Patrick, the camera people, had to sort out a lot of stuff regarding lighting and all that nonsense. Lucy dressed the entire thing a day or two before we shot it, so almost all of it was ready. But it was a tough shot to get right because it was one big master dynamic shot, plus it was the final monologue, so performance-wise it had to be right. We had to do it 14 times to get it right. I was very specific with what I wanted. Oria was initially very goal-oriented. In our interview, she said she was trying to get the tears to come to prove to herself she could do it. On take six or seven, we got those tears. After that, we felt we could do more. Take 13, I still wasn't happy. We got some decent stuff, but nothing that felt like 'this is how we end the movie.' So on take 14, I said, 'Look, Oria, this is the last take we're doing. Whatever you want to do, just do it.' She went in with that energy and knocked it out of the park. That's the end of the movie.
And she walks away. Yeah. And that's Showtime. Very bleak, very sad, but also very unfortunately true movie about living in this day and age and dealing with all the nonsense people have to put up with to get by. Anyway, thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed the film.
This is the ending of my behind-the-scenes production series on the making of the short film. There's going to be more projects down the line. Hoping to make 'The Witch and the Heart of Stone' this year. Finishing post-production on my short film 'God's Country.' Hopefully that'll be out on a festival circuit by the end of the year as well. I'm in pre-production, or development, of my feature film, which I hope to get made in a couple years. So yeah, hopefully it all works out. But again, thanks for listening. Hope you have a nice day and goodbye.