‘My Year of Dicks’: It’s Real, It’s Oscar-Nominated, and You Can Watch It Now

It was exciting. It’s nice that it got memed in the best way, that everybody jumped on board with the same giddy delight. As Sara has pointed out, the title gets you into this juvenile space that’s really crucial for putting yourself back in those teenage shoes. So it felt like everybody was passing notes in the back of class like, “Did you see what was in animated short film?”  Ironically, our short doesn’t have nearly as many dicks as [fellow nominee] The Flying Sailor.

Yes! You don’t see full-frontal where you would expect it in this category. 

We’ve been up [for awards] with Christopher at Sea a lot—also a lot of dicks. And we deliver on the promise of the premise, but our dicks are legion. We had thinker dicks.

To some degree, shorts have to pick a provocative title to get noticed—was that your intention in choosing this one?

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can definitely tell its tone by the title. And it was really important to set the stage coming in. When you’re dealing with adult animation, it’s been so established what it should look and sound like for it to be considered seriously. This wasn’t in terms of just getting to this Oscar nom, which we never ever could have expected, but just being something that people would click on and watch. You do want a title that says, “Hey, I know you maybe don’t even watch these kinds of things, but this might be your jam.”

Who has been the most surprising or exciting person you’ve heard from who has seen the film?

There have been a lot of cool things, but Lisa Loeb—I can’t not call her both of her names—but through Facebook or whatever, she said, “This is great. I just watched this in my car in the morning after drop-off.” And I was like… “Thank you, Lisa Loeb.” Then she came to the screening and she’s super supportive. We keep calling this the little short that could, but it does keep attracting a lot of fun times. 

You’ve referred to the film as “homegrown” because in addition to your actual video and diary entries, you’ve cast family members in various parts. How did you decide where to infuse your personal life into the narrative?

When you’re independent and scrappy, you just start with, “We’re putting on a show, who’s in?” I love being able to turn to anybody that I’ve been working with, even if we were in our late teens and early twenties and go, “Hey, I think you’re perfect for this.” I hear their voices still. I wrote for them to begin with and so why wouldn’t I write for them now? Well, I did have to say to my family, “It’s called My Year of Dicks,” so there was that part to get over. 

It’s not a documentary, but being able to take a place and time and go, “We’ve recreated it for your mortification,” is unique. I had an opportunity with my family, some of whom are not with us anymore. The specificity of the way that my dad delivered that sex talk could only be recaptured with my genetic equivalent cousin. It is beyond. That’s what happened. All credit to my cousin [Chris Kelman]. At one point he was like, “We’re just going to get through these lines. I’m your dad, but I’m not your dad.” Then at one point he said into the microphone, “Pamela, this is your father. And I just want you to know that I couldn’t see everything that you’ve been doing, but I’m very, very proud.”