Access requires a completed residency assessment. The assessment is brief. Most applicants finish it in under two minutes.
There are no incorrect answers. There are, however, answers.
form4b.com Return completed assessment to the address on file · HELLO, a short film
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A man is locked out of his apartment. The locksmith needs to be satisfied that it is emotionally his.
Marcus has been sitting in his own hallway for two hours, kinda like waiting in limbo. When the locksmith finally arrives, he doesn't bring tools — he brings a clipboard, sits down on his toolbox, and starts running through this standardized assessment to figure out whether the apartment belongs to Marcus at all.
He is unfailingly polite. He never raises his voice, not even a little. And, honestly, he would genuinely like Marcus to pass. Meanwhile a neighbor drifts out to watch, offers a small correction about the color of the kitchen and answers the questions considerably better than Marcus does.
I wanted to write about the specific feeling of being asked to prove something you have never once had to put into words. Marcus knows the apartment is his. He has no idea how to demonstrate it. The whole film lives in the gap between those two facts.
Voss is not a villain. He is the most reasonable person in the hallway, and that is exactly what makes him unbearable. He would genuinely like Marcus to pass. He didn't write the questions and he can't change them. Every cruelty in the film is procedural, and nobody in it is being cruel.
I kept it to four minutes because the premise is a pressure system, and pressure systems stop being funny the moment you explain them. The neighbor answers better than Marcus does because she has thought about it. That's the joke, and it's also the part that bothers me.
Crew, hallways, and anyone who owns a very ordinary beige corridor: I would like to hear from you.
form4b.com HELLO · a four-minute comedy · Wesley Lucas · Fall 2026
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