Will Norman’s The Oddersy

Will Norman’s short film The Oddersy premiered on 2026-09-03. It’s a 10-minute, tongue-in-cheek retelling of Homer’s Odyssey shot almost entirely through the webcam of a £15 2009 iMac and made by a volunteer crew of 30.

What happened and why it matters

Norman started with a viral parody of Christopher Nolan’s IMAX obsession that pulled in 14 million views. That joke turned into something bigger when contributors offered time, props and skills to build a proper short film using the same obsolete machine. The result is a deliberately lo-fi, wildly inventive piece that reminds viewers why constraints often spark the best ideas.

How they did it

• The team mounted the 2009 iMac — drilled to a tripod plate — and powered it from a camping battery on location.
• For big wide shots they strapped the iMac to a 25ft Technocrane and dangled it over a rubber dinghy on an Essex lake, creating an Ithacan warship on choppy water.
• Because the iMac webcam can’t record without freezing, the crew cable-tied an iPad to the back, streamed the feed to it and screen-recorded that instead.
• Phone lenses, Photo Booth backdrops and everyday items (lime bikes as dollies, miniature horses in sand) were pressed into service to make spectacle from thrift-store resources.

“The limitations became the most exciting part,” says Will Norman.

The film plays like a love letter to DIY filmmaking: forced-perspective giants, intentionally silly visual glitches and a lot of improvised engineering. It premiered at Close-Up Cinema in London, where filmmaker and critic Jack Howard introduced the screening and called the film a standout for its inventiveness.

Where to watch

The Oddersy is available on YouTube; Norman has invited viewers to watch on an iMac where possible and share an Instagram Stories photo tagging @willnormanfilms with #AsNotlanIntended. The stunt is equal parts joke and proof-of-concept — a reminder that fresh ideas and resourcefulness can still cut through an era obsessed with high-end tech.