Speaker A
A new breed of actor has been born and he's hungry for change now more than ever. Join Taffy as he gets ready to set the screens on fire and change the game of cinema becoming Taffy.
Taffy Bennett's Becoming Taffy episode 5 follows his film debut Sword's Edge, a project about youth desperation and systemic unfairness, mixed with gym and behind-the-scenes moments.
Key Takeaways
- Sword's Edge is driven by a sense of generational desperation over economic and systemic unfairness.
- The creators present the film as a call for understanding rather than an endorsement of breaking rules.
- The conversation frames systemic failure as a conflict between outdated structures and a changing world, not simply generational.
- Unchecked polarization and continued inequality are seen as paths to greater turmoil.
What the video covers
- Episode 5 of the Becoming Taffy series documents actor Taffy Bennett preparing for his first film debut, Sword's Edge.
- Opens with a gym anecdote: a careless previous user left a chest press latch unlocked, causing Taffy to get hit, which he uses to discuss inconsiderate gym behavior.
- Taffy describes a power training protocol based on force = mass times acceleration, focusing on speed per rep with moderate loads.
- Sword's Edge was inspired by real-world events and the director, Guru, has directed nearly all of Taffy's work.
- Taffy draws a parallel between a reality TV task (Big Boss, a Tamil reality show) where a losing team resorted to stealing food and breaking rules, and the real-world situation facing young people.
- The film aims to capture the desperation and pain young people feel about their future under an economic system they see as rigged, including inflation and inequality.
- Taffy stresses the project is not endorsing rule-breaking, but seeking understanding of the feelings behind it.
- The discussion frames the conflict as an 'old system versus new world' rather than old versus young, arguing the post-war system no longer works.
- They warn that without real change, protests and arrests will continue, and society will polarize into opposing sides.
- The episode closes with an excerpt of the film's monologue about land, labor, rules, and the demand for fair share and equal opportunity.
Chapters
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Taffy is getting closer to his first debut film, but the world around him, it seems, is going through major upheaval. Upheaval that begins to concern and move him artistically. In any case, the grind never ceases, even if there are some quirks in the journey getting there.
Speaker A
Today I got smacked in the gym when I the guy before me, he left the bench and he didn't lock the latch in. So I got up on and started a chest press and I just bam into the seat. It's pretty
Speaker A
crazy. Now you know why I hate to work out with other people cuz you know sometimes people just they're just not considerate when they use the gym. Um, but it is what it is. I should have checked it. So, that that's that as well. But, you know, I'm doing a power protocol today using
Speaker A
um force equals mass times acceleration. So, my weights are heavy, but I'm trying to get as much acceleration into every rep as possible. So, these are my upper body. They're maxed out at 15 kilos.
Speaker A
lower body. I'm just using like 20s. That's max cuz that's all I really need.
Speaker A
Doesn't get any better than that. Sword's Edge was born from the events unfolding in the world, but putting it to film was the real challenge. A challenge that director Guru and Taffy are not new to. Whatever it takes for the shot. Smoke break, man.
Speaker A
Too much smoke. Malaysian population. I am a huge uh big boss, Eric. And big boss is like big brother in uh Tamil Nadar in Chennai.
Speaker A
And so um I was inspired a couple of weeks ago. They had a um a task where um two groups were supposed to fight for, you know, um a competition in the house and whoever wins gets to control the
Speaker A
kitchen, gets to control the food, gets to control the sleeping areas and all that stuff. And then what happened is one of the teams, the red team started to lose, you know, consistently. and they lost all their rights. They lost everything and it looked like the game sort of was rigged or skewed
Speaker A
towards the uh blue team side. And but in that process, I realized that um the the people on the losing team uh they had to resort to stealing food and you know fighting for their rights. and you know doing things that you know were breaking the rules and then I realized that that's sort of the
Speaker A
case that you know we are in right now where we live in a in a system that our parents built and it did good by them good for them but they want us to continue in this system but the system doesn't
Speaker A
include us and the system's already overheating. And so the question becomes um is it okay for people to break the rules? Um and of course in the blue in the blue team they were saying you know work hard, earn your living um um you know fight for every dime. But when the game's rigged
Speaker A
against you and you're struggling uh to make ends meet and you know put food on the table for your family or even dream of something better than what your parents had and in a lot of these countries they're going to have less than what the parents had. Like they know it right. um if they sell
Speaker A
their properties, if they take a loan, if they do these things. And so there's a like a burning heart among uh our generation, you know, the young people who are left behind. And it inspired me to do this. And so, um, Guru's always been with me from the start and he's directed pretty much
Speaker A
everything, um, that I've done. And we just got together and thought of putting something to, you know, touch on the pulse of this situation. It's it's a sad situation, but I don't know, you know. So, um, there are a lot of shots that we do did, stylized shots and dialogue
Speaker A
pieces and all of that, but at the heart of it, we're trying to capture that sense of desperation and the sense of pain that a lot of us young people are feeling when we think about what kind of future we can expect because it doesn't look like you know the system is in our favor or the
Speaker A
system is helping. So we're not trying to say that you you know doing breaking the rules is right or we're not trying to say anything. We're just trying to capture the the pain and the and the re and and the hardship that people are going through at this point in time like everywhere
Speaker A
like you know in any country um with young people and old people if it's a capitalist country they are going through inflation. If it's a developing country, the the higher politicians have a taste of that capitalism and they don't want to give it to the ones below. So it's the same story
Speaker A
everywhere people are protesting. So, so that's the reason why we came up with this and we hope that you, you know, will will resonate with this, especially the feeling that we're going through, especially that feeling. We don't need I I mean, it's not that we want you to accept what we're
Speaker A
doing as right or wrong. We just want to, you know, to be understood. like why we're feeling this and how we can turn it around. And I think maybe not maybe I think the system has to change.
Speaker A
What do you think the system has to change? Right. So system If things continue on this path, everyone will be in a lot of trouble. Like we can listen to the old people and say, "Yeah, let's follow your system." But it's it's an overheating engine. So people
Speaker A
are thinking about what about my children? What about what's going to happen to them?
Speaker A
So, do I want to listen to the old I mean, it's not an old versus young. It's um a it's an old system versus new world. An old world versus a new world. Our parents face a different world. The post world war world. Maybe that worked, but now it's not working. So,
Speaker A
as a director, any anything that you as a director I mean yeah you're right the change uh soon it has to happen effort yeah if not like we see the protest is going to be there's going to be more protest more people getting arrested and all
Speaker A
but it's going to happen once it dies down it will happen again unless there's proper change uh which is interesting because the change is easy even though it seems like the younger ones are the one protesting but change is evidently needed for all the young the old exactly everyone. So like
Speaker A
you say it's not a fight between the old and new. It's a fight between the system of and how they think it's going to work. So yeah, if it changes, great. If it doesn't, then it's just going to be
Speaker A
a world of people just, you know, having sides A versus B, B versus, right? So that's exact exactly what he said. Becoming it's just becoming sides. We're just living in a polarized world. Everyone's on one side or the other and that's going to lead to more turmoil. Yeah, there more sides that
Speaker A
people are taking of one side, the other side is become your enemy, right? That's not good. Yeah, just sides versus sides. Sides versus sides. So, we hope you guys um like what we've done and um you keep following our journey as we take more steps into um the film industry to, you know,
Speaker A
change the game, right? So, the scene that we've done comes after this. So, we hope you enjoy it.
Speaker A
You think I care you planted these trees to make this place look beautiful? No.
Speaker A
All I see is fruit I'm not allowed to eat to fill my hungry belly. And then you pick this from the ground and levy a price on it so that I could buy. Yet you didn't create the seeds or send the rain or force the sun to shine to make it grow.
Speaker A
All you did was put this seed into the earth. Earth. This earth that belongs as much to me as it does to you because my bones belong to me. Yet somehow you're better than me.
Speaker A
You fear a man like me. Not because I don't play by the rules. No. but because I challenge the rules that you've set. Rules that have made God's free world into one big toll machine.
Speaker A
Tell me this. How many of us and for how long are you going to press us down?
Speaker A
Change is coming and even you know it. Your time is up. We will take what is equally ours at the edge of a sword or by sacrificing our own lives for our own piece of earth.
Speaker A
Rule us. We don't care. But give us our fair share and equal opportunity and basic rights. That is all we're asking.
Speaker A
You rigged this game with force and we're going to take it from you by force. All we want is our fair share.
Topics:Taffy BennettBecoming TaffySword's Edgeshort filmactinggenerational inequalityfilm behind the scenesgym workoutsocial commentaryindie film
