My friend, Kyle, and I have dreamt about making a short film together for several years. I’ve wanted to make movies for as long as I can remember, and he’s wanted to be in them just as long. So when we met back in 2012, ideas started rolling. We probably came up with 2 or 3 short films over the years, but things kept getting in the way, or we just realized we didn’t have the budget to make them happen.
Finally in early 2017, we made it a priority. It’s so easy to let your imagination soar when writing your short film, but we did our best to keep our tiny budget in mind (we probably spent a little over a hundred dollars in the end). We finally came up with a story that was compelling enough to pursue, and we started planning the shoot. Kyle and I both have full-time jobs, families, and we live about 3 hours apart, so it wasn’t always easy to get the ball rolling. But we decided to shoot it where Kyle lives, so he was able to scout locations and pretty much cast everyone. Our friend Anthony lives near Kyle, and he’s an amazing videographer, so he was happy to join the project and collaborate on the camera work. He also provided all of his equipment, and was able to snag a boom operator for half of the first day.
In August of 2017, we started shooting. This was our very first short film, so we learned a lot: technical issues, camera issues, weather issues, budget issues, we had a lot of issues to push through. We shot everything over the course of two days, and for a lot of that time, the only “crew member” we had was Anthony, who was running the camera! But it was a great experience, and I’m confident that the knowledge we gained through our mistakes will make our next short film far greater!
I was so excited to get home and put it together. I had the first cut done in just a few days! But the “final tweaks” took months, as we were forced to re-record some audio, add effects, record the music (done by the amazing Austin Bevins), and all sorts of things. I found that I had trouble letting go of it; I just couldn’t tweak it enough. Every day I thought of something I could change or add, and that went on for months.
Finally, I got to a point where I’d say I felt 90% satisfied. I knew it wasn’t perfect, but after talking with Kyle, I knew that if I didn’t just put it out there now, I’d never let it go. So we did. It’s far from perfect, and when people point things out, I just say “Oh…I know. Believe me, I know.” But I’m proud of it. I’m proud that what was once only in our heads is now on screen. I can’t wait for the next one.
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