First and foremost, I could not have done any of this without the talented cast and crew who offered their valuable time.

With everything I learned from my first two shorts, and with Roger (DP) back on board, I decided to write a suspense thriller. This time, I wanted to return to a single location and squeeze as much production value from it as possible. My cousin’s place—where I had filmed part of What Do You Want?!—ended up being perfect. This time we had an ensemble cast of four, and the challenge this time around was coverage. How do I shoot 4 people in a single scene, where do I put the camera, how do I keep it from getting boring, pacing etc. It made my head spin.

I always approach everything from an editing standpoint and that background really shapes how I visualize story and filmmaking. I have a pretty good photographic memory, so I’m able to mentally catalog scenes and shots, work out cuts on the fly without losing track (I don’t recommend it). I’m constantly editing in my head while shooting, coming up with new transitions or simply a better way to get in and out of a scene. I’m always looking for the hook in a scene. This is just how I work, and I’ve become really fluid in that workflow. You just need to find whatever works best for you and fine-tune that ability.

I’ve never been a big fan of storyboarding, not because I don’t want to but the way we operate doesn’t really lend itself to locking down shots. I have a general idea of what i’d like to see but I lean more on shot lists that I can reference and keep me on track. We never have time to rehearse in the locations, We don’t have the time and time is money, something we rarely have in any of our projects. I often had to find the shots on the spot. Camera rehearsal and letting the actors organically find it and work around them. We try to have rehearsals at my place to iron out more specific character details but as far as blocking goes, it’s all found the day of. I learned a lot in that process. I’m extremely proud of what we pulled off in just two days. This short took me places and introduced me to people I never would have met otherwise.

What I ultimately learned from this film was how to pace a story, and that came down to the writing. I was still loose in structure and didn’t fully grasp that until I filmed it and saw what I had—or hadn’t—done. Nonetheless, this project gave me the confidence I needed to push myself even further. Overall, it was an honor to work with these talented actors. They allowed me to try and learn something new, I would love to take another crack at either horror or a thriller.