In the first half of the year of 2012, I had this angst to start creating again. Life had gone back to normal. It was school then work then home.

I was keeping contact with a lot of the people I met during ICF. One of the folks I kept in touch with was Tal. Tal was this awesome chick. She was an artist and an editor. She was one of the assistants of ICF. She was always encouraging and supportive. One day after, I spent time complaining about my lack of creativity since ICF, and my lack of inspiration to write, and she said let’s do it right now. She started asking me a bunch of questions about the short I wanted to make. This was all through Facebook chat. In an hour, I had my script. I couldn’t believe it. I even had a location, Tal’s house. Now I just had to get a crew and a bunch of friends from ICF offered to help. I found a cast of four. The cast was three of my theater friends from high school and one was recommended by one of the cast members. It was great to have old friends back. The goal was to shoot everything in one night. We got there in the afternoon and set up the house. Tal’s house was big and beautiful. I had gone to the grocery store and bought a bunch of food for everyone and ordered pizza. Adrien was taking care of the lights. Sean was our cinematographer. Andrew and Travis were there for anything we needed. Tal and John were there too. The crew was Marlon, Diego, Jasmine, and Candice, It was fun. We wrapped around midnight.

For this shoot, I decided to let the characters really be themselves. They brought along their own costumes and they knew the gist of the short. Four teens hang out on Halloween night when things start going wrong. I let them be themselves. They were four teenagers in real life with very distinct character traits. I didn’t care if they changed the lines as long as they stuck to the story. I enjoyed giving creative freedom to the actors. There was a dispute about how I wanted the scene to be shot at one point. I wanted the camera to switch between all the actors with no cuts. Adrien was we could just do that in post-production. He wasn’t understanding my vision. At that moment, I learned that I needed to stop having so many hands on deck. I should feel confident in my own vision but I think it is to have that confidence when you don’t trust yourself.

At the end of the day, it was such a wonderful experience and I am so grateful for it. I am really proud of my short, Bloody Mary. I am proud of the shots, the lighting, and the scares.

Enjoy, Bloody Mary!

Love,

Frshta