How I Made My Biggest Short Film in Three Days

How do you film a 20 minute epic fantasy adventure short film in three days with no budget while you’re in school? 

If you said blackmail, slave labor, or sell your soul to the devil, then you're a horrible person. Also, you are probably a filmmaker. Also, have you been reading my notes?

Also, can I introduce you to this guy?

(If you didn’t get that joke it means you haven’t seen the short film yet. Which you can rectify below and then read it again to laugh uproariously. )

I did this question back when I made my last student film Happy Never After. After filming my previous film over six weekends in a schedule that made everyone involved hate life (and me) and pray for the I they knew would not come I decided to try a different strategy: one, breakneck pace weekend where we work like crazy and get everything done. As crazy as it sounded--and it sounded Joker, Annie Wilkies, and Norman bates on a road trip in a stopped car crazy--it worked. What I learned helped me learn the best ways to use your time best to get the most from your crew in the shortest amount of time.

1. Preplan, preplan, preplan.

Everything that went right that weekend went well because we pre-planned things well. Everything that went wrong went wrong because we didn’t pre-plan enough. The Cinematographer, Forest Erwin, and I went over the vision for the look of the film and the shots and scenes beforehand so we knew exactly what we were shooting, where, when, and for how long. We figured out we could save so much time if we divided our shoot into everything we filmed in the FiDi (Ron/Sarah’s coffee meeting, flashback, walk by the water) Day 1, the chapel scene Day 2, and everything else in Brooklyn (zombie chase, funeral, party) Day 3. This served us amazingly well. This meant everyone knew where they should be when and for how long and could plan their other stuff accordingly.

2. Have dedicated people.

You can’t convince people to give up so much of their weekend for free unless they really want to be there. Nobody will do it unless they really like you or really like your idea. Fortunately, I had both. I had made a lot of amazing friends while at school who wanted to work with me, and a great script I'd written that people loved. My cinematographer was excited about the project, my actor friends were excited about it. Everyone wanted to make it work and so they put in the work to make sure it did. They even convinced their friends and family to be on the project too. Most of the extras where there because of our line-producer, Deryka Tso. We got the church because of Forest. If they didn't, the movie could not have happened. So make friends and have a good script is the lesson here. 

Was it hard? It was hard, but selling your soul to the devil is more costly in the long run. 

Don't ask me how I know.

What say you? What are stories you have about making a film at a breakneck pace on no budget? Let me know in the comments.

How (I Learned) to Make a Christian Film (So Far)

In case you didn't know, I am a Christian. That being the case, I always wanted to make a film that talked about the things I love about God, I.E. a "Christian" film. But I was always afraid of doing it badly because that was the unfortunate reputation of Christian films. Even so, I finally got up the courage to go for it and in the process I learned a lot about what I think makes a Christian film work and not work.

Since a lot of my fellow Christian filmmakers are right now in an ongoing conversation of the best ways to make Christian films, I thought I would add my two cents to the topic. This is not an exhaustive list and I’ve by no means learned everything. It’s just one more voice in the conversation based on my small bit of experience.

Watch it in the player below and then read on!

Spoilers, ahead, naturally. 

SHARE WHAT YOU LOVE; DON'T TEACH WHAT YOU THINK

One reason I was nervous to make a Christian film was that Christian films have a (somewhat) deserved bad-reputation for being too preachy. Sometimes a Christian film will have a great scene and then they will ruin it with too much talking.  I think this is because the Christians making these films think they’re job is to teach people what to think about God when it's not. Your job is to share what you love about him.

Don't get me wrong, I love this movie, but man the
scene would have been so much better if they'd just
 stopped talking at some point.

Imagine two lunch dates: one is with your mom and the other is with your newly married best friend. Your mom is telling you that you should get married and is listing all the reasons why you should and asking what excuse you have for not being married yet. Your best friend is bubbling over telling you how much they love being married and sharing all the details. The first wants to tell you what to do while the second simply wants to share what they already have. Which of these actually makes you want to be married? Both make an argument for why you should get married but the latter you actually enjoy and makes you desire it yourself.

My reasons for wanting to make Happy Never After were the latter, and that is the magic switch that made me feel comfortable really talking about faith in film. I knew what it was like to be afraid God wasn’t real in the face of death and I really wanted to share how glad I was that he was real and that he made eternal happy endings possible. 

CS Lewis didn’t originally intend Aslan to be part of his Narnia books; he didn’t write the books intending to preach a Christian allegory. Aslan forced his way into the story almost against his will because Jesus was part of CS Lewis’s imagination. That should be a strong model for how we make Christian films too.

SHOW DON’T TELL

This goes back to the preaching thing. Films are—first and foremost—a visual medium. That means the power belongs first in the images and then the words. Christian films often try to preach the Gospel by giving long speeches about it. But really, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I made a concentrated effort to make a lot of the theology visual. In my film, Ron’s “come to Jesus” moment is just a look toward the cross.

Do you think that moment works? Let me know. Regardless, it was my attempt to apply the principle of doing faith it what is a primarily visual medium.

LOVE FILMS FOR FILMS SAKE

This one is not as obvious as it sounds. It’s is not enough to say that Christians should make films that are “high quality”.  You won’t make a really great film unless you are passionate about great filmmaking for itself and not just as a way to get your Christian message to people.

I was blessed that everyone on my project not only loves God, they love great films and great filmmakers. My DP and I would share movie clips to each other from Terrence Malick and David Lowery films to inspire shots in the movie. We all regularly read film education sites like No Film School and watched the amazing film essay series Every Frame a Painting (example in the player below) because they showed us great new ways to make great movies. If you’re a Christian and you aren’t doing that because you enjoy it, you probably should serve God in some other business.

HAVE A THEOLOGY CONSULTANT (OR TWO)

Audiences care both about a good story and a movie staying true to the source material. This means if you're going to appeal to Christians--one of your main audiences--you've got to make sure you're not trampling on Orthodoxy that will unnecessarily cheese people off.

It was important to me that Ron and Mary came back as messengers from God to kill Jacob Applegate at the end. Because I wanted people to feel the thrill of the hero beating the villain to show that obeying God is as thrilling triumph over evil as a typical hero adventure story. But my story editor—Tessa Duckson, as strong Christian--was concerned that this would send the wrong message about God condoning vengeance. We went back and forth and decided that we needed to make clear that was not the case in three ways a) make it clear they are coming back to save Sarah, b) set up their return by having Jacob mention “God send a messenger to strike me dead”, and c) have them wear their hoods while they kill Jacob to emphasize that they are acting on their role from God and not as Ron and Mary.

This turned out to be a blessing because Ron and Mary concealing their faces with hoods and then revealing themselves to Sarah when they pull them off became a very cinematic touch. This goes to show that if you wrestle with orthodoxy you can come up with an even better film than if you just disregard it entirely.

So that's it. I hope, whether you're a Christian or not, you find some of that helpful in this if you ever decide to take a stab at dealing with faith in film. I certainly have much more to learn in that regard. (And I've learned so much more even since then.) And I look forward to being inspired by other great filmmakers--Christian and non-Christian--as I continue to work in this amazing medium that I love.

What have you learned trying to deal with faith in film? Leave a comment and let me know.

How to Make a Short Film: Happy Never After

I just released my latest short film Happy Never After this past week. Of all the films I’ve made in my time filmmaking, this is the one that is most personal to me and of which I am the most proud.  It is the first where I explored expressing my faith in film, and learned to grapple with far darker material. I also wrote this story during my father’s illness and he passed away when I was in post-production.  So the story’s theme—death—holds an added importance for me.

(Watch the movie here!)

It was also where I learned some of my best lessons about how to make the kind of films I want to make: (SPOILERS BELOW.)

How Do You Express Faith in Film?

I made Happy Never After to find a way to express how my faith shapes my view of death. I’ve always struggled to express my faith in film. Why is it so hard? Because we have very few good models to go off of. People think a faith movie means arguing with the audience about what to believe. Usually in speeches that go on too long.

Not that I'm talking about anything specific...

I wanted to, instead, invite people to share in my experience of joy at being a Christian. So I wrote my thoughts about death as an exciting cosmic tale of good vs evil where you are drawn to root for a couple to choose faith over the alternative. The villain has the main speech in the film, and the “come-to-Jesus” moment is done with a simple look toward the cross.

How Do You Collaborate With Others?

The two biggest things I learned about collaborating was a) it should be done early and thoroughly and b) you need to know what you are willing to compromise on and what you’re not. Forest Erwin’s cinematography and Kyle Trivanovich’s performance as Jacob Applegate were so amazing partly because we spent so much time together getting on board with the same vision.

One of the best shots by Forest and best performances by Kyle.

Pre-Planning is Important

We did the entire film over three days with pretty much no budget. How? By lots of pre-planning by dedicated people. We had all the shooting days picked out and filmed all the scenes in close locations to each other. So everything to be filmed in the FiDi we filmed on the same day; everything at the church the same day, etc. There were screw ups, of course. But when there were, it was because we didn't pre-plan enough.

What About When Things Go Wrong?

I learned the best thing to do when things go wrong in filmmaking is to keep calm, figure out what’s really important, and cut out the rest.

One day we were filming in the park and some of the equipment was late getting to us. It was so late that we knew we wouldn’t be able to film everything before the actors needed to leave. So Forest and I cut down drastically the number of shots we needed to take before they left. It was rough, but we got the shots we needed to make the film work.

Everything Works Out

The biggest thing I learned filming this though was that God is in control and everything works out. This is something you learn making films for a while. For some reason, when everything goes wrong, things still work out.

Comment by Forest: "I caught a barracuda thiiisss big." 

Before I finished the script for Happy Never After, most of my school’s filmmaking club—of which I was president—dropped out. I had no crew so I was pretty sure the film couldn’t be made.

But two coincidences happened that made the project possible: My friend Hope Epperson (now Hope White) told me she still really wanted to be a part of the film. So she worked to get her friends to be the actors. I had also just reconnected with Forest Erwin. So, since Hope really wanted it to happen, I called up Forest to see if he wanted to be DP. And he said an enthusiastic "yes". If these two things didn’t happen, Happy Never After probably would not have been made. And I wouldn't have had had the tribute to my father or the God that makes seeing him again possible.

The best films not only teach you about filmmaking, but also about life. This film did more: it because one of the best parts of mine. Thank you, everyone, who shared it with me and made it possible.