I'm directing a very short film and here is the work that went into it (so far)

Sharing works-in-progress is scary, essential, and undervalued.

I’ve had a short film idea in my head for a while. To start, I'd like to share the core concept. Then I’d like to share three versions of the script: the first draft, the second draft, and the current draft.

Garage: open.

Imagine you’re watching an Instagram story of me sitting in my kitchen and I say, “Hey, guys. What a beautiful morning. I just wanted to pop on here real quick and share this genuine feeling of gratitude—”

“CUT!”

Cut? Yes. You hear “CUT!” and I stop talking and look off camera for a moment… and SUDDENLY the phone I’m holding moves back—out of my hands and quite quickly—about 30 feet to reveal that the kitchen I’m sitting in is COMPLETELY FAKE and I’m on a sound stage.

An entire crew of folks SWARM the scene and make a ton of adjustments: a director gives me notes, hair and makeup do touch-ups, a gaffer adjusts the lights outside the fake kitchen window so they hit my face more beautifully.

This fake out is absurd. The opposite of whatever “genuine moment” I was attempting to pawn off on you a moment ago.

After the crew finishes with these adjustments, someone yells, “okay, back to one!” and the camera pushes back in to “Instagram selfie mode” and I do another take of my “genuine moment.”

CUT TO BLACK—that’s it.

I imagine all of this takes place in less than 60 seconds. Maybe less than 30. Basically it should take as little time as humanly possible. The shorter, the funnier, probably.

Now what is the point of this? Well, I’m commenting on the fact that social media is bullshit. Entertainment, sure, but it’s by no means reality. And even when people are being genuine, they’re not being genuine. What appears to be one honest moment is often between two and two hundred takes to get to that honest moment.

I think we all know this.

Despite this, we still all-too-often fall victim to being pulled into it as though it’s reality, pining over our hot friends in sexy places doing things without us. Or hot strangers or some guy driving a boat into a dock or whatever the fuck. Here’s the first draft¹ of the script, which was called “The Influencer”:

Now, while it’s true that we come to AMC to laugh, to cry, to care, we’ll need to get through the “notes and feedback” stage in order to get our shit into an AMC. Or onto Instagram.² Or into a festival.

And it’s a pain in the ass.

But it is the process.

It’s a pain because it’s not as simple as “do the notes and it’s fixed.” The notes often point out THAT something isn’t working, but they don’t often point out HOW best to fix it. So I sent this version to a small group of trusted artists and got some pretty solid notes. But I also got several people asking for “more” or saying it should “be longer.”

No.

None for me thanks.

This is designed to be abrupt, making you think, “wait, what did I just watch?” And maybe you watch it again. Or maybe you swipe to the next video where you see those hot friends having “fun” on that “sexy vacation” you couldn’t go on. And then maybe you think back to this video and you go

oh.

Oh. I get it now.

But. We still have to ask: why are people asking for more? Probably because the character is falling a little flat and feeling like it could be anyone. While this is sort of the point, let’s see if we can’t bring him to life a bit more. Version 2:

Let’s break down the main changes I made, and why:

• I gave The Influencer a name, Jake, and never mention him being an influencer. Why? Because the point isn’t that he’s an influencer. I actually just called him that as a sort of placeholder, but realized that that choice was distracting from the core concept: regular people lie about genuine moments, i.e., you don’t have to be an influencer to portray a false reality online.

• Another thing I did was slightly adjust Jake’s dialogue to help him feel more like he had a point of view. He’s now also frustrated that his performance isn’t as genuine. This makes him feel more relatable and hopefully answers the “let’s see more” comment.

• I swapped the name “Marketing Director” to “Marking Executive”. A small but effective change so there weren’t two people with “Director” in their name.

• I expanded the dialogue to slightly pull out more detail in each of the characters. But it also made the piece a lot longer.

• I added a line of dialogue where Jake is frustrated that he’s seeing his ex having the “time of their fucking life in Italy, apparently.” Yes, “apparently,” Jake. Because they aren’t. They’re just as miserable as you, and even though you’re on your 37th take, you just don’t get it. I was super proud of this.

• I changed the ending completely, lost the apathetic Gen Z bit, and just had the film slate come in and call out that they were on take 37. I was also super proud of this.

Fixed and ready to go! Kidding. After another round of notes, I got multiple people wanting to “see more” and “who is this Jake guy” and “is he an influencer” and “is this a branded advertisement” and “why does he have a film crew?”

Sometimes by clarifying the details you add more questions.

I think people keep wanting more because they’re not picturing the same thing I’m picturing in my head. See, I view this as a small, very quick commentary. This guy isn’t real. This crew isn’t real. It’s a short, humorous PSA(?), if you will, I dunno. When I was describing it to someone I was like, “imagine if Tim Robinson from I Think You Should Leave played Jake,” and they were like “ooh, that’s the tone, love it!”

Also, I should point out that there were many people who read it and pictured the correct “quick Instagram sketch” vibe and thought it was great. But I still like to figure out a way to get my vision into more people’s heads with the text.

Before we get into the final thoughts, let’s take a look at the latest version:

Let’s talk about the changes:

• It’s now one page. I simplified the entire middle section into a series of bulleted moments. I did this because no matter how lean the dialogue was, it read slow. This entire section needs to happen way more quickly than people can read, with overlapping dialogue and chaotic energy. So, I lifted all the dialogue. I imagine I’ll have a separate dialogue script to give to the actors playing those parts so they know what they’re going to say, but for someone just reading this to understand the core concept, this is much better.

• I lost Jake’s dialogue of “I thought we nailed it on take 8” because it spoils the joke of take 37 at the end. Sometimes we do this in writing—we tell the same joke multiple times because we’re excited about how clever it is, but it undercuts the joke.

• I was surprised at the fact that I got multiple people asking me to “cut to the phone so we just see Jake looking at picture of his ex. Show us, don’t tell us.” Generally this sort of note would make sense, but this takes place entirely in a single take with no cuts. Was that not obvious? Obviously not! So I rewrote the top section to make it even more clear. Perhaps it still won’t be, but we’re closer.

I’m very happy with where I landed with this. And I’m excited to cast and shoot it. I already have some actors and crew on board.

And this is just the beginning. More ideas are circling.

I’m excited to get back into being creative and artistic with my writing and directing. Who knows where it will lead?

Who cares where it will lead—it’s fun.

I’m so grateful to have this time. And I only have this time because I’ve not been working as an editor because of the lag the strikes caused. And while a lot of people are hurting both emotionally and financially, I know that my own defense against this weird time in Hollywood is just focusing on creating even more.

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think! The garage door is open and I’m happy to hear any and all thoughts. I want to show my work so you can learn from me.

And so I can learn from you.

1. If you’ve never read a script, check out this formatting guidelines site for some quick assistance.

2. Or you can just throw shit up without asking for feedback and that sometimes works, too. But generally we want things to be the best they can be, and that means asking for someone you trust to tell you what they think.