THE QUESTION
What’s next? It’s the question every filmmaker - and writer, and musician, and novelty mug designer - hears immediately after they’ve completed their last project. Usually the answer is just a guess. Here is some stuff I would love to work on; here’s something I’ve already started; here’s an outline that has been sitting in a sketch notebook buried under my desk for the past three years. It’s hard to answer because most of us are: A) in recovery mode from putting so much time into one project for the past [insert long amount of time here], and B) have way too many ideas that it’s hard to even pinpoint which one to go for next.
In May of 2023, Lavender, the short documentary I directed, premiered at the Astoria Film Festival. It has since had other festival appearances and I am working with the producing team on our public release. I had my recovery time. I’m finally ready to announce what’s next.
WHAT’S NEXT?
If There’s An Emergency is a short horror film based on an idea I have been developing since 2019. The film follows a young woman named Harper working as a nanny who receives an unwelcome visitor. That is vague and sounds like a parody of a Lifetime movie, but I need to save some surprises for future blog posts.
I’m planning on this being my biggest film yet and will be approaching it as if I’m making a full feature. That means a higher budget, bigger crew, more in-depth pre-production, a longer shoot, nicer equipment, marketing– everything you can think of. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with many talented people on older projects and I will pulling out all the stops to create an awesome film that (hopefully) makes some people pee their pants in fear.
THE BLOG
Since this is going to be such a big step with a big project, I thought it would be fun to write up a production blog (the one you’re reading right now!) about the experience making it and all of the aspects of production. There will be posts about the development of the story, budgeting, hiring a crew, rewrites, creating mood boards, storyboards, auditions, camera tests, rewrites, location scouting, insurance, tech scouts, rewrites, and of course, the actual production days. My hope is that this will possibly be a resource similar to YouTube channels like FilmRiot or StudioBinder or countless others that some young filmmaker and see, “Oh, that’s how she did it. I can do that too!” and they’ll get inspired and try to make their own film.
I’m currently in early pre-production, focusing on research in preparation for writing the final draft of the script, which will be followed by materials like a mood board and bringing on producers. The next posts will talk about the story and the inspirations for the film, with many more planned as production continues.
In the meantime, thank you for listening, get ready to watch the official release of Lavender, and look forward to my next post (or don’t, I don’t control you).