- Welcome back to my channel.
Today I'm doing just a little bonus segment.
I wanted to share with you a short film
that I recently completed.
So I just wanted tell you a little bit
about the background and history of this,
and then that short film, "Space Limbo,"
will be getting published live on my YouTube channel
and I hope that you will check it out.
I am part of a writer's group
and it's a group of writers and actors
who get together once a week.
We did it in person,
and then during COVID we started gathering on Zoom.
So one of the actors in the group
sort of challenged the writers
to create something during COVID
that we could potentially shoot
while we were all sort of having to isolate.
So I took up the challenge
and wrote just a little short film
and I brought it into the writer's group
and we read it as a group there
and people seemed to like it.
So they thought, "Oh yes, we definitely need to do this."
So I created something that could be shot,
each character individually.
We could maintain distance if we had to.
We could even be shot via Zoom.
So that was the beginning of the concept.
Fortunately, as things progressed,
I was able to find a location that would work
with the help of one of the producer actors.
And I pulled together a little crew,
crew of people that I met,
several of whom I worked with on my film,
"Inclusion Criteria/Nowhere to Hide."
My Director of Photography, Chris Bond,
who I absolutely love working with,
I've worked with him on multiple projects
I invited him, asked him, begged him,
pleaded with him (laughs) to come on board
and work as my Director of Photography
and shoot the camera work for me.
And then one of the actresses from my movie,
who also sometimes works as a producer,
I was having lunch with her one day
and I was talking about the project
and there were aspects of producing that I understood
and other aspects that were difficult for me
and that I just needed some help.
And she said, "Well, I'll help you."
And I said, "I take you up on it."
And so wonderfully, she came on board
and she helped pull together my crew
and a number of other behind-the-scenes elements.
And I just learned so much doing this.
I had to learn about more
of the administrative business side of producing
when I had produced things before.
It was usually as a creative,
where I was involved in hiring talent
and working with the script
and what was the concept for the thing,
but not dealing with unions and contracts
and insurance and locations
and all kinds of things like that.
So there were a lot of things I needed to learn.
So it was a wonderful experience for me
in learning new things.
And a number of people came on board
and were incredibly helpful.
And so I made my way through the project.
It's all supposed to take place
in a travel through space,
hence the name "Space Limbo,"
the concept being that a number of people
in some unspecified future,
people are choosing to take little space pods
to other galaxies, other planets,
to start a new life, a new life on a new planet.
And so each of these various different people
who are traveling in their own little space pods
to whatever destination they've chosen
are sort of keeping video logs along the way.
So we learn about each of these people
and what's perhaps prompting their journey,
what they're hoping to discover and change in their life
by going someplace new, what their dreams and goals are.
So it's each of them on their own little journey.
So that was sort of the concept.
And I brought together the actors from my writers group
that had originally read the script
and to some degree, then, it was crafted for them.
I'm a firm believer,
when I like working with people,
I like to keep working with them.
So if I've worked with someone and I've enjoyed it,
then if I'm putting a project together,
I call people I know because I like them.
I know their work.
I know we work well together.
And if you can't hire your friends,
then (laughs) what's the point?
So I met some new, wonderful people
and I got to bring together some people
that I love working with.
There are some behind the scenes pictures
from the filming and some little snippets of video
from when we were shooting.
We did a two day shoot
and we found this wonderful preexisting
sort of little spaceship set at this studio in Hollywood.
So we went in for two days
and you'll see some before pictures where
there was a birthing area on this little spaceship
and there were certain little work stations.
There was a middle hallway.
There was a cockpit.
There's sort of a equipment,
military guns and weapons sort of area.
We had eight characters
and so we doubled some of the areas.
We would put certain set dressings in a space
and we would shoot one person there
and then we would change the set dressing
to make it look like it was somebody else's area.
Same thing with the birthing.
We might change the blankets or the pillows
or the little decorative things in there.
We used the cockpit for a couple of different characters.
So we did that sort of thing
and just taking a simple little set
and changing the set dressing for it.
So that was a lot of fun
and you see a little bit of video of different areas
and the way in which we were, some of the shooting.
In some cases, you'll see in the cockpit,
when we were filming,
there was a green screen in front of the spaceship.
So then in post production,
we found video in space.
And so that video, those images,
were then superimposed in the spaceship
in place of the green screen.
So there were different things like that that occurred,
so you'll see some of those types of things.
You'll also see some
of just the small areas that we were working in
and the way in which the Director of Photography
who is also running the camera,
so he's looking through one lens.
There's times where you see me.
I was directing the project where I'm sort of looking
into his monitor to see what he's shooting.
And then there's times where I'm sitting outside of the set
where I can, on a video monitor,
be watching from there
what is actually happening during the filming
so I can determine did we get that take?
Do I like that take?
So these various different little shots like that
that you see here in some of these behind-the-scenes pieces.
Once we had the two days of footage,
I found an editor that was recommended to me
who was absolutely wonderful.
So all the footage went to him.
He worked off of the original script
and put together an edit for me
that was originally about 35 minutes long.
We wanted this to be at least just under 20 minutes.
So I had to find a way to edit out about 15 minutes of film.
So on a 35 minute film,
you're talking just almost half the footage.
So it was very difficult
to make those sorts of decisions
in terms of editing it down.
So there was a lot of work involved with that.
My editor was fabulous, giving me suggestions,
working back and forth with me.
Once we had that sorted out,
I threw another dear friend.
His son is starting to do some film composition
and original music, so I worked with him
to create some original music for the film.
So that was very cool to work with him
and figure out what was gonna best tell that story.
So just wonderful things like that
that happened in post-production.
So it was a number of months
from the time we finished shooting
until we got all the way through all of the editing
and the music and everything else.
Then I submitted it to a number of film festivals.
You might have seen some of my posts on Facebook and Twitter
that we were accepted to a number of festivals.
We won Best Narrative Short at a festival,
and so it's kind of had a little bit
of a festival life.
And now I am just ready to share it
with anyone and everyone.
So I'm also going to be putting "Space Limbo" live
on my channel here with no other introduction,
but I do hope that you'll take a look at it
and allow me to share with you this little project
that was sort of a labor of love made during COVID.
Thanks so much for watching
this little special bonus segment here on my channel.
And I hope that you will now take a look
and find "Space Limbo,"
and I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for watching.