Jesse Harris, Filmmaker: And that's eventually how we got to Lucy Hale who stars in the film and
that's then who gave us the ability to to get the film made because her
name has value and then it becomes an actual kind of a real thing.
Film Courage: What is a proof of concept short film?
Jesse: A proof of concept short film is basically making a short or it could be something even like
a teaser or trailer but basically showing what you can do and what you want to do in the feature
version. In my case, I had written this feature script that I wanted to make, but I hadn't made.
I made this first feature when I was 17. I was now I don't know 34 at the time when I was trying
to make this feature and I didn't really have any kind of recent narrative work to show. I had been
making commercials for the last almost 10 years but a lot of that isn't really transferable to
narrative storytelling in the same way and so I knew I needed to basically prove not necessarily
to myself but to the people that were going to fund this film that I could make this film.
A lot of people were telling me that too and so I decided to basically make a short film kind of
inspired from my feature that would show the style and the tone and the vibe I was going for and then
showcase my filmmaking as a director. I think that is super important for young filmmakers because
unless you have a whole collection of really great short films and even if you do it's the different
style or tone than the feature a lot of times people just won't have the faith that you can
do that and that's a separate issue in general. Hollywood probably should have a lot more faith in
people and take some more risks but unfortunately they don't and so you really kind of have to prove
to people that you can do this. For me to get my feature off the ground it was essential to have
made this proof of concept because it was probably a 12-15 minute long film. I had taken kind of
a character from the feature and wrote a kind of back story for them and it was so it wasn't
a scene from the film it wasn't a teaser but it was kind of like a almost a prequel to the feature
of kind of an origin story of onebof the characters in the feature and so it could
be its own standalone thing the nice thing about doing that way is it could be its own short it
could live on its own even if the feature never happened or did happen it could still exist it
wasn't like a teaser or a trailer or something like that it was a full film short film but it was
totally in alignment to the feature in terms of the cinematography the pacing the kind of acting
just the whole style I was trying to create and showed that I could pull off these scenes
and it had a little bit of action but but it kind of showed that kind of my ability as a director
and it just opened up so many more doors in terms of people don't want to read scripts everyone has
a script even if you're just good they still don't want to read it probably because they
don't think it's good and so but if you can show them if you can send them a link and show them
a 12 or 15 minute short film that's compelling and has some talent to it then they'll be like
okay that's actually pretty good actually I will read this script now and and then that's what
kind of started to for me build more and more opportunities for getting my feature made was
was then people would watch the short and then they would read the script and I also had like
a deck that I went with along all this where it was like it was my kind of vision and take for
how to make the movie in terms of breaking down the cinematography the music the editing the same
kind of skills I learned from making commercials where you have to kind of make a a treatment or a
pitch for why you should direct that commercial it was that same kind of thing but for my own
movie of like what it would look and feel like so together that was kind of my package I would
send to people and I didn't have any agent or manager or barely knew anyone I was just kind of
taking any kind of connections and relationships I did have and seeing where it could go from there
and it took a long time it took several years and eventually someone would get it and they'd pass
on to somebody else and in my case a producer saw the short really liked it then he read the
script he really liked that and he brought in his casting director that he works with all the time
and together they were able to get the script out to some of the the bigger agencies
and that's eventually how we got to Lucy Hale who stars in the film and that's a then who gave
us the ability to get the film made because her name has value and then it becomes an actual kind
of a real thing and so none of that would have happened without this proof of concept short film
so was the backstory about was it Elly is that her character no it was one of the other characters
it was the Guillermo it was the the guy who was the character who in the feature is is living in
the u.s and receives the drugs that come via this ultralight airplane into the u.s but in
the short it was kind of how he got to the us he was the guy flying the plane in that case
but kind of has to take over he has to basically kill the guy and replace him and take over and be
the permanent guy and leave his family behind and and be that guy in in the us now and so
it didn't really have a story connection so much of the feature but it just had that kind of world
connection and that kind of tone connection and everything like that what comes first a proof of
concept short or a screenplay I think the the screenplay would have to come first because
without the the screenplay a proof of concept would just be making a short film a regular short
film which is fine you can you could use that still to help your career and build you the next
thing but really the point of a proof of concept is to show that you can then make this kind of
style or this kind of film that you're trying to make and i'm talking about in this situation
if you're a writer director like I am where I had written this script and I knew I wanted to direct
it I didn't want to just have someone else make this I wrote this really in order to direct it
and so yeah I think it's it's always has to start with the script and maybe if you have made enough
short films or something similar style you wouldn't have to do that but for me I just
hadn't made anything narratively in so long that I just really needed to show something to people
and also I knew I could make this but I just I knew that to be able to go out and pitch this I
needed to be able to show that I could make this kind of film and that it could be really great
and and and it was so essential in order to to have gotten the film made I think to have had
this and so it was the story of Guillermo not Elly who's actually the protagonist in the film
and where did you film the proof of concept so the proof of concept we filmed in like
Palmdale/Lancaster area the movie the movie the feature Borrego [2022 - Saban Films] ] is set in
the Anza-Borrego Desert in Southern California and so was the short but to film out there is a
lot further more expensive so for the proof of concept we filmed it all in Palmdale/Lancaster
which is closer to Los Angeles it's kind of the closest kind of desert you can get to from about
an hour or so drive from LA and that's where we shot it I think it was two or three days shoot and
I obviously called in lots of favors but I think it is important with the proof of concept that it
still has to look and feel as real as possible so if you can't wrangle together the resources
to make it compelling and professional I think it's probably not worth doing it's it's better
to kind of find something that you can do because for me I think it's of course they don't expect it
to be look like a million dollar movie of course but it still has to has to kind of be able to look
and feel kind of what you're going after in my case the film needed to be this very polished kind
of traditionally shot kind of film slower kind of dolly moves and things like that and so we needed
to shoot on really nice cameras and and put as much resources as we could into it and so it's
always that balance because of course that costs money and most people don't have that so you have
to either find that money somehow call in favors I kind of did all the above I got a few people
to believe in that project who gave me a little more money and then I called in tons of favors
from all the people I had hired over the years to make commercials and had worked for me and so
together I was able to put together something that looked really nice it looked really high quality
but was made for not very much money and then I was able to eventually get the film made from that
and are there rules on the time length of a proof of concept no there's no rules but I think the
general thing with short films is the shorter is the better because especially well for two
things one is for festivals it's always easier to get a shorter film program to do a festival
because there's only so much time there is in a festival screening block right and if your film
is 30 minutes long that's a really big chunk of time you could put a bunch of other shorter
films in that same amount of time and so one is if you want to get into festivals I think shorter
is always better and then two if you're trying to get executives or financiers or anyone like
that to watch your movie if it's shorter again they have shorter attention spans if it's shorter
and compelling I think it's always going to be stronger so I think mine was 12 or 15 minutes
it's probably the longer end of things where you'd want it to be but in my case I was trying to show
a couple different styles of scenes and filmmaking so I needed it to be that length but in general
if you can keep it short I think it's always going to be easier sell for people to watch it.
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