THE LOVE
"The Love" is a short film that I wrote, edited, and co-directed with my wife Bethany McCarthy. After making "Coffee Nap" I had learned a lot of lessons about short film-making and I was eager to try something new. I knew I wanted to collaborate with Matt Degreff (cinematographer) again so in the months following the making of "Coffee Nap" I would send script ideas his way to see if any ideas stood out to him. "The Love" was the one that stood out the most to him and it seemed like it would be the easiest to make from a production standpoint. Since I wanted to, from the start, have the whole film be told through voice-overs I knew that we could shift all our production focus to getting really cool/pretty shots and worry about the audio later and that super freeing.
The filming process went really smooth and it was awesome to collaborate with my wife Bethany. Bethany gave me a lot of really good direction for all the parts in which I was on screen and I tried my best to do the same for her. We filmed the bulk of the film in one day but all the running shots, and the party scene on the dock, were filmed at a later date.
Believe it or not "The Love" was shot on a zero budget, we just got really lucky throughout the process of making it. Matt was able to borrow an Arri camera for the first day of production and so we were able to film on a camera that would have cost a whole lot to rent/own for free. That was the first amazing thing to happen to us. After that we were able to record the voiceovers at our friend Paul Simeone's studio, (which came out incredible), also for free. Then while I was editing the film we showed a rough cut to Matt's friend Tony Vargas who offered to color the film for us. It was awesome working with Tony and I am excited to collaborate with him on the next project we do all together.
All in all it was a great experience to make "The Love" and it has been overwhelming to hear such positive responses. Just like "Coffee Nap" though I have learned a whole lot more about film-making from the process of making "The Love" and am already anxious to get started on my next short. So stay tuned.