My Films

Every year, LACHSA does a film festival called 64, where you have to write, produce, shoot, and edit a film in 64 hours. This year, I was in a group with 5 close friends, we had done 64 together the year prior. The weeks leading up to the festival, we assigned each person roles within the group, and I took a majority of the work as producer, assistant director, and sound mixer. The festival officially kicks off on a Friday, typically the second weekend in September. This is when each participating group is presented with a mandatory prompt and required elements to incorporate into their films. In our case, our prompt was "The Godmother, The Benevento Family," which was a spin of "The Godfather" and a nod to our department faculty member Adrianna Benevento, whose grandfather had been involved in the Italian mafia in the 1980s.

After getting your required prompt and elements, you receive equipment from the department for shooting, and then your team all goes back to one persons house. As the producer, I noticed problems that we faced last year, that caused us to make a movie that none of us were whole heartedly proud of. I noticed that friday night we were super disconnected, that once we figured out the main idea of the script, we all split up to do our own tasks. This year, I made the point for us all to stay in one space throughout the entire time of us writing and producing. This way, we could talk out every point of each scene, certain lines of dialouge, which actors we were going to use, where we were going to shoot, how we were all getting there, the type of shots we were going to get for certain scenes, and more. This started our great collaboration, and we wrote a script we all loved, found good actors and locations, and worked through it all together. This amazing collaboration continued into our shoot the next day.

On Saturday, assistant directing with my friend Max was amazing, because we worked through every point of the script the night before, it was seamless for us to work together and work well with the actors. By the end of the weekend, my entire team was extremely proud of the film we made and 100% noticed the change in our collaboration. All the tireless effort, sleepless nights, and united teamwork paid off as our film was awarded "Best Film" at the festival. The experience underscored the immense value of meticulous planning, communication, and unwavering commitment to a shared vision. We had not only created a winning film but also forged stronger bonds within our team, setting the stage for future creative endeavors.