Finishing Your Short Film: Making Extraction

2017 and 2018, for that matter, haven’t gone entirely as I would have liked, but no matter how many times you fall down, all that matters is that you keep getting back up. I wrote this little script back in early 2017, did a handful of rewrites, got actors assembled… and then I kind of forgot about the project for a while. A lot of things were pulling my focus and I had to put it on the backburner. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was kind of a mess coming into the new year. 

Once I was able to shake myself out of my funk though, I knew I still wanted to do this short film, and “rallied the troops” so to speak, leading to us getting a good portion of it filmed at the end of July this year. We had a pretty long break in between the first and second/last days of filming, but for me, it was immensely gratifying to actually get it done. This is why the people you collaborate with are so important, because they’ll offer feedback, motivate you, and sometimes tell you what you NEED to hear, instead of what you WANT to hear. But it’s also important to know your limitations, and making sure you know what you can handle. I’m still learning that myself, so whatever the outcome of this new little film of mine, I have the experience to look back on, and if need be, figure out how to do it better next time. 

All things considered, I am definitely thankful to the cast and crew of folks I got to participate in this project, because they all did a fantastic job! I’m sure a lot of them were getting tired of the multitude of emails with subject lines written in all-caps, that I was sending, but once they showed up, they SHOWED UP! Things got pretty physical for the second shoot day (night actually, and we didn’t wrap until 2am … ), but everyone was gung ho and everyone seemed to have a good time with the material. 

There’s still a lot to do, what with editing and scoring, but I’m just happy that we all finally got the filming done. 

(Photo Credit: Kidada Kendall, Kayode Kendall)