Watch the short here.

Director: Burton Chaikin

Writer: Andrew Sanford

Producers: Burton Chaikin, Mark McGann, Emily Mikolitch (post), Andrew Sanford (executive), Phoebe Joaquin (executive)

Cast: Rosie McDonald, Andrew Sanford

Executive Producer / Line Producer

Primary Functions:

• Budget + line item budget

• High-level creative decision making

Department Head: Production Design

Primary Functions:

• Location scouting (9 locations)

• Set designer

• Props master

• Graphic design (digital props)

• Set decorator

• Set dresser

This short was a proof of concept for a romantic comedy feature, so the goal was to capture the feature’s magic with minimal resourcing.

The short’s budget was around $5k.

The majority of the budget went to equipment rentals and labor. The total production design budget was $800 - about $250 of which went to renting out a hotel room. I leveraged free locations where I could and I used the the remaining $550 on set building + set deck.

A short film is a tall order: to drive credibility with an audience in a short period of time. This can be particularly challenging in a love story, as audiences only have a short period of time with the characters. 

My primary role was bringing the visual world of the story to life and maintaining the integrity of the story within budgetary constraints.

For this project, there were two essential elements to establish:  

(1) A sense of place to Los Angeles and to the vast feeling falling in love

(2) Production design (and in particular, set design/decorating) that delivered additional character development and drove audience connection

LOS ANGELES AND FALLING IN LOVE

• Key Buildout: Mexican Restaurant

  • Our budget didn’t afford renting out a true restaurant space, so I looked for low-cost, high-impact ways to bring one to life. We borrowed the cement back patio from a friend’s gym after closing. I designed signage and decals, clipped ivy for greenery on the walls of the space, and created props to bring the space to life.

CONNECTION TO CHARACTER

• The bedroom is the insight into the brain. In this short, we see the personal bedroom of both characters: Liam’s Los Angeles bedroom, and Nina’s Los Angeles hotel room, her bedroom for the duration of her conference in LA. I dove into character research and established elements of these characters and their lives to showcase in their respective spaces. There were lots of parallels: their transience, their artistic interests, their endless to-do lists for someone else. But there were elements unique to both of them too: Liam’s sports and movie fandom, his fraught romantic life, his living by treading water; Nina’s love of clothes, her impractical nature, and her scattered but curious mind. 

• For Liam, audiences were getting to see his natural habitat. True insight into his safe space: the chaotic bedroom of a 24 year-old single man who travels constantly for work and is at the beck-and-call of his boss. He’s torn between youth, freedom, artistic expression, and the practicality of real life. For sourcing, I reached out to friends and went diving into storage bins that I and others had kept since college. I scoured Goodwill. I got creative with furniture items I owned. I wrote prop emails and sticky notes. I sourced practical lighting. And I destroyed my own bedroom (the set) in the process.

• With Nina, we see her hotel room on a work trip. Audiences get to see what she views as essential: the things she puts in her suitcase because she can’t go a week without them. Some of these items are practical because they’re necessary - work items for the conference (she does somewhat have her shit together after all), travel essentials, professional clothing, etc. But other items seem impractical and sentimental - clothing not suited to a conference, as if she was hoping to get whisked away on some grand adventure while in the city; and her photograph collection.