A low-budget film Director thanks his Cast and Crew with the most heartwarming letter
A lot of you folks are my friends here, so I want to say thank you to the people that participated in the feature film “Nurses Do It Better,” most of them for free (there was some catering, of course). Most of the cast and crew I’d never spoken to…I even hired a cinematographer straight off the street on location on shoot day, no kidding. We had that luck. It’s too amazing what we really did. The actors were instructed to be ready; as in, get their lines down, work on what the person feels as directed and how’s that sound; since when we went for it, I couldn’t afford rehearsal time. Everyone did it (but the lead). Some actors even met with their scene partners and rehearsed independently. That’s incredible. We lost actors. Brand new casting people found us new ones. People that have done what we did in entertainment will know what we pulled off. Our film is presently going to the festivals I can afford; hopefully we get distribution from that, but meanwhile I’m contacting distributors; there’s actually a couple hundred of them. That’s the real truth about what the movie’s doing. More than 40 people came to together as a unit. We got as much footage as we possibly could in two 12-hour shoots, one all-night’er. As the writer I wanted to get every word in, and as a producer I had to accept the reality…and finally as the director and editor I had to rewrite the film with the footage captured. It took me 6 months to figure out what I could do with it, because I’m the writer too so my producer told my director whom told my writer to rewrite it based on the footage. The story of the making of this film is really stupendous. Making a movie isn’t about making the final cut, it’s doing it. You did it. All of us that were there know it, and will remember it ’til the ending of the world. Plus the music artists that donated music to the production…I mean it brings it Alive, and makes it fun to watch. Whether this film is profitable for Interesting Films (that’s me) or not, the cast and crew and support staff pulled this off. We gathered the most diverse cast ever assembled in Hollywood. We know we have, and that’s a direct reflection of what US healthcare is like. And, only one of us wound up in the Emergency Room…yeah, me. Because I had the attack we made the movie about; in which, I coincidentally foreshadow side-effects from medications that I actually have now. I’ll tell ya, I’d rather write about it than have it. Thousand Oaks was the best hospital I’ve ever been to. I got complete care, and for the first time a doctor recognized the condition I was telling them I have and this marvelous doctor was the first one to say the condition correctly back to me, and he was the first one to look it up. THIS is what we made this particular movie for. I didn’t have to fight, people didn’t call me terrible things that they’d never want to be. Fuck it. It’s the truth. Thank you, Hollywood, Los Angeles County, Cast, and Crew. If it wasn’t for the huge hearts of California entertainment wouldn’t even exist. I’m proud of all of you, but don’t let that go to your head. If we think back it seems like it’s impossible, but what the cast and crew of “NDIB,” “Nurses,” “Nurses Do It Better” did is impossible, and we still did it. ❤
Best,
Stephan Pacheco
Interesting Films
