The Story of “Stalled”: Turning a Learning Opportunity Into an Opportunity to Help Others
I am going to admit something that is somewhat difficult to admit.
When I was first approached with the opportunity to attend a work-sponsored 10-week introductory film class this winter, I wasn’t extremely excited about it. It isn’t that I don’t like film and video or learning opportunities — it was that after having gone to broadcasting school post-undergrad and working as a television news “photographer” (antiquated term for a videographer) and editor for NBC, ABC and FOX affiliates in the past, I thought the effort to ride the “L” and walk 45 minutes each way to attend 3-hour night classes during the dark and freezing Chicago winter would outweigh any sort of educational benefit I would get from it. I’d read the course description and didn’t think the material would be much of anything new to me.
I thought about turning it down. Maybe there was a different class I could go to that would be more in line with my level of experience? But then again, this was a class our designer Nikki really wanted to go to and was already signed up for. Maybe we could take something away from it that we could use at work that I hadn’t even thought about. Maybe giving it my best effort would lead to getting something more out of it than just 10 weeks of lessons. Maybe it would be foolish to turn down an opportunity my employer is so generously willing to pay for in an effort to develop me as a professional. Maybe stop being self-centered and be a better team player. Maybe say yes and just do it.
So I said yes.
The Genesis
The class was structured to encompass the following elements of filmmaking: screenwriting, sound, lighting, shooting/shot composition and video editing. The final project for the class was a short film that would combine what we learned about all of these elements. During the second week of class, we would pitch ideas for our short films and vote on a final project. That would give us time to write it and work on the other elements that make up a film production.
I wasn’t aware of the short film final project until the first day of class — but when I found out about it, I already had an idea. The idea stemmed from a personal family tragedy I’d gone through nine years earlier. My sister, who was 20 at the time, randomly suffered a cardiac arrest while giving a presentation in class at DePaul University. A blood clot formed, and cut off oxygen to her brain for 45 minutes. They were able to keep her alive, but approximately 85% of her brain had died, which has left her in a persistently vegetative state to this day. She isn’t conscious, and the areas of her brain that died don’t re-grow. All consciousness of who she is, who I am, what’s going on — anything really above a level of basic body functioning has died.
About four years after her “accident,” I’d connected the dots as to what I believe caused her cardiac arrest: it was an eating disorder. Specifically, bulimia. We can never know for sure if that was the case, and I’ll spare all of the details as to how and why these dots became so easy for me to connect. But as I became convinced that an eating disorder was at the root of my sister’s tragedy, a large part of me wished I could have done something about it. That she and I could have talked about it. That I could have helped her get the help she needed to recover before tragedy struck.
Of course, I couldn’t do anything about it at that point. It was too late. But as that desire to do something lingered, I wrote a script for a short film in which a girl with an eating disorder entraps a male (could have been her brother, love interest or just a male who represented the young adult male population in general) in a public bathroom to open up about her eating disorder. Through their conversation, they would help each other — her to get the courage to seek help for her illness, him to get the toilet paper he needed to become untrapped — and they would both come out better off for it.
I think the urge to write that script was primarily catharsis. But at the same time, I thought maybe it could be more than just good for me. Maybe if I created this short film one day, it could help other people like my sister seek the help they need for their eating disorders. Maybe it could help someone else — before it was too late.
I tell you all of that not to depress or upset you, but rather to inform you of the genesis for my film pitch. When I had to pitch a short film for this class, I knew what to tap into. I just had to straighten out the concept of my initial draft to make the plot less convoluted, more realistic, and easier to firmly grasp in a short amount of time.
The Production
So I pitched the concept with two female college students as the characters instead of one female and one male. It was the same at its core… just from a bit less of a directly personal place. The idea that the character with the eating disorder entraps another person in the stall next to her in order to force a conversation about her eating disorder remained the same. Lo and behold, the pitch was voted on by the class to be our final project.
After the pitch, the next step was filling crew assignments and casting our two characters. Since my pitch was selected, I would serve as the Writer for the film, and accepted the option to serve as Director as well. Nikki signed on as Production Designer and would help with lighting. The rest of the crew roles (Director of Photography, Assistant Director, Sound, Script Supervisor, Camera Assistant and Gaffer) came next, and then it came time to cast.
One of the students in our class, Holly, happened to work in casting, so she was great to have on the crew. She immediately thought of a local actress named Jessica Ervin who would be cut out really well for the “lead” role. Jessica had experience playing a character who’d had an eating disorder, and Holly knew she had the emotional capacity for the role. After reaching out to her about it, Jessica got on board right away. I was a bit more involved in the casting of the other actress. After searching the talent boards for a local talent agency, we got in touch with Aida Delaz, who had appeared in the television show Chicago P.D. Aida agreed to play the other role.
After re-writing and revising my script with the help of our class instructor/Producer Damon, we settled on a version to shoot. The next step was creating a shot list. A shot list is an overview of every shot you’ll need to capture during production. It includes the scene number, shot number, the size or shot type, the subject or action of the shot, the angle, and any kind of movement the shot may include. If the shoot is a multicamera shoot or you have multiple lenses to work with it would also include those details. For my shot list, I thought through the script from a visual perspective and listed out each shot as I’d envisioned it. It was 22 shots. After Damon’s review of my shot list, he noted those shots could essentially be boiled down to nine total shots.
From the shot list, the next step is to create a shooting schedule. The shooting schedule takes the shot list and turns it into an actionable sequence of shooting to keep cast and crew on deadline for each day of production. For our shoot, we had one night… specifically the three hours of our final class. I, along with our Assistant Director, Ethan, would largely be responsible for helping us keep on schedule.
With the script, shot list and shooting schedule all finalized, it was time to prepare for the shoot. The night before our final class, I met the Director of Photography, Manik, at the school where we’d be shooting. We thought it was important to go through all of the shots together the night before, to make sure we were on the same page during the night of production. This was especially critical given that it was the first time either of us would be making a film, and that we had one chance — three hours — at getting it right.
When the night of production arrived, there was a lot to do to make sure it would go off without a hitch. The actresses came prepared and in wardrobe. They rehearsed their lines together while the crew set up. I kind of ran around prepping the actresses, helping with equipment set up and testing sound in the bathroom we were shooting in. A few minutes before the shoot was scheduled to start, we huddled the cast and crew and Damon gave a quick talk. I gave a short talk as well, touching on the origin of the story and why I believed this was a film worth making. I hoped by doing so, it would aid the actresses ability to get into the frame of mind of who their audience was while giving the crew a reason to care beyond just doing this for a film class. I hoped it would help to unite everyone for the common goal of making something impactful.
Then it was showtime. The next three hours were a bit of a blur. It was such an exciting challenge to be in the moment of creating the film in the present while thinking big picture about how it would turn out in the end. The time constraints only added to the fun. With every shot, I had to determine if it needed to be re-done or if it was good enough. Did we have enough time for another take? Or do we need that time for different shots later on?
After the production wrapped, I honestly felt like I was on cloud nine. We finished right on schedule, which seemed like a small miracle but is really a testament to the level of preparation and focus of the cast and crew. I was buzzing with excitement for the next few days, and that excitement peaked again once I imported the raw video footage and saw what an amazing job the crew had done with lighting and sound, how well Manik composed the shots we needed, and what an unbelievable job the actresses did bringing the script and their characters to life.
That isn’t to say editing wasn’t without its challenges. But that’s also a huge part of what makes this filmmaking process fun. Where lines aren’t delivered perfectly or the shot isn’t as great as you’d like, you find ways to manipulate the footage to mold it into what you’ve envisioned. You really do get to craft your own story, your way. You’re putting together a puzzle, with the random pieces of video and audio you have; and while the final picture is confined by a 16x9 frame ratio, how you fill in the frame is limited only by your imagination. It’s magic.
So without further ado (and I realize that was a whole ton of ado), please enjoy our short film, Stalled.
The Future
What’s next for Stalled you might ask? Is it helping people with eating disorders? Well, ideally. Stalled has been entered into four film festivals — three based in Chicago in addition to the “Reel Minds: Miami Mental Health Film Festival” in Miami. It’s my hope that it’s accepted into at least one. After giving it a run at film festivals, it will be shared with the National Eating Disorders Association and other mental health organizations for unlicensed use. Please feel free to share the link and spread the video around. We never really know who may need to hear the message.
