Jamie and Ellyce tell stories to one another in an attempt to meet in their dreams. Winter Clothes is a look into the hardships of long-distance relationships and the conflicting distance felt during a phone call.

—-

One of the bittersweet aspects of being in school is that you are constantly pushed to do things outside of your normal routine and abilities.  Such an instance happened to me several months ago, where one of my courses I needed in order to graduate required me to direct a film.  Over the past three and half years, I’d gotten pretty content to frame and light shots and not be associated with egotistical stigmas and speaking closely with actors.

However, my professor gave me the push and now I’ll testify that it wasn’t that bad.  I got a great crew together of people I’ve worked with several times before and had an amazingly receptive cast in Cequoia and Hakim.  With my aim to get the best performance, we actually had them be on the phone with one another in two rooms separated by a bathroom.  We lit the rooms separately and mixed the audio in the bathroom connecting the bedrooms.

One of the hardest parts was neglecting my DP instincts and keeping my hand off the camera.  However, I had plenty of confidence in my cinematographer, Neil O’Donoghue.  We extensively planned the look, lens choices, and color palette.  My production designer Sarah did an amazing job and added a lot of her personality to the spaces (congrats to Sarah for recently getting into AFI’s Production Design Program.)  Future film guru Jon Perez wrote the script. Piper Rae Patterson charmingly helped produce the film and constantly kept everyone on set in high spirits.  Chris Carullo edited the film despite a busy schedule and did a kick-ass audio mix. 

I essentially had a UCF super team help make this movie.   There are many things I would’ve done differently in the process (like cater the script to the 5:00 TRT mark) but am very happy with what the experience brought me.  I don’t know if I’ll be hopping in the director’s chair anytime soon…I directed one other film since this one that took a lot out of me and am now going back to my first love: the camera.

Please watch until the credits; Chris made a very elegant ending.  Oh, and watch in full-screen!  Leave any thoughts or comments. Thanks for watching.

G