Our Journal

With a slim budget, tight schedule, uncooperative weather patterns and even less cooperative livestock, the making of Two Roads was not destined for smooth sailing. Yet challenging circumstances can sometimes bring out the best in people—especially talented, tenacious people with a shared vision and a passion for excellence.

It’s been crazy crunch time for Moth to Flame as we rush to the finish line with “Two Roads,” our new short for the Louisiana Film Prize. This year has been a bit more hectic in terms of post-production scheduling, because each team member has continued to take on bigger and better projects and we collectively have more projects to juggle on top of this one. In addition, we have two cuts of our film this year (instead of one, like last year’s A Bird’s Nest)… a 15-minute cut for the actual Louisiana Film Prize itself and also a much longer 20 minute version for other festivals.

Monday a few of us met up at Verts to have a little bit to eat before going to film one last scene(hopefully) for Funemployment. The scene takes place in a parking garage, which was conveniently located near by. The set-up was pretty simple, park the car where the lighting would light up our talent, and get the cameras pointed at them.

Last week we had a night shoot out at Dane’s Body Shop shooting some footage for Battle Bold. A group of friendly athletic folks of all shapes and sizes came out to share their techniques for the cameras and show off some of Battle Bold’s lineup. I almost felt bad for them as they had to basically do a workout in front of the camera repeatedly while Christine Chen and David Lackey both captured footage.

After we got through the first 3 days of production, the last 2 days became less stressful. This is the stage that I like to call “Meh.” Basically, after the initial shock factor of dealing with intense work schedules and a variety of temperamental problems, the entire team became so used to (and tired of) solving or accepting these problems that by the last two days any problem ceased to become a big deal. It is going to rain in 2 minutes? Cool. It is pouring outside? Cool. The data dump froze again right before an incredibly emotionally difficult scene to shoot? Okay.

Making “Two Roads” proved to be one of the more difficult projects I’ve undertaken, but it was also one where I learned a lot about myself as a director, an actor and an artist. I couldn’t be certain that the vision that Christine and I had formed in our heads would actually translate into a good film, but somewhere in the first day of shooting I realized that, yes! We were indeed, shooting something very good and I am proud of what we accomplished. With our dedicated skeleton crew and a handful of actors, we pushed ourselves to the limit because we love to create compelling films and I know we did just that.