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I enjoyed writing to an assignment, this being my first time. Also I had my own requirements – I wanted the short to have a little sex appeal (which can never go astray on youtube) and a twist somewhere in the storyline. I'm not going to mention the specifics of the twist here, but once I had my twist written, the rest of the story was spent catering to YouTube – Project Direct's rules. Of note, the word "shenanigan" in the mandatory dialog held special interest for me. It is the kind of word that I would never use so I found it quite a challenge to place it in context. It also influenced the title of the film with "Shannon Again" being a play on words. The only other thing I would like to mention here is that then name Jez is short for Jezebel which is a suitable name for that character. Actress Pre-Shoot Nightmare Casting started well with me quickly arriving at a decision, but on the day before the shoot, my lead actress (to play Jez) became worried about her SAG contract. I spent an hour on the phone with a SAG rep then everything fell apart (mainly due to a loophole in the competition rules). I had lost my main actress and only 16 hours remained before we were set to shoot.
One problem remained, the prop photograph (rule 2) that we had previously prepared, showed Frank and Jez as a couple, but the wrong actress was in the image. With no time left we altered the script a little and had Frank (Joe Harrington) pass a picture of himself using his headshot which we had with us at the time. A Cost Effective Production This was my most cost effective film to date, I think it was $50 or $60 dollars in bulbs, cabs and some misc. other receipts. The shoot itself was fast and lasted 6 hours (36 shots) – we shot in queens at Delia's apartment. Overall it was ten days on writing, two days on casting, one day shoot, two weeks editing and three evenings on music. I had fun making the music intentionaly happy and kitch and the project was finished just in the nick of time to meet the competition closing date. Cast: Delia Saraceno, Joe Harrington, Rachael Villacis, Javier Marquez. Shot on the 30th October 2007 in Astoria, Queens, New York City. |
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The Writing Stage 
Instantly I moved Delia to the lead role of Jez and started looking to fill the support role, luckily emails from my casting ad were still arriving. I even found a suitable actress straight away but then she got cold feet and backed out. Great – now only 9 hours to go. I had one last idea before canceling everything. I remembered Rachael, the actress who was the heroine in my REUP RELOAD gangsta series. I called her and to my relief she was interested and available. It couldn't have worked out better, Rachael and Delia were perfect together in their roles.