We Are Filming a Short That I Helped Write

So a few months back I came up with a story and wrote the first draft of the script for Lila, a short film. It's about a radio DJ who keeps getting letters from someone claiming to be an alien disguised as a little girl. The letter writer keeps predicting things that turn out to actually happen, prompting the DJ to wonder if the letter writer really is from another planet. Local film maker Lawton Meyer did a few rewrites of the script and now we are in the process of filming it. I have a small role myself. And we got a couple of terrific local actors to play the main characters: my good friend Terri Mateer is the DJ, Maggie, plus Geneva E. Turner as Patricia and and Danny Asis as Detective Markison. Daniel Torelli is our director. Lawton is cinematographer. Everybody is doing great work and I hope to have the whole thing done by the end of the summer.

Making a movie is a much more labor intensive process than I would have imagined. It's my first time, so I'm learning all the things veteran film makers knew all along: it's not easy and it's not quick. The big challenges include finding the actors and finding the locations. I had this rather innocent notion that we could just knock the whole thing together in a couple of weeks last December. Nope. It takes a lot of time and a lot of coordination among a lot of different people. It's a big project, even for a low-budget short film.

Our first day of shooting so far was the police interview scene, which we filmed in a room generously provided by the Old Dutch Church in Kingston NY. Big, big thanks to Pastor Rob and everybody at the church for being willing to let us work there! And big thanks to all the actors for being so generous with their time and efforts. I owe everybody pizza, at least, for making my dream come true. I look forward to the day we show this film to the public. Here's a still from the first day's shooting at the church. That is Danny and Geneva in the police interview scene. They both did great work and I hope Lila gives them the notice they deserve.