Chaos to Clarity
A film exploring a widowed father's fight to preserve his family's legacy despite systemic challenges.
Category:
Ad Campaign
Role:
Director & Producer
Read:
2 mins
Location:
Savannah, GA
Date:
The Dream Becoming Real
This was an intensely emotional set for me. I directed and produced a film was something I only ever dreamt about and then it actually happened. Not just any film, but one of my own. It took strength, courage, and leaning hard on my community to get there. The experiences I had accumulated on the backend in HMU departments, usually in secluded rooms away from the action, gave me the foundation to take the desire to take the opportunity to enter the room when no one asked, to ask the right questions, and figure out the rest by doing.
The Set
It was a small crew: one gaffer, one grip, one boom, a DP, and me. We bounced off each other's expertise and made it work, and honestly I would not have wanted it any other way. There were good moments and genuinely challenging ones. One of our child actors became too nervous to continue and we had to recast on the spot and it was just an adjustment that we needed to roll with. That is set life. You wish for things to go exactly as planned, and you build the skill to handle it when they do not.
What I learned
Directing and producing simultaneously was a lot to carry, but it accelerated everything I learned. Scripting, location scouting, shot listing, storyboarding, call sheets, crew deal memos, set building, you name it— I touched all of it firsthand. Being the director gave me creative ambition. Being the producer kept me honest about what was actually achievable. That tension between vision and reality is what I now believe makes the difference between a film that stays in your head and one that actually gets made.
