Still Here | Short film

Story

Josh Dahl brought me his script for Still Here, a short film about a grieving father who retreats into obsession after losing his wife, and asked me to help produce it. The script had rain pouring through an office ceiling, and we couldn’t find anywhere that would let us use a rain machine. So we got permission to use a big cultural hall at a church and built a small office inside it. With no roof, we couldn’t show the water leaking through, so we adjusted the scene, and it worked. The rain came at the end, so we planned the whole shooting order around it.

There was no producer’s assistant in pre-production, so it was just Josh and me figuring it all out. I led the meetings with the department heads and connected them with each other. I collected their budgets, assessments and receipts, and held everyone accountable to their timetables.

I handled the budget, approved casting, worked the script breakdowns, oversaw locations and set up the art and production departments. I worked with the production designers and the special effects supervisor on how we’d do the rain, and I stepped in to help with gaff and grip.

Our overnight shoot was the car scene. To get the drive in a rainstorm, we set up the rain machine on the car and followed it with a chase car. I got the car situated and built it out, and the night took a lot of planning: food, locations, getting people out there and being ready for the cold and the rain. The actors couldn’t wear big coats on camera, so we shot shorter scenes with warmups between them.

On the second-to-last shot, the rain machine broke. We kept everyone calm and coordinated, scheduled the repair and planned reshoots for another night, even though they’d have to be at a different location.