I woulda come every day but you know those other classes had me locked down, forced me to commit early, made me hang out late, always sending me emails when I left, reminding me how important they were; cause I’d always talk about you.

Straight up, I cared about them. But not like you. They’d pout but they knew our thing really meant something, like when we drove down to Washington D.C. for Responsibility.org’s Ask, Listen, Learn shoot: a 12 hour day filming with 23 Attorney Generals, and gold-medal Olympian Summer Sanders. It was in the Ritz Carlton conference room, wrapping up the equipment check the night before, that I could see how proud you were that I wrote that script.

It was only supposed to last three months, but you trusted me to touch your software and let me write inside your server. I just want you to know I never took that for granted.

I don’t like to think about that first Wednesday in April, when, realizing the end of the semester meant the end of the internship, I read over the contract I signed three months ago. There, on the first page, it stated that two days from then, Friday, would, contractually, be my sending off. I got so caught up in the days together I didn’t have time to think about life without you.

But that’s it, we’re over, I’m not your intern anymore, and I suck at goodbyes. So maybe, let’s try again, when we’re ready.

Thanks to my friends, I was able to gather up a crew rather quickly. I worked with my friend Gabriel Meyer-Lee to write the dialogue and pick out the costumes during the first week. Since I’m not a director by any means, I received directorial advice from my director friend Julian Turner. On the day of the shoot, we arrived at the location with plenty of time and waited for the actors to rehearse their lines.

Although I found the lead actor early on, locking in the supporting role was quite difficult. Because it was closing in on midterm season, most of the potential actors were too busy to be a part of the project. I also expected rain—the final dance sequence was meant to be carried out in the rain as a baptism metaphor. Despite the forecast showing 80% chance of rain, it stopped raining three hours before the shoot. To salvage the shoot, I had the crew water down the background to mimic a post-rain environment. I think the biggest pitfall was the failure of the prop lighter. In order to inject the vignette with as much futuristic detail as possible, I borrowed a plasma lighter from my friend. It was a futuristic looking device with a purple plasma arc that acts as the combustion method. However, it failed quite miserably during the shoot, so we had to switch to a normal lighter.

All in all, this project showed me that a random conversation piece can end up as a short film in just two weeks. It was probably one of the most stressful two weeks I’ve come across in a while—with a huge chapter of my senior thesis due the same week as this project—but it was also one of the most rewarding ones. I think I often find myself saying “oh, I would totally turn this idea into a film, but only if I have time”. This project taught me that I can actually just go out and wrap up a short film I’m pretty happy with in just two weeks. The folks here at Jtwo have been extremely helpful in providing guidance, and I look forward to learning even more in the next two months.