Against the “Right Way”

Notes From Pre-Production

Jacques Tati, Playtime, 1967

Last week, a casting director I’ve worked with over the years offered to work on my proof of concept for free. I’m incredibly gratified and humbled by the extremely talented friends and colleagues who have generously donated their time to this project with nothing expected in return. Despite the fact that the film business is in a state of flux, moments like this affirm the strength of community and the power of third spaces, like FilmStack IRL.

Casting has been something I’ve been concerned about since we went into pre-production, particularly because one of the main characters is a twelve-year-old boy. The old adage is that you should avoid filming children for your first project (or ever). The first barrier to entry is access to young talent who are actually decent actors. The second is having to deal with child coordinators, tutors, guardians, agents, and managers. Also, many of these young actors are SAG, which can usually be a headache.

At first, I thought I could figure this out on my own by tediously going through Backstage, but that quickly led to burnout, and I knew I needed external help.

Throughout this process, I’ve consistently questioned why I felt the need to move forward with this particular script instead of something else. Am I really this stubborn that I need to work on a project with every cliché you’re warned not to include in your first feature? But for some reason, intuitively, I was called to this project and not the others. And because I’m someone who prioritizes intuition above everything else, I had to follow it.

Now that it’s the end of the year, I usually give myself a self-audit. Have I committed to really doing the things I said I would do at the beginning of 2025? For the first time, I can confidently say “yes,” but it has me thinking a lot about how I could have been much further along with this project if I had just pushed myself more and gotten out of my comfort zone.

I have a tendency to overanalyze, and I’ve realized how much this has held me back when it comes to making my own work. I think the most powerful thing filmmakers who are working outside of industry norms can collectively do for 2026 is push forward with our projects, even through industry volatility.

There’s so much space for new directorial talent, and with the impending Warner Brothers acquisition from Netflix, the over saturation of empty, corporatized films and franchises is amongst us. It’s time for a new guard of filmmakers to cut through the noise and show us new ways of seeing. And when I say this, it’s not just about the actual films themselves, but the business of making them, too.

While working on this project, what I’ve realized is that things don’t have to be so complicated. There isn’t a “right way” to do things. As a commercial producer, this has been incredibly difficult to unlearn, but it’s true.

It made me think about all of the various structures put in place to produce content in the “right” way, and it’s pretty ridiculous. Of course, there are crew protocols for safety, etc., which are necessary, but for the most part, everything else is either malleable or negotiable.

At this point, I’m less interested in permission structures and more interested in momentum. The project doesn’t need to be perfect or sanctioned to be real. It just needs to keep moving. For me, that means trusting my instincts, leaning on community when I need to, and letting the work evolve without over-engineering every step.

This list will likely continue to grow as we move deeper into pre-production, but here’s where things currently stand.

Notes from the project that go against the “right way” of doing things:

• If everything pans out, locations will cost $47/day via Hipcamp. That means no permits or expensive location fees.

• I don’t intend to storyboard this project. If I do anything, I’ll probably take stills, but no traditional boards.

• We’re casting for this project extra early, despite the late spring production date.

• I don’t intend to have a 1st AD