For over two months, I’ve been buried alive.

As it turns out, being buried alive is actually pretty exciting. All-consuming for sure. Back in February, when director Paul Thompson pitched me the idea for a porn-star-mom stalked by a psychotic fan, and said, “let’s make a trailer for it and try to win a million bucks”, I thought, why not? Let’s go for it! I’ve done dumber things for much less motivation.

And so we plunged into the CineCoup Film Accelerator, competing with 91 teams across Canada to earn a million dollars in funding for our feature film ideas. Making the trailer itself was an exhausting rolling disaster, with locations pulling out upon learning the subject matter, a constantly changing crew, and only Paul and producer Rick Jang’s drive to finish holding our fragile enterprise together. With only two days to go before the competition entry deadline, they finished shooting our trailer for a thriller that doesn’t exist. Paul then madly edited it together, the first of what would turn out to be many marathon sessions with Final Cut Pro and a case of Coca-Cola.

Since then we’ve made countless videos, one a week, for two months. We’ve pitched our team. We’ve talked about the importance of soundtrack, post-sound and colour correction, relatively cheap tricks that give your film so much character. We’ve made posters for people to vote on (and a ridiculous ad-man noir vid as a very silly companion piece). We’ve made a silent(ish) sequence, with no dialogue, delving into our characters in a short but moving vignette. And it doesn’t stop there.
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