This project was a collaborative effort between myself and Elliot Malcolm. We co-wrote/directed/edited this short film for a film festival put on by Showtime’s hit show, Shameless. The assignment was to showcase a truly shameless character. If you’ve seen the show and our video below, you would know that our character would be a good drinking buddy to William H. Macy’s character Frank in the show.
This was one of the most challenging shoots I’ve ever been in charge of — aside from our scheduled lead actress literally quitting hours before the shoot (the beautiful Arielle Elise miraculously filled in, a gem of a last minute casting), we had to coordinate this shoot to happen all on one day and the editing to all be done on another (Elliot and I had conflicting busy schedules).
Sgt. Peppers was gracious enough to let us shoot the bar scene in their banquet room, and even more so the bartender Nick who let us stay and shoot well after operating hours (we were behind schedule trying to navigate the casting situation). After getting out of there after midnight, we headed to my apartment to shoot the bathtub scene with our remaining energy.
The editing binge was much more of a difficult hill to climb as we had a deadline to meet for the contest and a sleepless night of cutting down our four-ish minute video into a two minute video.
This assignment also featured plenty of paperwork — we had to gather talent release forms, music releases, and make sure our video complied with all the many rules to the Shameless contest.
We came out with a great final product, but we didn’t quite meet the specifications for the project (they wanted a video that profiled a family unit of sorts) and we were not finalists. Though disappointing from that perspective, I am so proud of this project and all of those involved.
Carl: Sean Deery
Lila: Arielle Elise
Bartender: Ryan Deery
Lila’s Henchman: Bruce Leroy Williams
Extras: Brian Greavu, Darrell Jones, Joe Carlini, Katie Fitzsimmons, Janelle Mondry
Key Make-Up Artist: Cadi Deery
Original Music: Andrew Smith — “Jingle Fuzz” by Eric Bailey
© Copyright 2021 Matthew Deery.
