the guez

It was a bit of a tall order: three short films and three travel channel episodes. In four days. It didn’t leave a lot of time for preproduction. We fueled ourselves on a cocktail of adrenaline and sunshine, funny jokes, and the joy of mixing filmmaking with travel and red wine. Chris woke at dawn the morning we were to shoot his film, and wrote his shot list while the rest of us were still sleeping. When I opened my eyes, only a few hours after the previous night’s party, he was already in costume, working on his laptop. “Going to get some props, be right back,” he said while Adam grumbled over to brush his teeth. “Did you sleep at all?” I asked, blinking myself awake. “A bit.” He rushed out the door.      I had planned to figure out my film and write my shot list after we finished shooting Adam’s short, but the shoot spilled right into the party. So then I decided to figure out my film and write my shot list after we finished Chris’ short. But by the time we completed our da

It was late morning on our fourth day in Barcelona. We were in a coffeeshop. We were bleary-eyed from wine and parties and long film shoots, sipping our coffee, looking at the shotlist for the day, our minds on adventures and architecture and extravagant amounts of sunshine. We were talking about the themes of my film. I said, “At first I felt that if I ever came upon a portal to another dimension, I wouldn’t see it. And then last year, I realized that if I ever saw a portal to another dimension, I wouldn’t even use it.” Adam’s double espresso had just taken effect, and his eyes went suddenly bright. “But you did use it,” he said. “You’re here.” And he was right.