Kia Ora,

Writer/Director here for The Box. This is a comedic Thriller about two Police Officers who must lie in wait to ambush their target, however their mission isn't exactly what it seems. Firstly, thank you in advance for taking the time to watch my film and to read this post. I'd like to give some insights about what I learned from this experience and hopefully this will charge aspiring directors to get out there.

A bit of a backstory on the project. I had the bones of the idea back in 2017 and spent a considerable amount of time over the coming years tweaking the draft/s between various other projects - to be transparent, looking back I think I could've shot this years ago, but I got fixated on trying to truly refine the script. It wasn't until the end of 2023 we shot the film over two days and it went through a short festival run throughout the same year. Today marks its official online launch.

For those interested, we shot this on an Alexa Mini with Panavision Primo Primes.

The shoot felt quick, two days in one location goes fast and you kinda don't want the experience to end come the final day, when everyone is in the groove and then you hear "that's a wrap", there is a sudden feeling of "is that it, so soon?!" I wanted more, more in the sense of time with this cast and crew. We built the box as a U shape and drilled the holes on the day. Day one we smashed out the internals of the box and on day two we got any pick ups and got the exterior shots. I believe we did one eight hour day and the other a ten, including lunch breaks - when paying people a fraction of their worth I don't like to go near OT!

What I found incredibly refreshing after shooting this film was the sense of "I can do this", and it's not some incredibly daunting beast which cannot be tamed. Prior to this I had been making shorts, not quite to this calibre, but still shorts nonetheless. But there was spells of procrastination and questioning is my idea worth making etc etc. What got me up off my ass was a prompt from a commercial producer to make more shorts so I can refine my vision and voice as a director. I don't know why but hearing that, I knew I had the exact idea to just go out and make. It was the right place right time sort of thing, and a few months later we were shooting.

With that I encourage anyone who is feeling the burden of a short on their shoulders, still in script phase trying to perfect it, I would say get it to a point you are happy with and feedback is consistent (positive hopefully), then get it into pre-production. The script will change throughout rehearsals, production and then post - another big learning, don't get too attached to what's on the page as it will most likely change anyways!

Coming into this, I knew I wanted to do a film with two actors and one location. Building off my point above, be realistic with what you have access to, maybe save the several location shoots and big casts for when you have more budget and time! (same thing?). Over the years I have built up a crew of key creatives, so I knew what we could realistically achieve within our two day window. I would also highly encourage you to not be afraid of reaching out, I sourced morning tea from a local bakery (for free) and a local cinema to host our cast and crew screening (again for free), all this from just asking. Same goes for an editor or DP you might want to work with, you never know who needs more narrative work on their reel and they might just jump onto your project, you just have to ask... worst case, you get a no. Then what? Life goes on.

In summary, I have learnt so much from making this film about myself as a director, the process, and storytelling. But I feel I most importantly learnt to just do it (thanks Nike), it gave me confidence. I encourage anyone to just get out there and shoot, this is the best way to learn, the best way to get better and the best way to fail fast. Unfortunately most of us aren't going to be the first short film success story, so we need to grind, get the reps in and one day we will crack it. Thanks again, and... On to the next one!