I wrote the script for The Curious Case in autumn 2022, just after completing my master’s in London. I was in the middle of applying for jobs, and we were trying to decide whether to stay in London or move back to the States. I shared the script with a friend, then another friend, and after enough people were encouragingly enthusiastic about it, we decided to just go for it since I had the time, and I had a crew of people willing to help out (what I’m saying is, I was really lucky).

Casting began that December—all very grassroots, using acting and improv shows to do street casting. I let the talent know just before Christmas, and - still juggling Covid times -we were only able to do a few Zoom rehearsals before the shoot.

Our location was a stunning home in Kensington (always, always thanking the Church family for their support and generosity). We had a week to prep, shoot, and wrap at the location—three of those days were shoot days.

I’ve spent a long time producing (and doing a bit of directing), but this was the first time I was truly in control of the production as both producer and director. A key goal of mine was to pre-pro the hell out of this thing to set ourselves up for success. I’ve worked on enough microbudget projects to know how dangerous they can become without proper prep. We were only able to walk through the house once before prep started, so I was storyboarding and creating diagrams for scenes, working closely with my AD and DOP so we could execute a plan that got us 100 shots in three days.

Fam, we knocked it out of the park. We hit OT one day and pushed call the next morning to give people time to recover. The most important thing? It was a blast. The crew was delightful, the cast absolutely wonderful. There was so much laughter and joy—I’d love to work with everyone again on another project (the feature?!)… who can say!

Post took a few months—we were really moving fast, and it still took seven months to cut (and recut, and recut, god bless my editor Alison), then compose, then sound mix, then colour, then mix it all together again.

We had some lovely previews with family and friends in both London and the States, and it was joyous to bring everyone together and celebrate the hard work.

It was exciting to get the notification of selection—but, as most filmmakers will experience, the rejections outweigh the selections. It’s a strange mix of demoralising and exhilarating to see a rejection notice from major film festivals. Obviously, on the one hand, you’d love to get in—but on the other hand, you actually finished a project and got it out there in front of people!

Looking back, the hardest step wasn’t the shoot or the edit—it was just sharing the script I wrote and saying, “I’d like to make this.” After that, everything else started to fall into place. It felt huge at the time, but in hindsight, it was the smallest step that I’m most proud of taking.

The Curious Case chapter has come to a close. It will always hold a special place in my heart, and I’ll always be so proud of what the team accomplished.