Sherwin Yu

making a movie in 2020

written by sherwin yu | illustrated by candice cirilo

WE DRIVE FOR HOURS, two

or three or five; I can’t tell anymore. Daniel is behind the wheel, and I sit in the passenger seat making a fruitless attempt at reading some thrifted novel I had unknowingly stuffed into my bag days ago. Anna and Joel sit behind napping, (generously) sharing the backseat with a pile of backpacks, bulky camera cases, and road trip snacks. Distracted from my book, I turn to face the view of the desert from my passenger window, the same view we have seen now for miles and miles. Dry dirt is all the landscape offers, that and the occasional tumbleweed. Heat waves emanate menacingly from the sunbleached soil. A range of jagged peaks run along the horizon, and if I look just far enough, I can see all the way to Mexico.

When the pandemic hit and campus was shut down in March 2020, I was a junior feeling sympathetic for the class of 2020, unaware of the severe implications that the coronavirus would have on my own college experience. At first, a “return to normal” seemed inevitable. But as the summer slowly and tediously passed by, the sobering truth shone clearer with each day. A “return to normal” gradually transformed into “a new normal,” and by July, the Wesleyan College of Film and the Moving Image finally informed film studies majors that senior theses were going to look very different. For production theses: no non-student actors, no location shooting off-campus, and only a small, bare-bones crew to assist.

The challenges were impossible to ignore. While I knew these new guidelines were necessary and important in order to keep everyone safe, it was hard to muster up the passion and energy necessary for a production thesis knowing that the original premise for my film (centered around family dynamics and shot on location) was not going to pass the department’s new logistical standards. Although I knew these guidelines were important and necessary to put in place, I still found myself frustrated, and my frustration stemmed not just from the compromise of my creative vision. Filmmaking on campus was and is one of the great joys of being a Wesleyan film major, and hopefully it continues to serve as a cornerstone of the film education on campus. There is no set experience quite like that of Wesleyan’s; our small school and major size necessitates frequent collaboration among different student artists and active participation from all involved, and there is an enthusiasm (rather than a distaste, as is the case for most other sets) for learning on the job. Seniors actually want freshmen to crew up for their projects, and upperclassmen will typically show the ropes to anyone who is willing to learn. I remember my first few times working on theses, fumbling around with my anointed boom pole and struggling to keep all the sound files organized on my recorder. Despite my lack of skills and confidence, I was met largely with encouragement from the senior directors and producers who understood that part of the joy of making a thesis film at Wesleyan is fostering a space for growth and the sharing of knowledge, a small but meaningful dismantling of the intimidating process that is breaking into the world of film. For me, participating on Wesleyan film sets became not just an invaluable educational resource but also a dynamic, fresh, and rewarding experience, one that enabled me to create and cultivate some of the

most important friendships and relationships that I have ever had. Knowing that I, as a senior, would probably be unable to foster this type of project and environment, in addition to the fact that I was losing autonomy over the capstone experience that I had invested so much time, energy, and money in, left me disappointed and dejected. One June day, however, my friend Theo called, asking me to talk about something. Hey, dude. So this may be a long shot, but...

And thus, the Longshot Collective was born—a group of eight students from Wesleyan, University of Southern California, and New York University deciding to embark on a three month cross-country independent filmmaking journey. Over the course of the summer, we met frequently and discussed logistics and visions over Zoom. We realized that despite the uncertainty that surrounded us and the world at the time, we a) had the time, b) had the support, and most importantly c) had the passion necessary for a project like this. With just a successful Seed and Spark crowdfund and a script, a filmmaking fantasy could come into fruition. And so we went to work.

Most of us left from the east coast in mid-September and arrived in California a week later. Monitoring the coronavirus situation closely, we gunned it in our Subarus and stopped only to sleep, eat, or stretch. As much as filmmaking was on our mind, so was the intense and humbling experience of driving cross-country and making new friends. On the way, we were surprised (and awed) to find a breathtaking and mysterious landscape in between the coasts. Across the Kansas plains, the auburn sunset stretched infinitely into the depths of the ever-expanding, deepening horizon. In the Utah canyonlands, the night sky became so clear and the stars shone so bright that whole new mappings of constellations had revealed themselves, having once been hidden in plain sight. Over the chasm of the Grand Canyon, the physical effects of time and pressure and runoff humbled our tiny bodies, and offered us a sliver of humility and profound stasis in our fervor of activity. Seeing as our collective’s film is still in the process of being edited

at the time of this being written, I feel as if I am not yet ready to fully synthesize the learning experience that was embarking on a completely independent film project across the country with my peers (nor would I have enough pages to do so within this piece). But over the past few months, I have been quietly and carefully contending with the flurry of emotions associated with the aftermath of 2020, a year of volatile and unexpected change that at once derailed and redeemed my commitment and passion to the process of making movies. I did not get the filmmaking experience I had imagined for myself coming into the year; in fact, I got something wholly different. Yet, I recognize how fortunate I am to have had something so wholly different, something so exciting and scary and unknown that gave me an opportunity to challenge myself mentally and physically and to put the skills I had developed at Wesleyan to practical application. I had to learn to abandon the familiar, and to become active in stepping out of the sediment of confusion and indecision that kept me stagnant, sometimes even sunken. The project and entire past year has been an exercise of adaptation, an abrupt test of resilience whose consequences I am still grappling with as I continue my journey as a filmmaker and human being. And as graduation

approaches and an uncertain world gradually veers into my periphery, I remind myself that this adaptation is not so much an exercise as it is a mode of processing, a means of acceptance for the ebb and flow of life that paves way for the opportunity and privilege to create and chase after a vision.

We continue to drive. We are only about three or four days into location scouting but we are already out of time. It is now Week 4 in San Diego, and we have not rolled a single shot. But, I remind myself, things are looking up. The equipment is now all secured. The script is essentially finished. People are rehearsing and making costumes and organizing tech and we’re even going to an abandoned ski resort town in the middle of nowhere that might end up being the perfect location for one of our longest sequences. We’re behind, but we’re moving; I wonder if I will ever be a part of a film production that never feels like that, but I shake away the thought as it isn’t helpful. Daniel asks me to pass him an apple, and I oblige. I look back and see that the other two are still sleeping. My stomach rumbles quietly, and I decide to open a cereal bar since we still have a hundred miles to go, give or take. I chew as I turn back towards the window, and continue to stare at the dry dirt. Even if the desert landscape has become monotonous, unchanging, we drive ahead.