DREAM TEAM
CREATIVE DIRECTOR | ACTOR | WRITER | PRODUCER
Key Deliverables: Five original short-form productions, weekly acting and writing sessions, and Ab-Normal short film.
ACTING & WRITING CLASSES
Bi-weekly, we gathered for on-camera acting sessions where we practiced with various scripts, worked through live auditions, and rewatched the footage together to give and receive feedback in real time. Monthly, we pulled a play from a curated list and read it as a group. Alongside that, I hosted monthly creative writing sessions structured around prompts and open-ended creative exercises designed to move past blocks and get to something genuine. We would then take those sessions and utilize certain discoveries made to build reels around and use for production purposes.
REEL PRODUCTIONS
As the work developed, we began shooting original scenes derived from scripts I drafted across comedic and dramatic ranges. These were developed with the goal of building our reels and demonstrating range. I would then lead the planning for each shoot. One production that stood out was an interrogation scene exercise I conceived and coordinated at my father's office. We established imaginary circumstances in advance, set the space, and let the scene play out improvisationally on camera.
THE SHORT FILM: AB-NORMAL
The culmination of our work together became the production of the short film titled "Ab-Normal," which I wrote, starred in, and produced alongside the team. The idea came from an unplanned moment. During a meeting with the collective, while waiting for my turn in an exercise, I drew a face on my stomach and began speaking through it as a character. A question followed immediately: what if a couple used this every time they had to have a serious conversation? That inspired the first draft of the script.
PRE-PRODUCTION
Before shoot day, we ran two full rehearsals to lock down the blocking and test the stomach makeup. This helped us to work out how the characters would move without losing comedic timing or looking stiff. To build the visual direction of the short film, I co-directed alongside Director Sydni Perry. Together, we mapped the shot list and defined the visual language: tight, extreme close-ups that reframed hands and stomachs as their own cast members. We drew on the dramatic absurdity of SNL's Dear Sister as a reference point, using a high-stakes cinematic style to amplify the disconnect between the dialogue and the physical reality.
PRODUCTION & POST
Ab-Normal was shot and edited entirely within a single day. Filming began around 10am and wrapped by 6pm, with footage being passed to our editor in real time throughout the shoot, allowing post-production to run parallel with filming. By 10pm, the edit was complete. The final cut even includes an original song written and recorded that same evening during the editing session, which became the film's rolling credits track.
THE RESULT
In the end, the short film was completed within a shocking 24 hour turnaround and went onto to got accepted and featured in two short film festivals: Mighty Shorts Comedy & Atlanta Shorts Festival. As a team, we got to watch our hard work on the big screen making all the hard work worth every second.