A Project as a Compass: Navigating Dreams and Reality

I remember floating on the lake with my friend, Pam (she/her), and I told her even though I started writing another feature called, Bubbled, I kept vividly seeing the short film version of it. After putting Sleep Talking on hiatus and all of the pain that it brought, I was scared; scared to spend the money on it, scared to jump back into production and afraid it consume my life again. I tried to convince myself that I was done with directing and I didn’t really want to make it. It was just a silly idea.

She asked me what did I love about directing? I love that irreplaceable connection with actors where we instill so much trust with each other and share deeply about these characters, how we relate to them and how to go on this emotional journey with them. I knew who I wanted to cast and I saw the shots clearer than that beautiful view in front of me that day. I saw the bandmates looking up to the sky heartbroken as a gigantic bubble domed over the town. The drone would pull out and go through the bubble. It would remind us of what it felt like when our dreams and lives were paused when we went into lockdown in 2020.

I turned to Pam in our floating raft.

JESS

Fuck it. I’ll do it. Being scared

is not enough of an excuse for me.

Also do you want to be in it?

I decided I was going to make this short film like I did when I was in High School. Let’s bring back the play, spontaneity, paired down crew and so much laughter. In High School, I would press record on the camera, hold up the boom, and talk to my friend who was the actor that day. It was simply, silly and set me on the path to be a filmmaker for the rest of my life.

I got everything together; I wrote, casted, produced, production designed, costume designed, location scouted, and saved up the money to make this happen. I wrote song lyrics with a melody and worked with my disgustingly talented friend, James (he/him), who made them into early 2000s punk pop ballads.

The pieces started to line up easily, everyone was on board and it all fell together.

That is until it all almost fell apart.

The stress leading up weighed on me so much that I got a sinus infection. I was exhausted, running myself ragged and finishing antibiotics days before set.

My lead actor was sick with the flu and I had to recast the lead of the film the night before. I was reaching out to actors, watching audition tapes, coordinating new travel, running to thrift stores for costume pieces, looking at pictures of clothes the actor already had, and so much more until the morning of the shoot.

All the while, I didn’t hear the delivery person at my door with our equipment because my beautiful, old Victorian home does not have a doorbell and I was in the back. So then I was calling the delivery company and the automated message said they’d deliver the equipment the next business day, aka Monday since it was Friday. I called again to talk to customer support and they said the driver could swing back, but that was completely out of their way. They got in touch with the driver and they asked if I was close to his route. I drove to a random parking lot to haul quasars, C-stands, and sound equipment into my car.

On top of this, I was playing phone tag with my Director of Photography, Briana (she/her), who was calling to say that the drone operator had a family emergency and couldn’t come to shoot that big bubble reveal. Lunch spots that were supposed to be open were spontaneously closed and we couldn't’ find anywhere to deliver to our location in the Catskills. We got rained out of a location and we had to travel south for the next shoot day, so at midnight Briana and I were looking for new rivers, streams, lakes, or any body of water to film near to fake a fish release scene instead of traveling north another hour for the old location.

It felt like everything that could’ve gone wrong did over that weekend and I was directing, producing, and simply just surviving. Didn’t I just spend the last 6 months coming back to myself to have a beautiful calm life? Didn’t I want to go back to the place I was in the Spring where I wrote a feature in less than 2 months?

As hard as this all was, it reminded me of two things: first, I can do film production and make it happen for the sake of the film, but I don’t want to like this. I need to take my own advice from Sleep Talking and ask for help. Not do it all myself. That’s part of the reason it felt so exhausting to continue making Sleep Talking in the end.

And secondly, My reasons for not wanting to make this film at first weren’t just fear, it was my gut. As I edited Bubbled and think of the parts I wanted to animate and dream up, I’m also working hard to return to my life of ease. I wanted to return back to the life that brought me peace and nourishment.

Each project has a lesson and a compass telling us where to go. I needed to tune in, decide what feels good, what’s going to take more than it will give, and what I really want out of life. I think all I really want to do at this point is to write.

My book is coming out at the end of this year, you can learn more about it jesscosta.com