Does The Fun Ever Start?

The past few days, it’s been non-stop phone calls and emails and hammering out finances with the casting director, insurance companies and SAG. I simply wanted to make a comedy short – instead, it’s like I’m living inside my autobiography and this is the chapter titled “The Day the Laughter Died.”

It’s all thanks to me brilliantly making one of the leads in my film a kid. I had to hire a casting director, purchase workers’ comp insurance and begin the oh-so-icky task of researching and processing forms with the header “Using a Minor in an Entertainment Shoot.”

Okay, I know these are first-world problems, but I wasn’t anticipating this degree of shitstorm. Nonetheless, I’m reminded of something an old actor teacher of mine used to preach: you can learn more from making a short film than you can in four years of film school. Couldn’t agree more. And I’ve been going back and forth with my friend Shevaun, who’s in mid-nightmare on a feature she wrote, reminding each other of the quote by Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, when Gina Davis’ character wants to quit playing ball: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” Right on.