Thin Place — Short Film

Years ago, in a small coffee shop on the outskirts of Indianapolis, I met Brenton Oechsle for the first time. I remember marvelling at the depth of the man and admiring the passion he has for narrative storytelling. We left that day saying, as one does, “I hope we get to work together sometime.” Those in the business know how these coffee meetings can go, but lucky for me, a few years later he reached out about a short film he had written. In true Brenton fashion, it was brilliant! He asked if I was interested in producing it, and without question I was on board. Short films are typically low budget ventures, run on lots of passion for the material. This also means that the story often is written to take place at one or two locations, helping keep costs and logistics at a minimum. But that is the producer in me talking, Brenton on the other hand is a visionary. He had found a specific room in NYC that had a special texture on the walls that he loved and felt had to be used for a scene. He also wanted to film part of the film in the Hoh Rain Forest in Washington state, and in addition the cinematographer in him was hard set on filming on Super 35 Film. 

Here’s the thing, while some would start to look at those asks as impossible challenges, I tend to take a “glass half full” approach to life and my work and begin by asking the question “what if we could make these ideas work?”

The first answer to my posed question, is to gather expert artisans that believe in the power of cinematic storytelling together. One such artisan was our incredible cinematographer Kassim Norris who is a master at working with film. Having him and our lean crew on board as well as top notch talent, we were off to the races!

After long hours on set, travel between coasts, and multiple rainy days trekking through an otherworldly rainforest, we had rolls and rolls of film ready to ship off to Kodak. Filming on celluloid for this project was such a delight because we were able to be so fully present for each take. And what a joy it was to finally see Brenton’s vision and our hard work brought to life, when it premiered at the Indy Shorts Film Festival. The moral of the story? Never sleep on a coffee meeting.