A Complete Guide to Producing a Short Film: A Case Study - Part 3 Production

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Production

Cuddle Buddies: A Short Film Case Study Part 3 - Production

The Third Part in a series of articles on how I made my short film Cuddle Buddies as writer, director and producer, from the writing phase all the way through post- production and beyond.

Previous Installment:

The Short Film

Here’s a link to the completed film, which serves as a great reference and context for all of the posts and discussions previously and to follow.

Here is a link to the second article in this series. I highly recommend checking that out along with Part 1 since it serves a logical progression and context for this third part.

What is Cuddle Buddies?

Cuddle Buddies is a narrative dramatic short film that is independently produced and character driven. The logline is as follows: Cuddle Buddies tells the story of Lucy, a single mother who works as a professional cuddler in order to support her young daughter and to alleviate the loneliness not only in her clients, but also in herself.

I wrote, directed, edited, produced & colored this film and it very much was a labor of love in the truest sense of the word.

OK so with that setup, let’s get into the third part of this series, which focuses on the production and shoot for the short film.

After Pre-Production…

After all logistics for the shoot had been locked and set up in place, the final steps were finalized the last week before our first day of production. This included the equipment rental pick ups and finalizing the schedule and call sheet for the entire cast and crew.

Working With Assistant Directors

About a month prior to the shooting weekend, I had staffed up the two Assistant Directors who would be working on the short, Justin Madriaga and Henry Brower. Much like staffing up any crew position, I had met Justin on a separate production prior and he told me he did some Assistant Directing and so when everything was ready for my shoot, he was the first person I called for the job. Justin brought along Henry to fill in for him as 1st AD on the 3rd day of production, since he had booked a different