QUESTION 1: What about your film excites you the most?

I think it's the audience reaction to it. Every screening has had a different energy behind it. The film is a drama but some audiences find the humanity funny and laugh through the entire film while some only laugh at its "jokes." That it leaves the audience wanting to know more. That the consensus is they want to know what happens to, for and with these two characters and an absent from the screen third character. I wanted the film to start a conversation not end one.

QUESTION 2: What is it about your current movie that will influence your next film?

It already has as I just made another short film and I decidedly said it would not be a drama like this one. I also wanted to have more collaboration from start to finish and I have an amazing partner on this film and we have other team members that have stayed solidly on-board well into post It's very different working with a partner versus a for hire team. no matter how great they are. No shade to for hire folks. It's just a different experience, as I had to do so much alone on this one and sharing the heavy lifting and giving much of it over to someone else is such a relief,. On the themes or tones that carry over: it would be strong female characters. Strong women will carry into all of them. Hopefully next up will be developing GIVEN into a feature which has been painfully slowly in the works.

QUESTION 3: When you’re shooting a film do you think of time as something you capture or something you construct?

I don't think I was consciously thinking about it either way. GIVEN takes place over about 16 hours from late afternoon into the next morning so it's pretty linear and was intended to take place in 2015 but I let that go and allow folks to believe it's current day or if they want to believe it's in the past they can. I didn't direct the film through production so I can't speak for my director on this topic. I can say we weren't focused on time as a character like it could be in some films. Place always tends to be a character in my work more than time. Place is often the starting point as it was for this film.

QUESTION 4: What’s a limitation you wish you had on your next shoot that would force you into making interesting creative decisions?

I would love to have a house or condo donated where we were only shooting there so we wouldn't have to worry about searching for locations and paying for them but also were limited by what that location could provide. Maybe that's a bit of a cheat but cost is always top of mind as a producer. We got our location donated for the short we shot this year NO MORE I LOVE YOU'S but it was an entire compound with so many locations and options we had no limitations.. I would like something more contained for the next one where no driving was involved to next set ups.

QUESTION 5: If a film shoot is like a living organism which department do you think functions as its nervous system?

It depends on the shoot. On some it would be the director because they are carrying the creative vision and communicating impulses to every other department but others might say it's the on-set producer because they are holding everything together behind the scenes and ready to manage any challenges or damage that comes up on the spot. Others might say it's the 1st AD because they have to keep it all moving and flowing though maybe that's the digestive system ha. Before GIVEN I had just worked as an actor on a friend's film where every person on set was just full of joy and collaborative spirit. Everyone was so happy to be there and I was inspired so I shared with our producer and director that I wanted a similar vision on the set of GIVEN So we joked that if any issues/drama/animosity came up that our producer would stop and say HOLD FOR SAGING! In her other life she leads spiritual workshops and retreats which is short handing the complexity of what she does. Point is she is qualified to HOLD FOR SAGING. However, we never needed to.

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5Q's w/: Glory Simon "Given" Writer, Producer