Gene, a newly minted genie on his first day of work, comes prepared to grant Dan three wishes to save his life, but Dan just has the one: to die.

One of the few projects I’ve co-directed, with a close friend from USC Michael Lappen who directed Piggy Bank Proposition (the thesis film I DPd). We wanted to shoot something over the summer with friends to work those directing muscles a bit. I wrote the script.

On the day my voice actually went out, so working with. Michael was crucial to communicate with the actors. I learned sometimes with these projects you each fall in love with different aspects of the film. I think I really put a lot of myself into the character of Gene played by Lee Grober. Michael seemed to contribute a lot more to Dan played by Justin Powell. Both of them were fantastic to work with.

We pulled two overnight shoots and I can’t believe our friends were okay with doing that unpaid but hey at least we were having fun. Full credits on my Vimeo.

We submitted the film to the Blackmagic Design film festival and ended up winning both the audience choice prize and grand jury prize, and we each took home a Blackmagic Pocket Cam 6K that night.