5 Questions with Michael .T

1)  Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking? 

I'm from Lawrence, MA and I make short films and write stories. I got into filmmaking when I received a job recording basketball games for my high school and my friends thought why not make a movie or at least try to. From there on out, I started recording short films on my iPhone. We would go to the movies all the time and I guess I slowly started to fall in love with everything about it. 

2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?

I wanted to write a coming of age short film starring a girl. I wanted to challenge myself as a writer. My friends always told me writing coming of age stories is kind of like my strong suit. I had this idea about a year ago or 2 written down about a girl trying to get an audition for a movie role but in the meantime dealing with friendship. I was given the opportunity to create it, rewrite it and improve the story and I'm grateful everything kind of just worked out. 

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most and the least?

The biggest challenge was probably editing this. This was the first short film I had to edit using Premiere. I always used Final Cut but I wanted to move on from it and learn Premiere. I had to watch a ton of tutorials and problem solve on a program that I knew only so little about. My favorite part was seeing this thing come to life, seeing everyone come together and work on a project is so much fun. I loved being able to bond with the people on set and just communicating with everyone. The least is probably cutting some scenes down and those times where I'd be frustrated just editing. 

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

I recently watched Onward in theaters. I loved every part of the movie, the emotions really hit but it's the usual thing with Pixar movies haha. I just loved the plot and the theme of brotherhood and the animations looked so cool to me. 

5) What’s next for you?

Honestly, I don't really know. I got a couple of scripts I'm writing and a couple of other projects I'll be helping out with. I hope to write a feature soon and just keep creating short films and maybe direct one big feature someday. 

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