“That Doe Zone,” the dreamy new short by Harrison Atkins, unspools from a series of odd coincidences between a couple of friends. We asked Atkins how the project started, what the biggest challenge was, and what comes next for him…

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

I’m not sure what the very first impetus was, but I’ve been like single-mindedly trying to make movies since maybe fourth grade or something. I grew up in suburban Texas, and have vague memories of watching some HBO show called 30x30 Kid Flicks and wanting to also be a kid who makes flicks. My parents bought me a JVC camcorder and I went hog-wild shooting shorts with neighborhood kids and editing them (poorly) on a VCR. I think there’s a pretty linear trajectory between me then and me now. I went to film school at Northwestern University, and then made some shorts and a feature in New York. Since then I’ve just been bouncing around working on stuff between NYC, Chicago, and LA where I currently live most of the time.

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

One afternoon two of my dearest friends (both named Chloe) were sitting at the table in my apartment having a conversation, and I was sort of watching them from further back in the room. And I started getting ideas for a shot-reverse composition grammar or something. Then the script occurred to me a few days later. I storyboarded it on a napkin at a bar before a concert. From the beginning, I was excited at the prospect of shooting it in a lo-fi way, for a budget of literally nothing. There’s something about making no-budget stuff in LA that I think is especially subversive, maybe because there’s such a gatekeepery ideology here. My friend David let me use his camera so I was like, “you’re the producer now.” The actors were all friends with whom I had wanted to make something. And the (tiny) crew was just some homies. I think the total budget ended up being around 75 bucks, just for food for everybody. And then I had to move to Chicago for a while for work. So I brought the movie with me and spent a few months playfully and intermittently editing it, whenever I had the time.

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

It took a while to crack the editing rhythm. I was cutting in kind of a naturalistic way, maybe because the TV show I was working on in Chicago was super naturalistic. At one point I showed a version to my friend Daniel and he helped me see things from another perspective, which led to the more deliberate and dreamlike pace of the movie now, which I think works better. I love editing; I’d probably say that’s my favorite part of the process, even though it can be very stressful. I’ve edited all of the movies I’ve made so far, and sometimes get work as an editor… so I feel like my brain has increasingly become wired to see the whole process from that perspective. Of all the other elements of the process, color grading is the biggest blind spot for me. It’s so hard for me to look at two different color grades and decide which one is better. That’s why I love to collaborate with talented and passionate color-minded homies. I felt lucky that my friend Spencer agreed to play with the grade on this. He’s such a smart filmmaker; it was humbling to hear all of his thoughts about the look.

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

I saw Hong Sang-soo’s THE DAY HE ARRIVES recently, which completely hit the spot for me. It’s so funny, and slippery in a very subtle way, like a dream where you don’t know if you’re awake. These days I’m always craving movies that buck traditional codes and also feel chill and laid-back.

5) What’s next for you?

I've got some bigger projects on the docket in 2020. Generally I’ve spent the last six months writing so much, I feel like I’ve accumulated this trove of scripts and documents. And concurrently I like to try to make smaller things, in between. I’ve got another short film playing festivals this year, so I hope you (dear reader) get to see that soon.

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http://www.harrisonatkins.com

IG: @hhharkrr

5 Questions with Harrison Atkins