Made of Stars
A terminally-ill man foretells a reunion with his deceased wife, Veronica. He composes a letter for her. Bo, his son and caregiver, adopts an indifferent attitude towards his father’s beliefs and wellbeing. Veronica turns out to be a miraculous, end-of-life hallucination. After reciting his letter to “her,” Jeffrey passes away peacefully. Meanwhile, Bo realizes how much his father meant to him. He is left to grieve and figure out a way forward. Though -- be not afraid! For love is the light that connects us, allowing us to see, guide, and protect one another—like the dawn's first light or the stars in the sky. We're all made of stars.
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Jonathan GrantKey Cast"Jeffrey Stevens"
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Jake LeshKey Cast"Bo Stevens"
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Michael LakeKey Cast"Jacob Jones"
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Kaiyue (Ethan) GuanDirector of PhotographyCecily
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Kaiyue (Ethan) GuanEditorCecily
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Scotty SlaterSound Recordist
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Alyssa ReyesBoom Operator
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Kaiyue (Ethan) GuanDirector
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Kaiyue (Ethan) GuanWriter
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Kaiyue (Ethan) GuanProducer
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Project Type:Short, Student
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Runtime:18 minutes 54 seconds
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Completion Date:August 26, 2024
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Production Budget:5,000 USD
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:Yes - The Harker School
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Digital Cinema Package:Unavailable
Ethan started playing around with iMovie seven years ago. Since then, he has taken a number of filmmaking courses both online and at his local community college. It all kept snowballing when his school offered him opportunities to shoot short videos and documentaries for the conservatory, athletics department, and more. Over the past four years, he produced more than a dozen of these videos -- as well as seven films -- and currently serves as Film Club's president, encouraging other student film endeavors.
Hi everybody--
For two months prior to the shoot, my actors and I met on Zoom, screenplays in hand. We talked and talked about the film. Offline, we had about 40 ongoing email threads. We approached the film philosophically, which was lots of fun. We fretted over whether Jeffery (the father) would have a snake tattoo or a large black one that said “punk. rock.” This was film, or so I thought. It was a walk in the park!
When it came time to shoot the film, we upheld that attitude of ours. We were filmmakers, we’ve worked our share, and now it came time to make this thing. We shot a scene, exhaled a “congratulations,” then took a thirty minute break to bossa nova jazz. I wished we could have meandered our way through the shoot at that pace, but scene 36 stood in the way.
We’ve done one take of scene 36-- we might as well have moved on, but that scene was surely aching for something more. So on day three, I gathered everybody at the dinner table and told them: “it’s not working.” The room went quiet. I worried, but I knew we cared enough about this film to get back to work.
That night, at 8 p.m, we hurried, frantically, to reshoot scene 36. All of a sudden, we were off-schedule, off-plan, buzzing around, not knowing what to do. There was no order and moreover, no bossa nova jazz! We didn’t care for the tattoos. That was because a film set is where tragedies come to life, and that was finally going to happen.
Somehow, we had been talking about this tragedy for two months, and this was the only time that it brought us to tears. At that moment, I realized that even though I wrote the father character, even though I workshopped him for two months, psychoanalyzed him, costumed him, even though I made a whole film about him -- I’ve never really cared for him.
That moment nurtured my deep-rooted sympathy for the characters, the people around me, everybody. There are tragedies all around that rightfully make it into conversation but that never makes it into our hearts.
