Sun Tea

The concept for Sun Tea was inspired by a memorable experience I had as a teen with a creepy doctor at a clinic. It has haunted me ever since. So, what better to do than make a film about it?

My husband and I shot it entirely ourselves in our apartment and our neighborhood. I shaved his head, did our make up, padded his stomach, and assembled our wardrobes for the full transformation. We then gathered our props and set up shop.

It was in the thick of COVID. The theme of alienation and isolation, which is ever present in my work, felt even more universal during the production process in the midst of a pandemic. After a weekend of shooting, I edited the footage. Then, we recorded the voiceover.

Already weeks into the process, we spent additional weekend days working on foley, something I had wanted to explore for many years. Because the film is entirely comprised of an inner monologue, this struck me as the perfect opportunity to finally try my hand at recording sound effects from scratch to add another dimension. We dove into capturing and creating all kinds of audio, inside and out. It took far longer than expected but we completed it and I handed everything off to virtual collaborators in other countries for mixing and color grading.

David Lynch was the inspiration for tone, RIchard Linklater for conversational poetics deeply rooted in character, Wes Anderson for color theory, and radio dramas for heightened sound design. The result is indie and stylized while packing an emotional punch. Everyone gets lonely sometimes, after all, and each person deals with it in their own way. For better or worse...