Jake

As a writer who's very interested in the theme of identity, and what it means to be "me", I saw JAKE as a great chance to explore that theme in an entertaining and engaging way. I discussed the concept of being replaced by an actor with others and each brought their own perspective to the idea. Some found the concept liberating, others found it frightening.

Encouraged by the initial response to the concept, I started diving into the mechanics of it: somebody would have to take over the role of that life, and that person would be an actor. But they would have their own desires and direction for the part - would it be comic to see an actor taking over somebody else's life? Or tragic? I suspected it was both, and after several false starts, wrote a script that I felt captured both tones.

I strongly believe that there is no reason to wait for somebody else to tell you to do something: if you're ready to make something, be it a record or a painting or a novel, you should make it. One of
my greatest personal satisfactions of making JAKE has been hearing from other filmmakers who have been inspired to follow our path and make something off their own backs.

Having said that, there's no question that making a self-funded, low-budget film is an incredible challenge, even if it's only two actors in a room. With 20-plus speaking parts and as many locations, and some very specific effects requirements, JAKE pushed the boundaries of simple low-budget filmmaking. We knew we wanted to work with professional actors and that meant we wanted to treat, and feed, our cast and crew as well as possible.

All of this would have been beyond difficult - in fact, actively impossible - without the passionate support of the cast and crew, all of whom worked for free, because they believed in the project. It's flattering and humbling, and I hope that all of them are as proud of the final product as I am. There is a great cult around the concept of the writer/director as the single, pure voice of the film. In my experience, that couldn't be further from the truth. JAKE would have been impossible without the rest of the Hybrid team – and, from the first day I presented the script to the team, I made it clear that JAKE would never bear the credit, "A Film By Doug Dillaman". I wanted to make sure that everybody involved understood we were all in this together - I might be the writer, director, and one of the producers, but this is our film.