Cam and I began preproduction in early November, planning to shoot the following July. And with all of the challenges I knew lay ahead, my first thought was: We are definitely going to need an experienced producer. Cam had a few producers in mind, people who might be able to advise on and help navigate some of the trickier logistics involved, as well as providing contacts and opening doors, and I fiercely wanted one of those producers onboard. “Well,” Cam told me, “make a pitch package.” I responded, “What the hell is a pitch package?”

When I finished the screenplay for West of Her, it represented more of my own hopes and fears than I’d ever explored in my work, and I knew right away that it was the strongest story I’d ever produced. And it seemed so easy to make—all you’d need was two actors, a car, and a camera. And so, after being out of touch for five years, I reached out to my old friend Cam, who was now working as a Director of Photography up in Toronto. “Hey,” I said out of the blue, “let’s make a movie!”

Before 2010, I was fairly sure that ideas for stories waltzed into a writer’s head as straightforward premises: it’s a story about…well, if I could finish that sentence succinctly, this would be a different post. I had a problem: I could never think of a story about anything. But as I was struck by, and began developing, the idea that became West of Her, I figured out two key lessons that enabled me to create a full-length screenplay. 

I don’t hold any type of degree in film—not in film production, not in film theory, and not in screenwriting—yet I managed to write, direct, and produce an independent feature film. That meant that along the way, I had to put myself through a crash course in what it takes to make a movie, and the lessons came frequently and often the hard way. In this blog, I’m going to look back at the entire process, from conceiving the film to its completion, and reflect on those lessons, and this week, I’m going to kick things off with how I managed to even get to the starting line, despite having very little formal education in the world of film.