A Short on Hold

*UPDATE from a previous post

In September of 2020, some friends and I wrote, directed, and shot a short comedy about a bunch of middle aged men playing online in a battle royale style tournament against kids which subsequently, ends up quickly becoming a lot harder to win than planned.

Since everyone was stuck at home during the pandemic and the world had basically hit pause, we figured it was the perfect time to make something fun. We had a 15-page script, full access to gear through Kings Park Studios, and a bunch of helping hands—including a professional stunt team that came out to support. We shot over a few months on location at the old Lawrence Aviation facility in Setauket (which isn’t around anymore), and we did a bunch of VFX scenes on green screen at Kings Park. We thought we were wrapped by that November… until we realized there were some holes in the script that needed fixing, plus a few extra shoots and rewrites.
Then things started going back to normal—people went back to work, life got busier—and it became harder and harder to get the cast and crew back together. So, the project went on hold until we figured out the next move.

Now it’s 2025, and honestly, I’m starting to think the wait might actually work in our favor. My idea for finishing it is to lean into the time gap—let our actors age, put on some weight, maybe go a little grey. Some of them are married with kids now, which weirdly fits into where I see the story going. It’s shifted from just being a goofy, action-driven comedy to something more grounded—more about where these guys are in life now than just the game.

When we’ll finally pick it back up? Who knows. Only time will tell… literally. After 5 years, I decided to dig up the original project and at the very least, put a teaser together until we can finally wrap the project. After 4 days of shooting, hundreds of hours of post production, this is the state of things so far.