A young man battles his daydreams and memories as he tries his best to function at the wedding of the woman he thought he would marry.
The underlying story is a familiar one, but the careful crafting in the storytelling turns this piece into a magnificent visual and psychological experience. ‘Only in Dreams‘ is a fantastic balance between flashbacks, present and hallucinations, blurring the lines as a young man tries his best to function at the wedding of the woman he thought he would marry.
I had just attended a wedding where a friend of mine and I were discussing past relationships and dating in general over many drinks. The next morning I walked into the Leica store in LA and was perusing the gallery they have up stairs. I was drawn to this photo by Tyler Shields from his “submerged” series in which a young couple were kissing underwater. It was beautiful, I just kept staring at it. I’m a pretty big sap sometimes, which I’ve been told by a tarot reading ex-girlfriend is due to my scorpio nature… whatever that means. Anywho… this photo just brought out some emotion with me and I went home and wrote a story about the young couple incorporating some inspiration from the my conversation my friend and I had at the wedding. I finished the script and decided “the hell with it, let’s do it”. I have the most talented filmmakers who I call friends and they all pitched in IMMENSELY to make this happen. It was a 5 day shoot that presented some pretty big challenges; we essentially put on a wedding, filmed a VFX heavy underwater sequence in a friends pool and worked plenty of overtime all to just make it happen with a limited crew and budget. I’ve never been more grateful in my entire life. I hope that everyone who worked on it is as proud as I am of the story we captured. The goal was to showcase an imaginative yet heartfelt story of heartbreak and reflection. One of my favorite quotes (and I don’t know who said it) is “good films make you think, great films make you feel”. That was always the goal, make the audience feel something in 15 minutes. That was the objective from the beginning and the visuals created by my cinematographer and one of the most talented people I know, John Pope, I think paints that emotional landscape.
