Senior and filmmaker Dakota Taylor said seeing your film on the big screen with an audience of influential people is one of the most exciting things about creating one. With his film “Anodyne,” this will become a reality.
“Anodyne” was named one of 10 semifinalists in the Producer’s Guild of America’s Make Your Mark competition. The competition entails creating a short film up to five minutes in only 52 hours. The whole process, from writing the script to editing the final cut, must have been done between 5 p.m. Aug. 24 and 8 p.m. Aug. 26. The film was turned in with only one minute to spare, according to Taylor, co-writer and director.
“I helped plan and lead the production from start to finish, which included assembling the amazing cast and crew and finding the location for the film in such a short amount of time,” Emily Ward, a recent IU graduate and co-producer of the film, said in an email. “Our location was an hour away which included a whole company move to set and back within the short time span, and we still made it happen.”
Taylor said that “Anodyne” is centered around a nurse returning from a war. Since returning to her home country, she discovers some ugly truths about the place she fought for. The cast included seniors Tayler Fischer, Mia Siffin and Max Weinberg, and non-IU student Caleb Wallace.
Wallace was not only a part of the cast but also the co-writer and co-producer of the film. He said he has known Taylor since he was young, and partnering with him on this film was a great experience.
“Overall it was an amazing experience that I was able to live out with a fantastic crew of up-and-coming filmmakers,” Wallace said in an email. “I'm looking forward to the future, where we will be able to tell more stories worth telling.”
As a semifinalist in the Make Your Mark competition, the cast and crew get to fly out to Los Angeles, California Nov. 7-10. There, all of the semifinalists’ films will be showcased and the top three will be announced at an event associated with NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, a nonprofit that screens work from emerging filmmakers.
Taylor said the judges who will choose the winners are celebrities, and most semifinalists are from New York or L.A. He said he was proud to come from Indiana, a lesser-known state regarding film work.
“Honestly, in our minds, we’ve already won because we get to go out to L.A.,” Taylor said. “We get to put this on our resumes and try to push off from it and meet people at this event. It’s really cool to have these people watch our movie.”
