#007 | HBD, i hope ur nightmares come tru
BACKGROUND
Back in February ‘25, HBD, i hope ur nightmares come tru was just an idea for a 3~5min short film/skit that I was hoping to turn around in a month or two. My eyes were really set on a bigger project, a 15~20 page dramedy about a musician that I’ve been writing on and off for years. But I was coming off a 5 to 6-year layoff from producing narrative/fiction projects, so it felt ill-advised to jump into something so big. I continued writing HBD, through Spring, as it ballooned into a 12-page script that I continuously revised until my producer who I met through soccer, Josh, and I felt ready to move into pre-production.
At its core, HBD, was influenced by some real things that I’ve experienced (pursuing archery, working in customer service, etc), as well as some storytelling elements I’ve frequently utilized ( characters with specific ambitions, creative lingo, references to the ocean).
Whether it’s a shower thought or a potential story, I do enjoy writing down any loose idea that comes to mind. As a multiracial fella, I think there’s something funny about people using the “race card” incorrectly —not to mistakenly accuse someone or to cry wolf— but in a way where it’s clear that they don’t understand the implications of using said card. It’s plenty fair to break it out after someone’s thrown a not-so-friendly insult at you, but what if you get called “racist” after doing a non-racial thing, like opening the door for a stranger, or getting a thoughtful gift for someone important to you?
As a former retail employee myself, I know how valuable excellent customer service is. When you spend 40 hours a week in that kind of environment, you see how appreciative people can be when you take time to help them find the right tennis racket or try on some shoes. But you also get to see the opposite. The cuckoo, the twitchy-eyed, the angry, the nefarious, and the rude ones. It’s enough to make the most patient person you know break. Sometimes, that shitty interaction at your retail job could throw you off the rest of the night, even when you get home. You could be preparing a cup of tea, or peacefully cooking lamb pasta when, all a sudden, you hear that screeching voice from earlier complain to you about your job’s public restroom policy, or how a pair of shoes they’ve beaten and battered for the past two years still meets the criteria for a full-priced exchange.
Sometimes, a scream pillow just won’t cut it. Walking around in your house saying, “Shut the f*ck up!” might not cut it either. If only there were a room dedicated to expelling that negative energy…
SHOUT OUT TO MUSIC
“Birthday” is a boring-ass word. A straight-laced name for such a momentous occasion. While working on my 2019 web series, D|S|A, I wrote a “Happy Bird Today” scene, cause y’know, jokes. For HBD, I was really feeling “Born Day”. Straight out of Nas’ lingo.
“I woke up early on my born day; I'm twenty, it's a blessin'
The essence of adolescence leaves my body, now I'm fresh and…”
Aside from being the best MC in history, one of the things God’s Son is a master at, is teaching me new ways to say boring-ass words.
Born day, not birthday. Cabbage, not head. MIKE, not MICHAEL Jackson.
My writing process for this film was heavily influenced by the Experimental/Jazz Fusion scene. Works by Don Cherry and Miles Davis in particular. On the surface, Jazz can sometimes be described as a gentle, otherwise unexciting genre. But I think it’s really one of the most dynamic. There’s Jazz for people who want something in the background, as they write their college paper at a café. There’s Jazz for those who want to drink pricey cocktails while watching a live band perform at a dimly lit venue. But there’s also jazz for the out-of-the-box thinkers. For those who rate expression over standards.
Jazz Fusion tosses out the smoothness and familiarity that its parent genre can evoke, in favor of experimentation and exploration. It takes inspiration from other musical genres and countries, combining the best elements of each to create a super-genre. It’s the Jeet Kune Do of music. You listen to a Don Cherry track like Degi-Degi, and it takes you on a journey. It’s got the chaos you’d associate with psychedelic rock, haunting whispers interwoven with sharp horns and drums, with a 7-minute run time that makes you constantly question whether Mr. Don and his crew improvised this whole thing, or actually wrote it out beforehand.
Also… I’d be a fool not to shout out S3E1 of Atlanta for introducing me to Brown Rice.
ACTUALLY MAKING THIS HAPPEN
As mentioned earlier, I really thought HBD, was only going to be a few minutes long. Just a short story about two people building an STFU Room in their house. But the more I wrote it, the more the two characters, Vinicius and Kylie, intrigued me. I wanted to flesh them out way more than I could in a few minutes. I wanted to get a better sense of the characters, their bond, and their history.
The first draft easily hit 14 pages. After 6 additional drafts that largely involved cutting some of the throwaway jokes (like a Takoyaki joke that couldn’t see the light of day), I was finally able to get it under 12. Twelve felt like the right number, since we felt this film had major 2-day shoot-energy. (It ended up being a 2.5-day shoot, all things considered.)
POST-PRO
Winter ‘25. After a successful shoot where we ran a bit over schedule, annihilated tea bags and tortilla chips, and collectively brought this ridiculous idea to life, HBD, finally entered post-pro. Unlike the videos I’ve been working on for clients these last few years, it was nice to work on a film project that I could actually take my time to develop.
From late September to December, I made several cuts of the film, as I watched the 12 pages of material slowly form into an 18-minute sequence. Going through scene after scene, take after take, hit me with a rush of nostalgia, since I hadn’t been in post-pro for a narrative project in ages. For these early cuts, I hadn’t figured out what I was going to do about the music yet, so most of it was placeholder Don Cherry, except for one track I pulled from the Whiplash soundtrack. As Josh and I reviewed our first few cuts, I kept thinking about hiring a composer or hiring a musician to produce some tracks, until it finally hit me.
Don’t I shoot concerts occasionally?
Here I was, grappling with the reality that Mr. Don’s music was only here temporarily, without realizing that, as a live music photographer, I already had worked with an artist whose music was a perfect fit for the film.
While I was studying abroad in Sydney in 2019, I had shot a few concerts at the Vanguard. One of those shows was for an experimental rock band called Othrship. This space-themed group’s music had clear jazz influence, included an super-talented flutist, and was exactly the kind of sound I wanted in the soundtrack. I reached out to their lead singer, Henry, who was my point-of-contact for that previous gig, and who I’d communicated with in 2024 to use one of my photos for their single release, to get that discussion rolling. We ended up getting the rights to use three of their songs that best fit the flow of the film, and segued that conversation into contacting Cone of Confusion, another Aussie indie band with an amazingly trippy Jazz-sound that were their labelmates.
After making some additional edits to the film and inputting three songs from each of these artists, we finally had a cut that was ready for a slightly larger audience. We shortlisted some friends far and wide who we thought would be down to watch our film and give us constructive feedback, and sent out our January cut to this global focus group. I don’t think I’ve ever done a focus group like this before, but HOLY SHIT, is it an awesome thing when done right. Editing a film you directed means you’re constantly staring at the same film over and over, sometimes going months without fresh eyes to give you unbiased feedback, and our fourth cut was at the point where we needed new opinions.
February ‘26. So we’ve now approached the basically one-year mark since the idea was born. After telling our cast and crew that we’d have this done by December/January, every additional step we took to make this film more and more full was paying off, so it made no sense to rush its publication. With the film essentially picture locked, we finally found time to hire a sound editor to clean up our project. A few weeks of breaking down the film and polishing up the sound with our new hire and we finally… FINALLY had a final cut. I looked up at the calendar, wondering if I had missed National Dark Chocolate Day, and it was already early March.
Releasing this film was a possibility now. But we needed a poster, too.
That’s where Threads came to the rescue.
After a few dozen hours of browsing artist portfolios, I found an UK artist who was dope at watercolor, responsive, and had skills that kills. One week later, poster.
As we approach our April 3rd (online) release date, I think how out-of-touch I felt a year ago, as a filmmaker exiting a 5~6-year hiatus. Back then, finding, not just a filmmaking community in Washington, but an appropriate one for my style of work, felt impossible. It’s easy to find people who are willing to do something, but getting people who can share your vision, bring their own ideas, and add to the process, is much harder. Filmmaking felt much closer and accessible when I was going to movie school in New York. And over here, especially outside of Seattle, I didn’t know if a casting call or social media post would even generate any interest for a local production.
Pitching an idea like HBD, to a soccer buddy who was also interested in getting back into film, was not something I expected myself to do. To take this idea from the ground up, spend six months prepping for a local shoot, hiring actors and crew members, some of whom were friends willing to help out, was exactly what made this project go from random-ass idea on my Notes app, to short film that can be watched on your smart devices this year. And did I mention the musicians from across the Pacific that we were able to bring along too? The artists and creators from out-of-state and country who played roles, and the friends who were willing to watch an early cut and provide insightful feedback?
I’m eternally grateful for being able to work with so many familiar and new faces on this. It was very much an international effort that would not have become as big as it has, if I had stuck with my original plan of making this a skit.
All that to say — “HBD,” is available now! Watch it HERE or check it on YouTube. If you’d like to experience the sounds that inspired the film, check out the playlist below.
I hope you will find HBD, as entertaining and fun as I did, and that ur nightmares NEVER come tru; only Dreams.
- Deams
