For the last three months, I haven't posted much on Nextnik. It's been a busy time. I've been making my first short film, The Nextnik. From a learning standpoint, I assumed since I had worked in TV news and made documentaries, this would be pretty easy. Well, I was schooled.

Lesson 1 - Filmmaking is totally time consuming.

From the point that the script was written, there was hiring actors, getting cheap locations, finding crew members, making sure all the schedules matched, figuring out the food situation. Lot's of details, lots of phone calls and emails.

The shoot schedule was from November 1st to 15th. The production was lucky in both the quality of the actors, the crew and most important, the weather. Lots of very long days. Those long days consisted of trying to make sure the actors saw the final product the way I saw it. Because all the actors were pros, they asked the right questions when I didn't give the right motivation. Another lucky break for a newbie director. Which leads us to this.

Lesson 2 - Listen to your actors and Director of Photography

I had plenty of help in this venture. A great cast, Rick Kain, Connie Bowman, Janice Gallant, Paul Fahrenkoph, Emily Morrison and Allison Howard. The fabulous eye of Director of Photography Quin Paek.  Audio by David Paik. Makeup by Evonne Burns and of course, my wife Liza, who served as producer, music consultant, actress and craft services!  The shooting is all done, and the post production is in full swing. I expect most all the seven episodes will be cut by the end of December.

The Story

The Nextnik is the story of Larry Zimmerman, an upper middle management type, who is abruptly fired. He never saw it coming. Realizing that he'll never get another job in the same field with the same money, Larry decides to start over and try something new.

Larry is helped by many new friends that he's introduced to by an old college buddy, Mark, that he reconnects with after many years. Mark gave up the corporate life years earlier to make furniture. Not a high income career, but one that gives him professional satisfaction.

There will be seven episodes. Episode 1 will premiere on January 1st. I'm pretty proud of the effort. Hope you'll like it too. Until then, here's the trailer.