This past December I was approached by my good friend Giorgiana Lascu to be the Director of Photography and Editor for a project she was putting together called Small Change.

The project is about a little girl (Marie) and her mother who are homeless.  While the mother is concerned with their personal safety and how they will survive to the next day, the little girl finds appreciation and magic for the smaller things in life.

After learning about the story, I obviously accepted roles at DP and Editor.  We have a fairly large cast (for a short film) and a large crew.

Cast

- Hannah Gulla as ‘Little Marie’

- Antonia Villalon as ‘Caroline’

- Ashley Gulla as ‘Older Marie’

- Crystle Collins as ‘Leanne’

- Giorgiana Lascu as ‘Felicia’

- Robert Branch as ‘Homeless Man’

- Ava Hollenbeck as ‘Little Girl’

- Zac as ‘Clyde’

Crew

- Producer: Giorgiana Lascu

- Director: Dagna Griffin

- Director of Photography: Ryan Atkins

- Production Assistants: Mike Hoover and Amy Lamneck

- Production Sound Mixer: DJ Clement and Adam Smalley

- Key grip & Production Manager: Lee Johnson

- Editor: Ryan Atkins

- Make-up Artist: Teresa DeMio

- Clapper Loader/2nd Assistant Camera (2nd AC): Amy Lamneck

- Assistant Director: Chris Langer

- Script Supervisor & Post-Production Supervisor: Ashley Gulla

The film is being shot with the Nikon D7000 DSLR at 1920x1080p, 24 frames per second.  Various lenses used in the process.  The camera shoots in an H.264 format.  Files are being converted to Apple ProRes422 (LT) for use in editing.  The image quality is simply stunning.

Little Marie is being played by Hannah Gulla, while her mother (Ashley Gulla) has a role of her as an older woman in another scene.

Here are some screen grabs and concept poster images:

Small Change should be released towards the end of April 2012.