“Lead/Follow” by Colby Day
Beyond the Short Official Premiere
Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl have baggage.
Lead/Follow takes us through the archetypal stages of a new relationship — shot in one take and told through dance.
One couple meet, fall for each other, fall into bed, and fall in love -- all over the course of this film shot in one take. LEAD/FOLLOW is the story of a relationship, any relationship, told with stylized language, and dance. When they first meet, our unnamed couple think they’ve got it all figured out. But as their relationship deepens, come to realize they’re both more complicated (and vulnerable) than they’d advertised.
FROM THE DIRECTOR
“When I first had the idea for this film, I knew that I didn’t have it all figured out. In love or life. I was an anxious mess, unhappy with work, and in a relationship I was hoping would solve everything. It didn’t. Five years later, when I finally wrote the film, I was finally doing what I wanted to be doing as a writer, I had moved across the country, and I’d started to feel like… ”maybe I do have this all figured out?” Then I started dating someone new.
It should come as no surprise that as we fell in love, I did not in fact have it all figured out. We’ve been together six years now and it’s been wonderful and scary, easy and hard. I still get lonely. I still have baggage. I had to make this film because it just feels… TRUE.
Can any one short film explain what it’s like to fall in love? How you can’t really know yourself until you let someone else know you? How seeing yourself as someone else sees you is freeing and also deeply terrifying? Probably not! But I hope this one comes close. I hope it’s filled with surprising little delights, because that’s what the early stages of a relationship are. Then there’s also some heavy shit. I think that’s just the way it goes. I don’t think any of us have it all figured out. I think we all have a little baggage. No matter how put together we might seem. And I hope getting to see that can make us all feel a little less alone?”
– Colby Day
CREDITS
WRITER/DIRECTOR // Colby Day
WITH // Della Saba & Sam Nelson Harris
PRODUCERS // Mary Bonney & Colby Day
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER // Natalie Metzger
CO-PRODUCER // Chelsea O’Connor Wunderlich
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY // Arlene Muller
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY Luke Burba
CHOREOGRAPHY // Genna Moroni
EDITOR // Landon Stahmer
PRODUCTION DESIGNER // Elle Vahn
WARDROBE // Rachel Cocca
HAIR & MAKEUP // Lauren Verret
FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR // Danielle McRae Spisso
STEADICAM OPERATOR // Koji Kojima
COLOR // Tory Harder
INTIMACY COORDINATOR // CJ Kitten Miller
SOUND MIXER // Xiao Hou
SOUND EDITOR // Stephan Wunderlich
GAFFER // Adam Hutsell
FIRST AC // Darrell Ham
COVID COMPLIANCE OFFICER // Janeva Turton
PRODUCTION COMPANIES // Not Impossible Productions & Vanishing Angle
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