About this submission

Tensions arise between a pair of roommates while awaiting the result of a pregnancy test.

“Thank You For Being Here” is a film about honesty.

When my roommate Nick (who plays Jude) sent me the script, I was immediately drawn to its familiar dialogue and the unique character our location played in the film. My challenge as a director was an important one, how can we utilize such a small space to make it both visually interesting and tonally dynamic for twelve minutes? Since we were limited to shooting during a specific time of day where the sun went through our window, my focus in pre-production was blocking rehearsals. I wanted to make sure each character’s movements were motivated and mirrored their dialogue while creatively using every square space of the bathroom.

Having lived with a various number of roommates the past few years, I saw myself in this friendship and connected to its rollercoaster of dialogue between Jude and Michelle. It’s a relationship that’s honest: comedic, argumentative, gentle, abrasive, empathetic.

For me, this film felt reflective of our current environment. Navigating friendships, especially during the pandemic, hasn’t been easy. We’ve been forced to confront our feelings with close friends and family members while in close quarters. “Thank You For Being Here” showcases that despite our disagreements, we can still take care of one another.

Creator
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Elizabeth grew up in a small town in Northern California and from an early age wanted to become an actress but when she was cast as Nun#4 in the Sound of Music she realized she should probably scrap that whole musical theater idea so she moved to Los Angeles to study film and discovered she is allergic to peanuts and accidentally stabbed her leg on a fence. Based in Los Angeles, Elizabeth is the director, writer and producer of award-winning short films, commercials and music videos. During her time in Los Angeles, she has worked for companies such as Hello Sunshine, 20th Century Fox and Netflix. In 2019, Elizabeth qualified as a finalist for SeriesFest x Shondaland's Women in Directing Mentorship. For the last 2.5 years, Elizabeth worked as a treatment designer at PRETTYBIRD, a Grammy-award production company in Culver City. She is currently a member of Free The Work and has joined Hooked as a freelance writer for their Fiction Program. Her latest work can be found in Uber’s “Thank You For Not Riding” Coronavirus Ad and Facebook Groups “Rainbow Hunt.” Most recently, Elizabeth was been selected as a top twenty finalist in the Black List x Writers Guild Initiative’s Michael Collyer Memorial Fellowship in Screenwriting Contest for her feature film script in development. Elizabeth creates stories rooted in magical realism and has a funny bone for offbeat, comedic filmmaking. When she isn’t writing her bio in third person, she enjoys listening to true crime podcasts, Irish-exiting birthday parties and visiting urgent care for her seasonal allergies. more...

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