It was a chilly winter day in Ashland when Rory Owens and I met up at the downtown Starbucks to talk about making a film. I had spent the day before writing the script in that same Starbucks, at the next table over.

The script was an 8-page horror film called "I Never Can." The plot concerned a man who keeps cheating on his girlfriend and the horrifying consequences that result. I took inspiration from an old folktale from Japan called “The Reconciliation” by Lafcadio Hearn. (This story is perhaps best known as the source material for “The Black Hair,” part 1 of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1964 film “Kwaidan.”)

Hearn was a European writer from the 19th century best known for his writing collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories. I had been a fan of these stories for quite some time. For years, I had wanted to write a script inspired by this story, taking the key elements that resonated with me, updating the action to the modern-day, and updating the setting to the Pacific Northwest.

And the day had come.

Rory Owens was and is a good friend of mine. His girlfriend at the time, Angelica, is one of my best friends. The three of us had met at in community college in Weed, California, where we worked together on various projects. At the end of that year, I moved back to my hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to attend college at Southern Oregon University. Rory and Angelica followed the year after to study film and business, respectively. They moved into a cozy apartment in Talent, Oregon, which Angelica decorated stylishly with lots of Japanese artwork. I went over there all the time—often to act in Rory’s student films.

Since then, we made friends with our fourth musketeer, Daniel Rester, and formed the production company ROW 211 FILMS. Just last year, ROW 211 made and produced our first feature-length movie, “Emma Was Here.” Also, somewhere in there, Rory and Angelica got married and I was a bridesmaid at their wedding and made a toast about toast. They had two adorable kids, and Angelica became one of the best portrait photographers in Oregon, if not the world.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. On that day, in Starbucks, ROW 211 was not yet a thing. We were just a couple of college students looking for a fun project to do over winter break.

Little did I know that this conversation was leading to something much bigger... a series of short horror films called the “I Never” trilogy. It remains one of my most ambitious projects to date.

Here’s how it all happened:

I Never Can

One of the major reasons why we made “I Never Can” was because the stars just kind of aligned that way.

I had recently accepted the lead role in another short student film, which was scheduled to shoot during winter break. It still blows my mind to think that if this other film had ended up happening, the “I Never” trilogy might not have.

My co-star in that other film was Jon Cates, who had recently starred in a play I’d written at the University. In the play, he had delighted audiences with his portrayal of a cool, detached, sarcastic vampire. Many people (especially moms in the ladies’ room at intermission) told me he was their favorite part of the show. I had recommended him to the director of the other film, who ended up agreeing with me and casting him almost on the spot. Eager to act, Jon stayed in Ashland over the first part of winter break, rather than heading back to his hometown.

And then (for totally understandable and sad reasons) the other film got canceled. Jon and I ended up with big film-shaped holes in our schedules.

…And that was when I remembered that Rory had mentioned not long before that he’d like to film one of them sometime. (Luckily for me, Rory had some free time as well.)

… … And THAT was when I remembered how I had wanted to adapt that old ghost story, and how I could see Jon in the lead role of Matt.

Hence my writing the script, us meeting up about it, and the shoot.

“I Never Can” was one of the most fun and easy shoots I’ve ever done. It was also a great lesson in the limitations of no-budget filmmaking. At the time, we didn't have much in the way of sound equipment, so we had to make do with having the actors share a LAV mic.

Pro-tip: When all you have is a LAV mic, you’re probably going to have to do ADR on any scenes that involve hugging.

Here are some of my favorite happy accidents that happened while filming:

the red light

We were filming a car scene where Jon drives at night, and happened to pass by a car with particularly bright red taillights at just the right time. A flash of red goes across Jon’s face that timed nicely with the narration.

opposite day

The talented Kalindi Garcia was cast as the named-but-never-referred-to-as character of “Susie.” She had been in talks to be in that student film only to have it canceled and wound up with a bit of free time as well. We shot her scenes at her house, which was perfect for our purposes. Not only did this shoot go off without a hitch, but it just so happened that Kalindi had a piece of artwork on her wall that said "I Can," which you can see at the end of their scene when Matt is leaving.

finding connor

I had initially written the role of Sean, Matt’s friend, with an actor in mind who ended up not being available. Jon recommended we cast another actor from the school: Connor Chaney.

Now, I knew Connor at the time—we had been in a play together the previous year called “Cody Stanfield: I Know You Stole My Gameboy Color in the Third Grade and Now the World Does Too.” I’d also once seen him bring in a speech from “Hamlet” to class and perform it off-book and it was some of the best acting I’d ever seen, so I was kind of intimidated. Jon assured me, though, that Connor was actually very approachable, so we went for it.

If memory serves me right, we didn’t have his number and couldn’t get a hold of him through Facebook messenger, so Jon and I ended up driving up to Connor’s apartment during our lunch break. We ate fast food in Jon’s car and waited for Connor to come out of there like we were on a stakeout or something. Connor eventually walked up and we rolled down the windows and Jon said:

“Hey! Wanna be in a movie today?”

And Connor was like: “Sure!”

Turns out he was very approachable after all!

Pro tip: This method of finding actors is not recommended in most situations.

Connor showed up and learned his lines with lightning speed. We threw Jon’s green hoodie on him that happened to go with his beanie for a costume. This ended up becoming Sean’s “look” for all 3 films, and actually became a plot point in the 3rd.

(Fun fact, if you watch a lot of movies filmed in Southern Oregon, that green hoodie is all over the place in them. It’s like the costume piece that never dies.)

That scene also heavily inspired me to write the sequels. Towards the end of the scene, I added this shot of Connor/Sean staring as Jon/Matt closes the door in his face. It was this really intense stare that gave me and Rory chills watching it back. It made me think more about the character. I thought, “maybe there’s something else going on here. Maybe Sean isn’t just a guy who comes to the door with some flowers and exposition. Maybe he knows something.”

the release

Rory completed editing in a couple of months’ time (though we did have to go in and do some ADR for a bit of dialogue, which was to be expected). He added a score stitched together with sound effects from “freesound.org,” which later received praise from The Hollywood Investigator when “I Never Can” received an honorable mention from the Tabloid Witch Awards.

Locally, “I Never Can” screened at the SOU student film festival, the Klamath Film Festival, and the Killer Valley Film Festival. Elsewhere, it was accepted into the Silver Dollar Film Festival and the AxWound Film Festival—a festival that focuses on horror films by female directors.

It also got great reactions online and when aired on RVTV. People would come up to me in the 7-11 and Safeway to tell me they’d seen my movie, wanting to know whether it was all in Matt’s head, what was the ending supposed to mean, would there be any sequels?”

Well, as it turns out…

I Never Will

People asked me if I would make a sequel to “I Never Can,” and I had jokingly responded “I never will.” Well, that wasn’t entirely wrong. Because I did end up making a sequel and I called it “I Never Will.”

The inspiration for “I Never Will” was another Lafcadio Hearn story called “Of a Promise Broken.” I had encountered it in another book of Hearn’s short stories that a friend had gifted me after viewing “I Never Can.” It’s a terrifying story that has not been adapted to film very often. The best version I’ve ever seen of “Of a Promise Broken” is an indie film from New Orleans directed by Christian Walker.

The story of “Promise” concerns the new bride of a widower who keeps encountering the dead wife of her new husband when left alone in the house. Immediately upon reading it, I realized that there was a way to combine some of the characters from the first film and still effectively tell the major beats of the story I wanted to communicate.

Although Matt, Sean, and Jenny (who was played by me in the first film) are returning characters, the primary focus is on a new character named Kim.

I cast Aleah Zimmer as Kim. Another brilliant acting student from SOU, I had seen her in plays for quite some time and had always wanted to work with her. She was also close with the other actors in the film, so they all had great chemistry. (I’ve since learned that this is an awesome thing when you have a small cast, but can be problematic if your cast is very large and difficult to coordinate.)

A major learning from “I Never Can” had been the necessity to block out windows to avoid daylight creeping in and ruining a scene that’s supposed to take place at night. I remember Rory going out and hanging blankets on the outsides of all of his windows prior to us shooting, and it definitely helped.

Since we had more time to plan this one, we were able to get together better lights and sound gear and spend more time on logistics and planning. We planned for a 3-day shoot for the main plot of the movie, with other shoots scheduled for later on when actors and crew had time.

I’ll admit that I pretty much straight up STOLE the opening sequence of “I Never Will” from another project that Rory and I had made years previously—a music video called “The Color of Blue.” (Rory was completely on board though. Fun fact, Martin Bianchini’s score at the opening of “I Never Will,” is actually a slowed-down version of the opening notes from the song “The Color of Blue,” per Rory’s request.)

I do kind of regret not filming a version of the “distracted boyfriend” meme with me, Jon, and Jay Zheng, who plays the jogger in that scene and was also a PA on this film and its sequel. (I didn't intend it this way, but I now think of that scene as basically just the “distracted boyfriend” meme with a really fancy set-up.)

More cool things about this shoot:

The ghostly flicker

During a climactic scene where a ghost appears and frightens Kim, I was facing a conundrum. I couldn’t decide if I wanted the main lights in the bedroom on or off. Connor, who was roped into the task of “light-switch guy” simply by virtue of where he was standing at the time, kept flipping them on and off for me. Then, Rory said “actually having the lights flicker might look kind of cool,” so that’s exactly what we did, and I love it.

saving scenes with reshoots

Because I realized that adding shoot dates was a thing, I added some scenes that take place at different locations outside of the main shoot. However, because there was hardly any budget on this, adding shoot dates was tough, and sometimes entire months would pass between scenes. But sometimes, reshooting scenes was totally, 100% necessary.

Pro-tip: Be very careful when recording an important dialogue scene during which two characters take apart a shrine of dead flowers and throw them into noisy garbage bags.

THE “BAR” SCENE

Another example: There’s a scene in the movie that’s supposed to take place at a bar. Finding a bar to shoot in was proving challenging, and we actually ended up shooting this scene at a friend’s house in Ashland. This scene shot months after the rest of the shoot, but I’d gone to a party there that had a bar-like area and got inspired. The friend, Corvus Woolf, makes a brief appearance as one of the guys “acting” in the corner. His many fascinating decorations got a ton of close-ups because they were all so cool-looking and kind of creepy. They were exactly what we were going for.

Cameron Gray was cast in the role of Bartender and showed up (to his credit) looking like a normal bartender. “Oh no,” I remember saying to him. “You look way too normal to work in this place now that we’ve set it up.” A friend of Corvus’ who also ended up being featured in that scene, William Hallows, had some extra clothing items with him that completed the look. When Cameron came back, one of the people present (I can’t remember who) said “Whoa dude, that bartender looks like he’s about to knife somebody.”

Perfect.

The other big character for this scene was Hannah, a casting director who makes a pass at Matt. I had put out a casting notice for this role and had a lot of actresses in their 20s apply, but I ended up going with somebody totally different than I had envisioned…

the amazing robyn fichter

Robyn Fichter was a non-traditional actress who was working towards getting a degree in theatre at the college despite being much older than most of the other students, which I deeply respected. She did such an awesome job with this character, and the fact that she’s so much older than Matt actually adds a ton of interesting subtext to the scene. I remember her showing up with image options, asking all of these great characters about her character… She was a pleasure to work with and it was great.

Afterwards, she ended up being a huge help to me just in general, and a great friend. She would always share and like posts on social about the movies, offer to help with things like scheduling and giving people rides. She was a really awesome and supportive person. I recommended her for absolutely everything whenever anybody I knew was looking for an actress in her age range. She even ended up playing my mom in the film “The Truth About Daisies.”

Tragically, Robyn passed away in 2018 from health issues. She makes a brief appearance in the third film of the “I Never” trilogy, which is dedicated to her. We all miss her terribly.

the release of “I Never Will”

Because we’d gotten busy with other projects, “I Never Will” did not release till 2017, about two years after we had filmed it. It screened to favorable reactions at the Killer Valley Horror Film Festival, but its longer length (17 minutes) led to lots of festivals turning it down.

Online, though, it has done quite well, with people discovering it and saying favorable things to this day. A lot of the praise is thanks to Martin Bianchini’s amazing original score, the great performances, and, of course, Rory’s awesome editing.

I Never Did

Part 3, to quote Jon, was “just insane.”

Instead of basing it on one story, I actually took bits and pieces from a bunch of different Hearn stories and wrote a finale to Matt’s tale of hauntings.

“I Never Did,” was very ambitious. It had tons more characters, locations, and events—including a katana-fight that we shot partly from a drone thanks to my friend Ryan Niemi, a Klamath Falls-based filmmaker who shoots some pretty awesome stuff with his drone.

We started filming not long after filming wrapped for “I Never Will.” Since it was almost impossible to shoot all of the film in one block of time considering everybody’s busy schedules, we shot it over a series of evenings and weekends over the course of summer break.

At the time, I had taken a second job as a housekeeper, (a job I had only started in order to raise more funds for the film). I actually ended up quitting that job when they refused my request to take a day off work for filming.

Hilariously, Jon, Connor, and two of the other actors for this film, Taylor and Galen, all worked at the same summer job. One good thing about this was that I always knew when they would be available and when they wouldn’t, since they all had the same schedule.

The job they worked at was for the college and involved moving things out of the old theatre building so that they could start construction. The hilarious part (to me, anyway) is that it took just about as long for construction to be finished on the theatre building as it did for us to finish a rough cut of “I Never Did.” (Both things didn’t end up happening until 2018.)

Still, for as crazy and wild of a ride as it was (especially with scheduling), I’m really glad we got to shoot “I Never Did.” I learned a ton and was super happy that so many people helped us out with our fundraising campaign. Fundraising helped us buy some important props and equipment that would have made shooting impossible otherwise.

Since the movie isn’t out yet, I don’t want to say too much about specific scenes. What I will say is that I am so proud of everybody involved for being so dedicated to the process. Rory, in particular, has put in a lot of hours on this one over the years.

And yes, ROW 211 also made "Emma Was Here," an entire feature film, in the time that it took to edit “I Never Did.” That just goes to show you two things.

“I Never Did” was just that intricate and epic that it needed such a long post.
“Emma Was Here” was so good and so relevant that people were jumping to make it happen. That movie shot in the summer of 2018 and is still in post-production. Since it doesn’t have any snake demons or drone sword fights, its editing process won’t take as long as “I Never Did’s.”

What’s next for “I Never Did”

“I Never Did” has had one screening so far and is about to have a second. The first was a screening with our friends at the Killer Valley Horror Film Festival, which we treated as a test screening.

We made some adjustments to the cut based on the audience reactions from that event, as well as from a few friends who watched an early screener and responded to questionnaires. Now, we’re getting ready for its second-ever-showing! The new cut features a brand new original score by the incredible Bret Levick.

The ENTIRE “I Never” trilogy will screen at the Portland Art Museum on October 24th as part of the Northwest Film Center’s Northwest Tracking program. (Tickets can be found HERE unless you’re reading this after-the-fact.) This is the first time ever that all three films will be screening at once, and I couldn’t be more excited. I am grateful for my film family, for the Northwest Film Center, for all the people who have supported me on the way, and for happy accidents that sometimes turn out to add production value where you least expect it.

Making the “I Never” Trilogy: A Look Back