The Making of ANDREW and AUDREY

by Christopher Jenkins

August 2022

Rabbit Trail: ANDREW

One day about a year ago I wrote an eight page script. It was about a young man who goes down a conspiracy theory rabbit trail by way of some documents and a book he comes across. I styled it as a one-act mystery which takes place over about 24 hours. It was experimental in that a lot of specific existing video clips were written into the script.

One of my motivations to write the script was to find out what a short movie shot with my then-new iPhone would look like. I’d also recently bought a new computer, so I was set to edit 4K video. I figured I could produce a 12 minute movie for about $1000 by paying for actors and original music, and hopefully having the lead actor allow for the use of his house and car for shooting.

My friend Jeremy Crosby read the script first. I showed it to friends Drew Miller and Erin Becker and asked them to play the lead roles of Andrew and Audrey, and asked my father Mike Jenkins and Jeremy to play the roles of two mysterious men in the ending sequence. My friend Daniel Bratton appears with Drew as a worker in the beginning sequence.

Jeremy composed the music electronically. We had several conversations about what the music should feel like. I played haunting orchestral music by Jocelyn Pook for him to help get a feeling, and he was the first to see early cuts of scenes when they had temporary music. He delivered four tracks which were about eight minutes total.

I shot the movie myself, mostly hand-held with the phone mounted on a small tripod. Audio was improved by using a small microphone which attaches to the phone. The driving shots were accomplished by having Jeremy drive with myself in the passenger seat holding the tripod steady on the dashboard. Editing was done using iMovie.

We shot for one to two hours at a time on five different days over a period of about two months. Jeremy was my assistant during shooting. Coordination was done by email and group text. Drew and I worked on the voiceover separately.

The drone shot establishing that we are in Chattanooga was purchased from Video Ideas, a local video production house. Special thanks to Sandee Jenkins for the contact! Sandee also did Mike’s hair for his scene. I designed the ‘Scenic City Environmental’ sign and had it made by FastSigns.

In the movie, Andrew watches videos which are copyrighted material. I wrote to the respective copyright holders to begin correspondence about requesting permission or a license to use the footage in a short movie, but did not get any responses. That is why ‘Andrew’ was not entered into festivals, and just lives as a YouTube video. It was published in February.

Making the movie was a lot of fun and a great collaborative and learning experience. The experiment to test whether I could make a movie with my phone was a success! The total amount spent was $805. I looked forward to making another one.

Trivia: As a template for the opening and end credits, I used the credits of the movie Eyes Wide Shut, directed by Stanley Kubrick and which used a Futura typeface. The one used for the sign’s design is also Futura. The fictitious company’s phone number is 423-732-4110, which when reversed contains two numbers that are references to Kubrick’s movies — the CRM 114 device in Dr. Strangelove, and room 237 in the hotel in The Shining.

Down the Rabbit Hole: AUDREY

Late last year while editing ‘Andrew,’ I had an idea for a sequel, which would be from Audrey’s perspective this time. It would be set a few weeks later, with Andrew having gotten into false theories like vaccines being harmful and even the Earth being a flat object. The ending is again left somewhat ambiguous.

I started the script for ‘Audrey’ in February this year with assistance from my friend Eric Washburn who has a background in writing. During this time I read the books How to Talk to a Science Denier by philosopher of science Lee McIntyre and Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything by journalist Kelly Weill.

I happen to have done a lot of reading and thinking about conspiracy theories, and for several years have been interested in their psychology, how they spread, harm they can cause and how to counter them with scientific reasoning. I had a research project on the topic of postwar American policy, with some focus on foreign policy and intelligence operations, and conspiracy theories often come up in those areas. I named my production organization after the research project — Good Times.

Typically the difference between an actual political conspiracy in history and what is referred to as a conspiracy theory is simply the availability of evidence that supports the case. A conspiracist — one who tends to see conspiracies behind events — may employ circular logic to explain a lack of evidence when presenting a case. An example of this would be reasoning that conspirators must have destroyed any evidence that would point to their involvement in a conspiracy, and even fabricated and planted evidence that appears to show a simpler or less sinister explanation of events.

I decided to use a larger budget for ‘Audrey.’ I again put up some money myself and this time raised some money by convincing my father to be an executive producer. I increased the amount the lead actors would be getting, as this script contained two dialogue scenes, so there would be a lot of work to do compared with the first movie where the characters say very little. I bought a wheelchair for myself to be pushed or pulled in for tracking shots. I switched to more sophisticated editing software called Final Cut. I also purchased a web domain and designed a website for the movie.

Jeremy again agreed to compose the music. Drew was interested in the idea, but Erin was not available to reprise her role as Audrey, so I put casting calls on some Facebook actor groups and tried to reach local actors a few other ways. I received some audition videos and saw a couple of people in person, meeting at a shared office space downtown. Casting Maddie Oakes was an easy decision! Her audition was my favorite and Drew offered that they had the better chemistry out of the people we saw that day. Another special thanks to Sandee for the contact, and for being my assistant during the audition process.

Maddie, Drew and myself met for a rehearsal one day in May, and we had three shooting days together spread out over that month and early June.

Jeremy pushed and pulled me in the wheelchair for the tracking shots on the bridge. It was pretty hot in the sun that day. We spent an hour on that scene and another hour shooting the other scenes in the area. Maddie changed wardrobe at a nearby restaurant. We shot in Drew’s house again for several scenes, also for a couple hours per day. The scene featuring Mike and Jeremy — which is meant to be ambiguous as to whether it’s real or in Andrew’s mind — was shot in Mike’s house later in June.

I found interesting and in some cases disturbing conspiracy theory memes online and selected a few to recreate for the movie, as things that Andrew and Audrey see online. Many memes contain copyrighted images, so what I did was kept the text of the meme I wanted to include, and replaced the image with a drawing or painting of my own, or a public domain image.

Editing was a faster process this time. I used one of Angelo Badalamenti’s orchestral themes from the movie Mulholland Drive (directed by David Lynch) as a temp track. Jeremy watched the first edits and again delivered on the music. I decided that the compositions of the photography were improved by going to black and white and heightening the contrast some. The movie was finished in July.

There was then the issue of getting a video published on the main platform — YouTube — that contains misinformation on a sensitive topic like the covid vaccine.

I wrote a statement to help YouTube understand my intention with the movie. I cited their guidelines, which allow for the portrayal of misinformation in certain contexts — for example when the misinformation is being disputed. I included a link to a longer statement that I wrote about the real-world harm that is related to widespread misinformation, conspiracy theory and science denial. It’s available here.

YouTube accepted the video, so it was then on to finding movie festivals to try to get into. Chattanooga Film Festival takes place in the summer and the deadline to submit is in the spring, so we missed that and will have to wait until next year. I submitted to Zach Ratchford’s Festival of Rejects, an event I found on Facebook which showcases local short movies, and which was about to have its fourth run. The movie played last Saturday to a good turnout and I even answered some questions afterward.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to everyone to who worked on these movies. These projects have been great experiences for me, and I look forward to making another movie of some kind.

Thank you for reading, and thanks to everyone who watched the movies!