Austin Film Festival 2019: Interview With the Makers of “A Patient Man”

This year’s Austin Film Festival featured a surprising thriller as part of its 2019 lineup; that movie is “A Patient Man.” During the festival, we were able to speak to a group of cast and crew for the film (pictured above, from L-R): producer Jason Moyer, producer Katherine Von Till, composer Rob Houle, writer/director Kevin Ward, producer Harrison Reynolds and actor Jonathan Mangum. This interview has been edited for clarity.

How did this story come about? What inspired you to write it?

Kevin: So, I live in LA, and I commute from the Valley to the Fox Lot, which is a nightmare. I’ve done it for a long time. I wanted to write something that I could shoot, that was attainable at least on my budget level. So I was thinking about — I rode the train for a bit, and the train is weird, and people are weird on the train, especially in LA. I always wondered, ‘Should I talk to this person? He looks like a relatively normal human, but he might be insane.’ You know? So it was that sort of “Strangers on a Train” idea, where it’s like, if you go down a rabbit hole of meeting a new person on a train — like I met somebody here who I’m pretty sure was insane. He looked like a very normal person, with like, a blazer, you know what I mean? And then he asked me if I wanted to take mushrooms. This was yesterday!

Well, as they say, ‘Keep Austin weird.’

Kevin: Yeah. So I just liked the idea of two people meeting randomly on a train and what that would look like. And what if they liked each other? What if they became friends? And then what if one had an ulterior motive, and it was not a nice one? It just sort of came out of that idea and sort of reverse engineering that story a little bit.

How did the producers come in?

Katherine: Well, I am in a “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” viewing group with Kevin’s wife, for about a decade. I’m very type-A, very bossy, which she knew. My cat had just died and she said, ‘Do you need a distraction? I think these boys need some help.’ And I was like, ‘No.’ And then Kevin called me and sent me the script, and I was like, ‘This is really — this is cool. I don’t think people are going to be able to pull it off.’ But he said it was okay if we didn’t finish, and I don’t do anything without finishing it, so I was like, ‘Challenge accepted!’

Harrison: And I signed on initially to help shoot the trailer that we used to raise money for the whole thing. We were doing a crowdfunding thing, and we shot a trailer over two weeks — er, two weekends. And from there it kind of took off. I shot the movie as well, and produced as well.

Kevin: I’ve known Jonathan for a really long time. I went to school in Orlando, Florida. [looks at Jonathan] You went to school in Orlando, right? Did I know you?

Jonathan: Yeah, we did.

Kevin: And so we’ve known each other for a really long time, and Jonathan is a comedian and an improv person. I know lots of improv — my wife did improv for a really long time, so I knew that community a bit. His wife helped me cast the movie because she’s a casting director. We were looking to cast the role, and she was like, ‘What about Jonathan? He just read it.’ And it had never dawned on me because he’s a comedian. It turned out, it was perfect. Like, there’s a weirdness to Jonathan. [all laugh] You know what I mean? He’s very funny but, you know, weird.

Jonathan: Plus the script, when I read it, it was really good. Like, ‘Whoa, this is great.’ You read so many horrible scripts, my god. And then you read a good one and you’re like, ‘Huh? What? Is this real? Is this happening? How do I get to do it?’

Kevin: And I’ve known Rob forever. We were in bands together in college.

Rob: Yeah, a lot of punk bands.

Kevin: He taught me how to play the guitar, mostly because I was terrible.

Rob: Yeah, so he let me score his film.

Kevin: And it’s amazing. He did an incredible job.

Katherine: Jason, our other producer —

Kevin: Yeah, I went to college with him as well. So it’s all friends.

It’s awesome when you have a friend group talented enough for that.

Kevin: Totally! In Orlando, we were in bands and we were in the theater program at UCF, so I know so many actors. We have a huge friend group that moved from Orlando, Florida, to LA. It’s like all the people I liked in Orlando now live in LA. I have Thanksgiving at my house every year and it’s like 40 people deep of Florida people. It’s amazing. It’s a very singular Los Angeles experience, I think, to have that many. And they’re all actors or directors or writers or producers, and they’re all in the business.

I think the music fits the film really well, so what was your process in composing it?

Rob: The interesting thing about it is that I ended up moving to northern Wisconsin, so when I started getting these reels from him, it was -20 degrees out, middle of winter, gray out. I can only stay inside.

Kevin: It’s a real “The Shining” situation.

Rob: It is! Very much like an ‘All work and no play makes Rob a dull boy.’ And I was in the basement, and it’s not like a finished basement; it’s like cinder blocks. And I’m working in this dark, damp, cold space on this film, and I think it just overlays so neatly in a sunny, deranged LA person’s mind, you know? And also with the process, I kind of wanted to start — because the character, Tom, we start the movie kind of liking him and feeling for him, so I wanted to give a little tenderness and sensitivity to the music. And as you start to see him go down into his madness, I wanted to just kind of change it more and more. Every time you hear a theme again, it’s a little bit darker and a little darker — until at the end it’s just like, ‘Bam.’

Kevin: We spent a lot of time on the music. I had a lot of specific ideas.

Rob: Yeah. It was one of those things where he would give me temp music, so I would try, but I always like to put my own swing on it. If what I ‘swang’ on it worked for him, he’d be like, ‘Good’ or ‘No.’

Kevin: It was amazing though. You could turn around notes wicked fast.

Katherine: Well he was alone in the woods of Wisconsin!

Kevin: Yeah, but still, he had to rewrite melodies, you know what I mean? I couldn’t have — it was crazy. I would give you oddly specific notes, like, ‘This has got to hit here; this has got to do that. Whatever you’re doing here, don’t do that.’

Rob: That’s one of those things that’s great about having known each other for so long: I can decipher your notes. I know what he’s saying. Like, ‘He’ll like this.’

There’s a lot of internalized, emotional acting you have to do as the character of Tom. How did your background help you with that?

Jonathan: When you’re doing comedy, it’s all right in the face, like joke-y, joke-y, joke-y. It was a breath of fresh air to get to do something that wasn’t the same thing. It felt easy in a way, like, ‘Oh, I’m getting to do something else. Thank god!’ I never would’ve gotten a chance. Even when I get cast in these drama shows, I’m like, ‘Hey, I booked a part!’ And then you realize, no, you’re kind of the comedic part on “Chicago Med” or whatever it is. They’re dramas, but you’re not. You’re still joke-y man. So this was like, ‘Oh, I get to just completely be a freak, and I loved it.’

How did your editing background help you with writing and directing?

Kevin: Well, I think I know how to direct because I’m an editor. I think I learned, not just the typical aspect, but there’s something about like, I watch dailies for a living. You know what I mean? I’m watching what directors are doing, and I’m also not always watching great TV. So I’m learning what not to do. I think I knew on the fly when I had a scene. I knew when it was time to move on; we did not linger on stuff. I knew, ‘We’re going to be in this for this; let’s move on.’ I think that it made it more efficient, but it also — I mean, Harrison and I watched movies forever, like once a week for a long time. So that collaboration was incredibly helpful because he and I knew what the film was going to look like in advance.

We really had a firm idea about how we were going to shoot it; the visual references we were very in-tune with. We had a shorthand of ‘This is the time to stack close-ups,’ you know. We were just so in the pocket. And because I was cutting myself, I knew I could take shortcuts; that if I were directing something for someone else to cut, I wouldn’t be able to do. Like, an editor watches all the dailies and can see clearly what the director is looking for, what a director wants. You can see a performance get sharpened as you go later in the dailies, or sometimes they kind of fuck it up, like they over-note it or something. But you can tell the sweet spot. Because I was cutting it, I was able to just do a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have done if I were handing it over to someone.

You guys got to screen the film last night with an audience here. What was that like for everyone?

Rob: It was wonderful. It was the first time I’d actually ever seen the whole film. I was just working with reels, so that was really cool for me.

Kevin: And you got to hear the mix, too.

Harrison: The audience had a ton of energy last night, I thought. They were gasping when we wanted them to gasp; they were laughing when we wanted them to laugh. And because obviously nobody knew what was coming up, I watched the audience for a couple of key moments and like, when the car crash happens, I watched some dude jump literally two feet in the air. It was amazing. It’s one of those moments when you’re like, ‘Yes, this actually is working.’ And kind of the let-down of the end, when they’re just like, ‘Wait, he’s getting away! He’s getting away!’ It’s great.

Katherine: And we have a lot of light moments, and there was a lot of laughter.

Kevin: All the jokes totally landed.

Katherine: They all landed! I was so pleased.

Kevin: There is a fair amount of comedy in it, just because I can’t help myself.

Jonathan: It’s all totally character-based, though — nothing was said that those characters wouldn’t say.

Kevin: Yeah, it’s not joke-y. It’s just, like, absurd.

Katherine: Yeah, like, Amir’s character is annoying. So you laugh because he’s annoying. He plays Rami.

Harrison: And the audience asked really insightful questions.

Kevin: They did.

Harrison: There was stuff that we hadn’t necessarily been asked before — stuff we’d thought about, but like, ‘Oh my god, you guys really got into it.’ I really enjoyed that.

Katherine: Me too.

Kevin: It was fun. Most of them stayed for the Q&A, and it was like half an hour, so it was a long Q&A.

Katherine: Yeah, there was actually one more question that they never even got to. It was great.

There’s a lot of movement in the film, with the train, cycling and the car crash you mentioned. What were the technical difficulties of that?

Kevin: They were vast. [all laugh] Everything we shot was in LA, except for the actual train, which we shot in Sacramento, because they let us. We never could’ve shot on the train in LA. I forget what the quote was, but it was insane.

Harrison: It was like $1,100 an hour.

Kevin: An hour. It just wasn’t possible. So we contacted the transit people in Sacramento, and I feel like they had — the more I think about it, I honestly think this was a new person, who had just gotten the public relations job for the SacRT or whatever. She was like, ‘Great, you want to film a movie? Cool!’ And I was like, ‘That’s great. How much you want for it?’ And she was like, ‘I think all you need is a permit. Here are the safety people.’ All we had to do was pay for a $100 film permit to shoot for 5 days on a working train. And then we had to up our insurance to cover railroad insurance, and she gave us like 30 free ride tickets every day, because we had a bunch of extras. We were budgeting all-day ride tickets for like 30, 40 people. [Jason walks in, 14:20] So that was amazing.

And it was a working train, so we had to have extras block seats off so that we didn’t get random people in the shot. We had to travel only east-west so that we could keep the sun out of the window that would float on us. It was like a five-stop stretch. We had basecamp in an RV at one stop, and we would ride the train one direction, and then put a bunch of people at the opposite end of the train because they’re mirror images of each other. So we would have to go to the other end of the train when it rode this way to get the rest of the scene. And we found that if we didn’t get the scene on one trip there and back, we were just boned.

Harrison: Because there’s a bunch of different cars — styles of cars. So there’s like a wood-paneled one, there’s a more modern molded plastic.

Kevin: And even the ones that looked alike, there were like vague differences that just wouldn’t match.

Harrison: Like different seat layouts and that kind of stuff.

Kevin: We really just had to get it in one back-and-forth. I mean, it was five stops, so it was kind of a long time. Each drive took us an hour. We would have to shoot a scene in an hour — every scene.

Harrison: Fortunately these guys were so put together with all the lines and the motions. He knew what he wanted, and we had scouted prior, so that was just key in preparation all around.

Jonathan: And you thought, at the time, that we were going to have to loop all the train stuff. We ended up not having to do that, but that would’ve been a nightmare, just cause of the noise and the sound. Every 15 seconds it was like, ‘The next stop…’ right in the middle of a take.

Kevin: Right, and we had to be moving because we couldn’t be stopped. We had to get the outside. So we’d stop and just look at each other, you know? And then it would go again. We would still roll through stops. We were just rolling the camera through it. And then he and Tate — we haven’t talked about Tate Ellington, but Tate is great. They could just pick up a conversation and we would like, ‘Just do it again until we stop. Just say the line again and again and again.’ And then move on. And we shot two cameras on the train so we were able to get cross-coverage, which was enormously helpful. I don’t know; I mean, I think it looks pretty good. There’s really only so many ways you can shoot a train car. And I think we got ‘em all. [all laugh]

Harrison: What was also super fun is these guys get on and off a lot. So people are jumping off at a stop and literally sprinting down the side of the train to hop back on because if we left them behind —

Kevin: That was pretty funny. You’d do the lines, and as we got closer to a stop, you’d skip the end where he gets off. Like Tate would pop up and get off, then he would run back and then he would meet us back. And when we were rolling again he’d just sit down and do the lines again.

Jonathan: But you’d have to let the doors close. So you’d like get off, doors close, ‘Aaahhh!’ [all laugh]

Kevin: You could see them hitting the button so many times.

Katherine: Like ‘I don’t want to be left behind!’

Harrison: Well especially at night, in these far-end places.

Kevin: We did leave you behind once.

Jonathan: You had to, one time.

Kevin: Because there’s that shot in the beginning, of you going. It’s like the opening title sequence. That was downtown Sac at night, which is real sketch. You had to just go to a stop and wait, and we had to get on. That whole process took like an hour. And we had the lady with us that we had to walk downtown with — the old lady in the beginning who’s the friendly one.

Katherine: Sheilah Morrison.

Kevin: Yeah, Sheilah Morrison. She’s a trooper but she’s an old lady. We’re just walking through sketchy-ass downtown Sacramento — it’s a lovely town —

Katherine: Thank you for the train.

Kevin: Yes, thank you for the train. I mean, there were enormous technical challenges with that, just getting extras on and off, and we had a security guard at night.

Harrison: Oh yeah, wasn’t he like a 14-year-old kid? He was, like, smaller than all of us.

Kevin: Yeah, he was totally worthless.

Harrison: We’d be like, ‘Hey go take care of that guy.’ And he’d be like, ‘Are you guys sure? I think he’ll leave us alone.’

Kevin: There was fear in his eyes. Anyway, we shot Jonathan on a bike a lot in LA, so a lot of car rigs. From every conceivable angle — we pushed him, we pulled him, we did wide shots. Some of my favorite stuff in the movie is the bike stuff. Shooting in downtown LA over that bridge in Korea Town, that’s like right over the LA River — that shot’s great, man. I remember when we shot that…

Harrison: Yeah, I lost my mind.

Kevin: You lost your mind. It was amazing, man.

Harrison: I think we played it back like, 15 times. Like, ‘Look at it again!’

Kevin: Oh, because remember we had to do it again because we noticed a camera wiggle. And we were like, ‘Fuck!’ But we did, we got it again. It was great. I don’t know; all that stuff is a blast. We have so many random war stories about like —

Harrison: I rode in that little bike basket.

Katherine: Oh my god.

Harrison: All that Knight Riders stuff, I was in the middle of it. I’m actually painted  out in a couple of frames. I’m in a little tiny bike basket with a helmet on, terrified. And this guy that’s pulling me is huffing and puffing, because I guess I ate too much that day.

Kevin: Well, he’s pulling someone like twice his size on a bicycle with a camera rig. I mean, yeah. But you were so pissed, because it was dangerous and you were afraid for your life.

Harrison: Oh yeah. You see the cars zipping by in the scene.

Kevin: There’s a wide shot in the movie where all the Knight Riders go by; I mean, I can see the roto lines, but really I don’t think anyone can. And there’s just this guy who was like [huffing] but you can’t see what he’s pulling because I’ve roto’d it out. [to Harrison] I honestly thought you were never going to speak to me again. But also, to be fair, that was your idea. You looked at the Amazon cart we ordered. You approved that cart.

Harrison: Well maybe we should’ve tested it before that night.

Kevin: Also, two PAs built it. I remember we had this giant Amazon box and we were going to shoot this bike thing. We were like, ‘Hey can you guys put this thing together?’ So you rode on the PAs’ craftsmanship.

Harrison: And these guys had sourced all the Knight Riders. That’s an actual — they drink a bunch of beer and get high —

Kevin: They’re a bike club, a bike group.

Harrison: They ride through downtown LA.

Jonathan: On a Tuesday night, at one in the morning.

Harrison: Yeah, exactly. So, in downtown LA, we shot kind of in their little encampment. And then I don’t know how many people were in that scene, like maybe 20 or so, were like,’Yeah, I’ll go do it.’ I think generally it’s like 40 or 60 people.

Kevin: Yeah, there was still like another 40 people off to the side that did not sign waivers, that didn’t want to be in it. There’s just a guy ripping a bong right off to the side. [to Jonathan] Like, in your close-up!

Harrison: And we made them reset, obviously, over and over. And one guy, I guess, drank too much or got too high, and he’s like running off and puking.

Kevin: Because they’re riding bikes! I mean, I think he like, shotgunned a beer then rode a bike, and then he came back and threw up. One guy ate it really hard. We had all these guys on bikes, and we stayed on just a handful of roads in downtown LA. So we would have to stop everyone like, ‘Okay, we’re turning around.’ We had to reset the camera. And these two guys wanted to race. And he was racing, and he just ate shit. I don’t think he hurt himself badly, but he definitely road rashed himself. He was a bloody mess, but he was like ‘No, I’m fine.’

Harrison: All that said, those guys were super troopers. They were so down for the cause, so friendly.

Kevin: They were amazing! They were great. You should follow them on Instagram, cause it’s crazy. Chief Lunes is the Instagram? They’re hardcore bikers —

Katherine: Bicyclists. Hardcore bicyclists.

Kevin: Yeah, I’m going to go with bicyclists. They are like, in traffic, mad at the cars. Really mad at the cars.

Jonathan: But it’s also like “Battlestar Galactica.” It’s like ragtag pieces of broken — they’re not all like pro bikers.

Kevin: Yeah it’s a weird vibe.

Rob: Kind of a “Mad Max” feel?

Kevin: Yeah, it does have a “Mad Max” feel! 

Katherine: We also had trouble in Sacramento; we had to hire extras — well, background — sight unseen. We saw their head shots.

Kevin: You had to fire a lady.

Katherine: We had to fire a lady because she was crazy. I had to ask her not to come back, and she was very angry about it. But she was nuts, and we can’t have that. But I think — I was just looking — we had 87 actors total, including all of our background. And that’s just our background that SAG-AFTRA requires us to cover the first 10 in any scene…We had just a ton of actors. And remember, these people are working for deferred payment. So if we don’t make our money back, they’re never going to see a dollar. They just want to make a film, and they just want to collaborate, and they just want to make something different and fun.

Kevin: In Sacramento they were great. There was a lady who was a lawyer in San Francisco. She drove her Jaguar down to ride the train with us for two days. She was super nice; she brought a book. They all brought clothes and changed in the RV that Harrison and I were sleeping in.

Harrison: We weren’t sleeping while they were changing, to be clear.

Katherine: And we got lucky with some stuff. One woman — I contacted her based on her headshot and she was like, ‘Well I’m actually an actor with disabilities. I’m in a wheelchair. Is that okay for you?’

Kevin: Oh yeah, we featured the hell out of her!

Katherine: Yeah, I was like, ‘That’s a great idea.’ So she was able to get that part because she —

Kevin: She’s the one in the scene where the guy is trying to steal the wallet; she’s the one in the wheelchair.

Katherine: And she’s actually an actor with disabilities, in a wheelchair.

Harrison: We had at least three of those background actors who have since moved to LA and started a career there.

Kevin: And they’re very active on social media.

Katherine: Yeah, they follow us, and like all of our stuff.

Kevin: One of them came to the screening in LA.

Katherine: We got very lucky.

Kevin: In every conceivable way. This thing could’ve gone south a million different ways. No permits in LA at any given time is just a recipe for disaster.

Harrison: Well the cops showed up one day without permits. But they were actually searching for a prowler that was casing some house or something like that. [to Jonathan] That was the night right after you left, when we were shooting at the bar and all that stuff.

Kevin: You had to go cause you had a gig. You were flying out.

Harrison: I was sitting in the middle of the street with a huge light behind me on an apple box, and the cops drove by — didn’t say a word.

Kevin: It was like three or four in the morning; we were going as fast as we can, cause you had to catch a flight at like five or something. And so I ended up being the body double for you…You had to leave, and so I put your suit jacket on. I’m in the movie like three different times.

Katherine: [to Jonathan] And your brother manages that bar, right? So we were able to get that bar location. We just got so many people who were willing to give us stuff.

Kevin: Well you have to. There’s no way to make a movie on a microbudget without freebies. It’s a hard thing to do, and it’s a lot of people’s dedication and a lot of people’s time. We couldn’t be more grateful; it really is incredible, the sort of crazy team that did this. It was a massive team. In the offices, we would have like 25 extras in the office. We shot four days there. We got that office for, what was it? $400 a day or something? It’s a great location; everything is glass. It’s a beautiful place.

Katherine: And it had that bullpen section down below, and what was really great is that it had a whole kitchen and dining area behind it. Our caterer was able to set up and we had a green room, essentially, for all the extras to wait and eat.

Kevin: That’s a weird experience: When you walk into a room full of extras, and you’re like, ‘I’m just getting coffee.’ But there’s a room full of people just actively staring at you. And you’re just like, ‘Hey guys.’

Katherine: Also in features we call them ‘background,’ Kevin. ‘Extras’ in commercials.

Kevin: ‘Extras’ in commercials and ‘background’ in narrative? That’s crazy. Y’all crazy.

Harrison: We also had an awesome, awesome volunteer group. [to Kevin] It’s what, your cousin-in-law?

Kevin: He’s my wife’s cousin.

Katherine: That’s your cousin-in-law.

Kevin: Anyway, he’s interested in film I guess, and my father-in-law — he lives in Chicago — he flew him in to help out with the movie. He shot 25 days and he worked on all of it, and he was amazing. He was a PA and a grip and just a general worker of things. He’d never worked on a movie set. He drove the car for the rig — little things like that; you can’t make a movie without that.

Harrison: Our costume designer designed this whole wardrobe book.

Jonathan: She couldn’t be there for the shoots, so she planned it all out ahead of time: Here’s what you wear for each scene. It was kept in the back of my trunk.

Katherine: She had like, photos and everything so he could keep track.

Kevin: We couldn’t have made the movie without that. Every scene number, there was so many — we’d be shooting the bike and you’d have to keep track of which day was going to be which to match the interiors. I don’t know how many times we were in the back of your trunk at a book, like, ‘Is that the right tie? Is this the tie from the picture?’ We didn’t have, really, an AD. [to Katherine] You were a second AD for background.

Katherine: Well, all the principals too. I did all the union paperwork. So I would show up to set every day and get everybody to sign everything and get all the paperwork done.

Kevin: But I didn’t have an AD; I didn’t have a scriptee. Everything was just inside my brain, you know what I mean? It’s weird in there.

Katherine: Oh we know. [laughs]

Harrison: Our production designer, Ashley, helped a lot with everything, in terms of continuity and how the office changes throughout. She kept fantastic track of what was where, especially since we shot over two weekends in the office. We didn’t shoot 14 consecutive days.

Katherine: We had to redress everything, and put everything back.

Kevin: Yeah, cause we shot a weekend in the office, went to Sacramento for five days, and then went back to that office the next weekend.

Katherine: And that office is a working business. We had to take all of their things down and put all of our own stuff up.

Harrison: Twice. [all laugh] Unless we couldn’t return to a location, we saved all of our inserts for the very end of the shoot. We had two interim days essentially. And that was also such a timesaver, to be honest. To go back, where it’s Kevin and I, and a hand model and Ashley and shoot those inserts.

I don’t know how much you all knew going into reading the screenplay, so what was it like for you to read it and slowly realize what’s going to happen?

Katherine: I remember thinking, ‘Ohhhh. Kevin isn’t the guy I thought he was.’ I just was not expecting this kind of movie. Because, again, everyone we know are comedians and in the comedy world. So I just kind of assumed this was going to be a comedy. And then I was reading and I was like, ‘Oh, this is sweet. This poor man; it’s going to a drama of him recovering, blah blah blah.’ And then I was like, ‘Oh my god!’

Jason: That point in the script is probably why I decided to sign on. Because you’re reading it and you’re like, ‘Aw, this is the redemption story of a guy who lost his wife,’ and then you’re like, ‘Oh, but it’s not.’ And that’s what made it interesting for me, was seeing that story play out.

Katherine: A lot of times when you see a thriller or suspense film, you know from the get-go that it’s that kind of movie. And this one, you don’t.

Jonathan: Yeah, when you’re reading that, before you get to that point, it’s like, ‘Oh, please don’t let this be…’ You’re hoping there’s something and then it’s like, ‘Oh yes!’

Katherine: ‘It’s not a Lifetime movie!’ No, they’re great. They’re fantastic. Please hire me. [all laugh]

Harrison: Wouldn’t that be funny if that’s how you got a gig on a Lifetime movie?

What’s been your favorite thing about being here at Austin Film Festival with “A Patient Man”?

Jason: I think it’s really awesome that we got to hang out not in production and just kind of celebrate the work that we did together, and being able to see it and share it with people. It’s been really amazing for me because I’m really proud, and I think everybody here should be really proud of the work that we did, and being able to be together and celebrate it is awesome.

Harrison: It’s such a well-put-together festival. It’s been fantastic; the volunteers are amazing. Everyone we’ve spoken to from the day we found out we were going to get into the festival until literally right now have just been such solid people — very welcoming, but also on top of things, and have foresight to handle any challenges we might come against.

Katherine: Chaperoning us through the process a little bit. It’s great.

Kevin: Showing the movie to people, you know what I mean? You do this in such a bubble, and to see it with an audience —

Katherine: This was my first time seeing it with an audience, and it was just incredible. You think something is good — you hope it’s good — but you’re too close to it. To see other people like it is just so gratifying.

Thank you all for taking the time to speak with us!

Be sure to read our review of “A Patient Man.” Follow Shuffle Online on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Love our work? Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!

Featured image credit: Jackie Ruth