Last Friday and Saturday I shot my latest short movie, a comedy about marital strife titled At Long Last. This movie is based on a teleplay I directed as a live broadcast back in June 2024 called No Good Deed, and after an unsuccessful attempt to get it performed as a stage play I decided that making it into a short movie was the next logical and hopefully more fruitful step.
Getting this done faced a number of challenges. Casting two of the roles happened rather quick, but the third role was more of a challenge. The first actor I cast had to drop out because she had to prepare for Burning Man, the second one had to leave for personal reasons, and the third actor I contacted was interested but had a busy schedule so I started looking for a fourth. Fortunately the third choice was able to do it and she was completely right for the role.
Then came renting the camera. Whenever I rented equipment in the past from Community TV of Santa Cruz I would go to their site and make the reservation. This time I couldn’t (later I found out they disabled that option). They had four of the particular camera I wanted to use so I figured all I had to do was show up at Satellite Workplace, the location of Community TV, on Thursday to check it out so I could start using it Friday morning.
I figured wrong. When I got to Satellite on Thursday after work no one was at the front desk to check out equipment, I later found out the receptionist had called in sick. I contacted some people I know at Community TV and one of them said he’d come in Friday afternoon at 3PM to check out the camera and other equipment for me. I certainly appreciated his help, but this also meant we couldn’t start shooting Friday morning. I told the actors we were going to start late but we’d go as fast as we could.
Friday came and we went to CTV to get the camera, the tripod, and an XLR cable, an audio cable that connects the microphone to the camera. So at just after 3:00 we were ready to start shooting, until we looked at the XLR cable and discovered it was a five prong instead of a three prong. Since the CTV volunteer who had helped us had already left the Satellite we were stuck. Fortunately there was a nearby electronics store where I was able to buy the XLR we needed, and once we had it we were ready to go.
one, the female end kind of looks like
a face.
I already had a read through with the actors and they had been running lines with each other so they were able to get into character quickly which made the shooting easier and faster. Of course certain other technical problems would appear, such as forgetting there’s a mirror in the room where we were shooting.
we got it right on take three. Helene Simkin Jara is the
actor and Mark Pollio is the too visible boom mic
operator.
We worked quickly but because of the late start we were only able to shoot 10 pages of the 22 page screenplay instead of the whole thing as planned, fortunately we were all available to work the next day starting at 3:00 so we would have about the same time frame to shoot the rest of the screenplay, which we were able to achieve before darkness encroached.
characters of At Long Last, despite their apparent animosity in this screenshot
they worked very well together. I was lucky to get them.
All the principal photography has been completed, so now I’m going through all the footage looking for the reels that I can take to the editor. Once edited, and she does great work, I’ll be able to premier it on Community TV of Santa Cruz and enter it into film festivals.
I’ll post more about this short comedy when it’s ready to view. Stay tuned.
©2026 Robert Kirkendall
Robert Kirkendall 