A note from Director, Tiffany Bartok:

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I was tasked with the honor of creating a short film for Warren Ethridge’s annual competition for the Walla Walla Movie Crush Film Festival.  The contest taps 10 directors to create a short film using one prompt, and the film is presented sight unseen at the festival where all 10 directors celebrate its completion with an audience.

 

The prompt was “Four More Years” and my husband, Jayce wrote something that I would then direct with my son, Jaxon, and my father, Jerry, to star in.  We blocked out a time to have our small crew come to join us in Wisconsin where the film took place and where my mother and father live.  Though our project was always intended to be low-budget, we planned to fly our crew into Wisconsin, and we had beautiful picturesque shots planned.  We wanted to use different sound design and cameras that we’ve been anxious to play with and of course, have a proper shoot with normal conditions.

 

Then a little pandemic came out to shake things up a bit.  The country was in lockdown and we quarantined with my family in rural Wisconsin… with our rebel camera.  Once we awoke from the shock, we heard that indeed, Warren would still be having his film fest 4 months later, so Jayce who wrote the piece, decided with our DP, Andres Karu, that we were “on with the show”.  Andres FaceTimed with us for 5 days, 10 hours a day while Jayce operated and executed his setups, lit them and he also did sound.  Our longtime collaborator, Aaron Meicht polished off the film remotely with a beautiful score that was evocative of the journey our characters take to connect through the natural world.

 

Sadly, the Walla Walla Movie Crush Film Festival was canceled by COVID the week before it was set to show.  But the positive of all of this?  We successfully executed yet another labor of love that I hope will make you smile.

 

And thus, here is Last Chance.  My father’s acting debut, and the first time that we executed some skills we never conceived of doing ourselves.

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