This project is very near and dear to me. It is my story and I had a burning desire to make it into a movie. I had already written the script and all I needed was the money. When you want to make a movie and you don’t have any money, what do you do?  Remember, this was in a time prior to kickstarter and Indiegogo.  Unless you have a rich relative who is willing to fund your movie, you have to think of other plans. Well for starters, I took a job, that I would normally take, and saved all my money for months just to get $12,000.

Now that I had some money, little though it was, I went full steam ahead. I got Elton and Mimi involved. I hired Nancy for an extremely low stipend (sorry about that Nancy).  Nancy and I started breaking down the script and everyone started looking for locations. I can say, by far and away, this movie could not have been made without Nancy. She got most of the locations. She was my right-hand woman. She was always on time. She was reliable. She went way above and beyond what was expected of her. In short, she worked her butt off! I wish I could have given her more.

Mimi was also very reliable. Elton, not so much. About halfway through the making of the movie he just stopped showing up. I ended up having to shoot the last half of the movie. There are a total of 100 scenes in the entire movie. I shot 50 of them.  But, you know, that was OK. When you’re making a low-budget movie and you’re not paying the people involved, it’s to be expected. We all wore many hats during the making of this movie. I just put on another hat and continued along.  When I start something it’s ingrained in me to finish it.  So, we went on, with one less crew member. But, the outcome was the same, we finished the movie and it all turned out fine. When you’re working with a low-budget (or no budget) you just go to Plan B and continue. You really don’t have any other option unless, you just want to throw in the towel. I am not that type of a person. There is always a way.

Mimi helped tremendously. She took on any tasks that she could and kept the set light with her many jokes and laughter. After reviewing the behind-the-scenes tapes I realized that there were only a couple of tense moments in the entire making of this movie. And the rest of the time there was laughter.  It really was a fun time. We all got along on set and we all took up the slack were ever it was necessary. Even the cast members became crewmembers when we needed them to be.

The cast was amazing. I couldn’t of asked for two better leading ladies. Neither had ever been the lead in a movie and neither of them lesbians yet, on screen you feel the love between these two girls. It is their performances that drives the entire movie. Without those two and the on screen chemistry they had Love & Suicide would not be the love story that it turned out to be. I am forever grateful.

Friends and relatives also came to our aid. Locations, props, cars etc. were given freely. Musicians, who were friends, gave us the rights to use their music and The Jimmy Ford Clinic gave me a ridiculously low price for recording and making the soundtrack. I begged, borrowed and we all called in any favors we were owed. The result was, albeit, not extremely high quality but, a beautiful story that has a very strong message…Always choose love.