"You Are Me" (2018)

"You Are Me" is a short film directed by Clarke M. Smith and produced by Jill Sierra and Analise Nelson. It starred  Randy Davison, Annie Willett and Larry Poole. It was Smith’s fourth San Diego based film.

Realizing the Script
In 2015, Smith wrote the first outline for a story in his head that would become “You Are Me”. Once translated to the first draft, the structure of the story changed very little. The script sat dormant for a while, and when it came time to shoot the 168 Film Project (which would become “The Loyal Remnant”), Smith suggested to the producers that they adapt his short into the theme of the film competition. But it didn't fit, and Smith ended up not wanting to do the film as a timed production. A few years went by, and Smith showed the script to Randy Davison, who was his first choice to play the lead. The two had worked together before on “Stover Hill”.

In April of 2017, a new, shorter draft was made, with input by Jason Lethert. However, as was often the case, Smith and Lethert disagreed vehemently over many elements of the script. Lethert wrote his own version, which had a much darker ending. Smith rejected it, but kept a few elements of Lethert’s script and ideas. The two went their separate ways, as far as this film was concerned. Finally in May of 2018, Smith decided it was time to make the film. He began tapping numerous DPs (director of photography), starting with his DP from “The Loyal Remnant”, but he had graduated college, no longer had access to gear, and had moved to the LA area. All of the DPs Smith talked to were interested, but could not commit to the low budget of the gig. Finally, Mike Peterson’s reel caught his eye, after becoming aware of the films he had been doing with IntelleXual Entertainment. They had been friends on Facebook, but had never spoken or met. When Smith proposed the film to him, he was interested and soon agreed to do it.

With a DP in place, we well as other crew members being assigned like camera assistants Theresa Dawson and Michael Shane Bowles, preproduction was well underway. The film’s start date would be delayed though, as tragedy struck for Randy Davison -  his mother passed away from cancer in the spring of 2018. He was unsure of when he would be returning to California (or even if he would be able to go on with the film at that point), but asked Smith to hold on and wait for him. Smith was more than happy to wait. His own mother had also passed away 3 years prior and was more than sympathetic. Once the project was back on track, it was time to cast the two remaining characters. Smith had picked Lon Sierra for the role of Doctor James, but later felt that his looks, body type, etc were too similar in some ways to Randy Davison. He had envisioned the doctor to look older and with grey or white hair. Smith had edited a film called Coming and Going in Vegas, which starred Larry Poole. They got to know each other, and Smith thought Poole would be good for the doctor. Poole accepted, and was particularly interested as he had never played a clean cut, doctor before. The last role to be cast was Davison’s wife Aerin. For this role, Smith compiled a long list of actresses. Many of them at this point had left San Diego for LA and were unavailable. Finally, Smith saw some films that Annie Willett was in, namely one she completely disappeared in called “Coverage” and offered her the part. She was particularly enamoured by the script and the twist, and accepted.Cast, and primary crew selected, the film set a production date in July 2018 to shoot for two weekends. Smith met with production designer Raechyl Esther Borman, and, along with Analise Nelson, devised the look and construction of the lab set, which was to be built in Jill Sierra’s garage. Other key crew members were brought in - Assistant Director Kevin Burke and Costume Designer Jennifer Pelling (who came up with the idea of green and blue themed clothes, based on being human or a clonebot). One week to the day before shooting was to start, more tragedy struck. Smith’s younger brother Courtney Smith had committed suicide in Pinetop, AZ at the age of 37. For obvious reasons, this news flew the production into question. Mike Peterson wrote with deep condolences and told Smith that if he needs to stop the film and delay it for a time, he would be there when it resumes. However, Smith knew his brother, and knew he would never want to be the reason a film project was canceled, or even delayed because of him. Much effort and planning was already established for the chosen weekends and with a very large crew. With Smith and Davison in extreme mourning, the production as planned, it was decided, would soldier on. The Friday before shooting, Smith, Borman and Nelson worked all day creating the lab set. Smith brought over a slew of monitors that coincidentally had been donated by his wife Leilani’s company, which would be used to loop the animated gifs Smith had created earlier. Peterson and crew worked into the evening to black out the dining room and kitchen windows for the next day’s night scenes.

Shooting Details
Filming began on the first of two weekends on July 28, 2018. The first scene shot was the home dinner conversation. Next was the often deleted kitchen scene. Then the final night scene in the kitchen after Greyson is now the clonebot.

With night scenes done, the rooms were reset for daytime. All remaining interior house scenes were filmed. Randy finished his last scene before he had to run off to a film festival he was in. The last shots of Aerin were shot. Time ran out for the bedroom scene and would have to be rescheduled later. The second day of shooting was all the lab scenes. A lot of thought and planning went into when Randy would be his human character vs. the clonebot of himself. Split screen was used with a stand-in (Kevin Burke), which required Randy to be in different clothes and makeup. There were three lab scenes. To keep continuity, Randy would complete an entire half of a scene, and shoot his other character. Then move on to the next lab scene. In the middle of the shoot, part of the team went over to the nearby cemetery to shoot the ending scene. It was extremely rushed, and Smith never really got what he wanted. As it turned out, the scene would only be used in an after-credit scene. Returning to the lab, the team finally wrapped at about 11pm.Two weeks were then taken off, namely for Smith to engage with family coming into town for his brother’s funeral. Just days later, filming resumed on August 11. The Saturday started at Lake Dixon in Escondido, CA for the pouring of the ashes. Smith used his mother, Sherry Felix’s real ashes. She had appeared in many of his college films and had passed away in 2015. So he was in essence able to put his mom in one more film.

Next, the team went back to Jill Sierra’s home to shoot Randy’s emotional breakdown scene in the front driveway. This was another scene that was deleted in most versions of the film. Lastly, after lunch, the team went to the Oceanside Urgent Care + Family Practice to shoot the doctor office scenes with Larry Poole. This would prove to be the most problematic shoot, as the sound came out poor with a damaging hum and would have to be dubbed in later. Smith was also unable to get the oners he desired due to time, lack of needed gear available on the day, and planning. The final shooting day began at Smith’s home in La Jolla, CA for the bedroom scene. It was not possible to return to Jill’s house for further filming, and this was the only option that presented itself. Smith had shot the end of Stover Hill in the same bedroom. This was a miserable shoot, as there were searing hot temperatures, and high humidity. And no A/C in the house. After the bedroom was done, Smith and Peterson took the actors to a nearby park and shot the flashback scenes. Finally, the entire team drove to Poway, CA to shoot the restaurant scene at King’s Craft Coffee Co. Though not originally thought of as a hugely important scene, it ended up being one of Smith’s very favorite acting moments in the film.

Post Production
The first full version was edited in October of 2018. It was 30 minutes long. Smith then made a more streamlined version, clocking in at 20 minutes. In November, Associate Producer and Post Production Supervisor David S. Dawson worked feverishly on this version, on color correcting and ADR for the doctor scenes. He was finished by January 2019, in time to submit the film to San Diego Film Week. After its screening at Film Week, Smith was unable to bring himself to cut the film back even further, which had been strongly recommended for future film festival submissions. Filmmaker Rich Varville was brought in to make a 15 minute cut, and not one second longer. He delivered it quickly, and though Smith changed just a few things, this would be the version sent to all film festivals. He agreed that it was the strongest cut for the film festival reason, but had a hard time removing his mother’s ashes scene. That, and many other trimmings had to be made to get it to 15 minutes.

Once it was time for the DVD to be made, Smith went back to his first 30 minute cut in order to show the “script version” to the cast and crew, to see everything that they had worked on. This mainly included more the lab scenes, a deleted kitchen scene, and the full ending cemetery scene. In addition, as DVD had to be rendered as 720x480, Smith was able to take the 1080p footage and digitally zoom in and reframe the opening doctor scene, getting it as close as possible to his original vision of it being a oner.

In the end, three versions of the film would be created, and put on the DVD.

Film Analysis
Smith has acknowledged that it was very likely that he was inspired by the likes of The Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, or The Outer Limits when he devised the story. In the screenplay, Greyson’s clonebot was to be exactly like Greyson, in terms of mannerisms and speech. Randy Davison played the clonebot very differently, and it worked well. He wanted the clonebot to have the memories in place, yet still be seeing and tasting and feeling things for the very first time.

Annie Willett was concerned during filming that her acting would be seen as flat, or simply not good. But she was in full understanding of her character, and played it as if she was more or less programmed to be bubbly and happy - but never too much to give away the secret she holds. In the end, it all makes sense. And as her clonebot is not terribly receptive, she does not see many clues, such as Randy’s speech at the restaurant, and what he is going through the morning she leaves him in the front yard. This was all written as such.

The scene when Aerin does leave Greyson, for what he knows is his last time seeing her, was Smith’s favorite scene in the movie. The subsequent slow motion ‘death walk’ to the garage took on a life of its own in post production, going silent in Greyson’s mind with only Reber Clark’s music. There is a brief appearance from screen-used props from The Thing (1982), courtesy of  Jason Lethert. Smith was finally able to show the props, which had been planned but abandoned on Stover Hill. It was a humorous moment when Greyson lifts them up and mentions his failed attempt at cloning himself. The three-fingered claws were featured in 3 shots in the dog kennel scenes in The Thing. Smith created a video earlier  - "Stover Hill - The Thing Hands" (2015) - which chronicles the claws. A clip from the scene featuring the claws can be found here.

Smith would later declare that You Are Me was his favorite among his own films. He was particularly enamoured with the chemistry of the actors. The camera crew also did a great job, and they had never worked together before. Smith would next ask them back to shoot scenes for his feature project  “Mystery Highway” a few years later. Though on a shoestring budget, the lab set was beautifully and lovingly created by Raechyl Esther Borman and Analise Nelson. Smith’s initial biggest fear was that the lab set would look cheesy and ridiculous - and appearing incapable of sustaining the equipment and technology to create something as high tech as cloning.

Aftermath
Having screened successfully at San Diego Film Week, Smith was shocked in April 2019 when it got no nominations for the San Diego Film Awards. He thought Randy very much deserved an actor nomination, as well as music and production design. The film did however, get a nomination for best sci-fi short in a separate award category for films that screened at San Diego Film Week that was announced at the awards.However, it should be noted perhaps, that audiences had seen the longer version, and not the scaled back, faster paced 15 minute version. This became an apparent issue, when the film then started to get awards elsewhere. In June 2019,  You Are Me screened at the Silicon Beach Film Festival, and won Best Drama Short (2019 Awards). In October 2019, the film screened at the Showlow Film Festival (2019 Winners), where it won the Producer's Choice Award. Finally, just before Covid hit, the film screened in March 2020 at the Idyllwild Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Cinematography, Excellence In Producing, and Original Score. However, no wins this time, and the film festival circuit largely came to an end due to Covid.

In August 2020, Intellexual Entertainment featured You Are Me on a podcast hosted by David S. Dawson, which included much of the cast and crew.

In June of 2020, Smith wrote a pseudo-sequel, set in the same universe as You Are Me, called “Randy 2.0,” later renamed “Greyson 2.0.”

With the film complete, Smith set his sights on using it, and other shorts, for his wrapper feature Mystery Highway.

Video and Web Links
Trailer

"You Are Me" (2018) (Full Movie)

Creating Clonebots: Making "You Are Me" (2020)

1999 Visual Audio Commentary (to come)

"How Not To Get Along During Quarantine" (2020)

"You Are Me" at the Silicon Beach Film Festival - June 15, 2019

"You Are Me" (2019) 32 Minute Script Cut