An Industry Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Love in 2020
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Length of film: 31 minutes
Date: 2021
Director: Eirinn Disbrow
Producer: Anna Jaller, Eirinn Disbrow, Christina Garofalo Bonifacio, Brandi Hart Craig
Writer: Christina Garofalo Bonifacio
Cinematographer: Kristin Mendez
Editor: Eirinn Disbrow
Composer: Nick LaFalce
Production Company: Elevate LA
Budget: $5,000
Financing: Self-financed
Shooting Format: 8K Red cam footage
Screening Format: 1920×1080 HD
World Premiere: Lighthouse Film Festival, Long Beach Island, NJ
Awards: Web/TV/Pilot by Toronto International Women Film Festival; Best Editor, Best Female Filmmaker, Best Web Series/New Media by Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards (LAIFFA).
Website: http://www.lovein2020tv.com
The Official Trailer for Love in 2020
Watch trailer for Love in 2020 produced by Christina Garofalo Bonifacio, directed by Eirinn Disbrow
A Biography of Director Eirinn Disbrow
Eirinn Disbrow is a multi faceted editor, director, and producer with a passion for telling women’s stories. Her credits include working in editorial on Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters (Sony), Jonathan Levine’s Snatched (FOX) and Long Shot (Lionsgate), David Fincher’s Videosyncrasy (HBO), and Eli Roth’s Borderlands (Lionsgate).
She has edited the series My Dead Ex which premiered at SXSW in 2018. She directed the comedy sketch Racist Baby (streaming on Who Haha), My Life Worked Out (featured on Funny or Die) and most recently the award winning web series Love in 2020 – a pandemic rom com that makes people laugh and feel less alone.
The Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): Love in 2020 is a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The story centers on Kenna, a young woman who’s spent her life being accommodating and “nice,” even at the expense of her own needs. “It was necessary to show how the societal conditioning of women becomes an impediment in dating.”
First, we had the idea for this character back in 2018. We wanted to put her in a series about app dating, but the story never quite clicked. CUT TO: March 2020. L.A. issued its Safer at Home order, our plans are canceled, and we’re out of work until further notice. We thought: If we’re going to get through this thing, we’re gonna have to get to work. We dusted off the old series and reimagined it for pandemic times.
The forced isolation of quarantine provided the stakes that were missing from the original. Rather than try to take on a bird’s-eye view and say something profound about a time we’re still living through, we focused on the ongoing, universal challenge: What happens when you’re trapped at home, and you can’t escape yourself?
Through the series, we watch Kenna try all the quick fixes for loneliness—most notably, by searching for superficial connection through dating apps. But without the usual distractions and escapism busy city life used to provide, she’s eventually forced to confront who she is and decide how she wants to show up in the world when all of this is over.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): We’ve been very fortunate to have a long and fulfilling festival run. We debuted at Lighthouse International Film Festival in Long Beach Island, N.J. in May. In August, we made our West Coast premiere at Dances with Films at TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood. We went on to Burbank and Pasadena International film festivals, then returned to TCL for the Oscar-qualifying Hollyshorts Film Festival, which was a total dream.
La Femme International Film Festival in mid-October was the first to screen our entire six-episode series—and at LA Live/Staples Center, no less. We had a fun weekend at the beach planned for Sunscreen Film Festival, also showing all six episodes, in Hermosa Beach in November, and we are still waiting on the date for the LA Indie Film Festival’s in-person screening.
We are honored to have received several awards: We won Best Web series at the Toronto International Women’s Film Festival and won Best Female Filmmaker, Editor, and Web series at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards. Most recently, we won Best Web series at LA Femme Film Festival.
We are working with publicist Deborah Gilels, of LA Media Consultants, to generate press and market the series. Since working with her, Love in 2020 has been featured in nearly a dozen outlets, including The Successful Screenwriter podcast, Film Threat, and the Hollywood Times. You can find a full Electronic Press Kit on our website at lovein2020tv.com.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): This When the COVID-19 pandemic hits, 28-year-old Kenna Benjamin hates her job and is unsuccessful in love. Now human contact is banned (or at min, requires 6 feet of separation). While everyone around her has a quarantine companion, she takes to dating apps in search of meaningful connection.
After a dozen FaceTime dates, a virtual booty call gone awry, and bad news about her job, Kenna learns that the only way to get through quarantine is to get comfortable with who she is. Kenna discovers it’s possible to find connection amid this newfound isolation, if first she can connect with herself.
Development & Financing?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): We began working on Love in 2020 at the start of L.A.’s Safer at Home order. Suddenly, we were faced with a lot of extra time, and we wanted to stay creatively focused. Once we changed the original idea about dating in Los Angeles into a series about dating during the pandemic, the story came together quickly.
The three of us met a few times a week on Zoom to develop the arc and the characters.
Anna (lead actor/producer) and Eirinn (director/editor) had created a web series together in 2016 and came armed with Indie filmmaking experience. They always said that the missing piece of their all-female filmmaking team was a writer. Christina moved to L.A. right before the pandemic and filled that gap.
Eirinn had recently started dating someone during the first week of lockdown, and we pulled inspiration from her experience with virtual dating and the unique pressures and challenges of starting a new relationship during the pandemic. We’re so grateful to have worked together to channel this strange and “unprecedented” time in history into a film that was representative of the experience.
At the time, Love in 2020 felt extremely timely (little did we know the pandemic would continue for another 2+ years) so we wanted to make the project as quickly as possible. We landed on making a six-episode web series (approx. 30 minutes TRT) with a very small crew. Safety was our priority, and since Hollywood still hadn’t reopened with COVID Safety guidelines, we had to pioneer Indie filmmaking under new restrictions.
Our project was almost entirely self-funded, but we are grateful to have received support from our favorite local businesses, who donated food and drinks (from deep dish pizza to boba) and masks and clothing to feature in the series. We are proud to say that Love in 2020 was produced entirely by women and employed persons affiliated with the queer, Hispanic, Black, disabled, and veteran communities.
Production?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): It took Christina two months to write the script and we started pre-production in July 2020. We casted the entire series in a two-week period through friends and actors we had worked with previously. Since most projects at the time were at a standstill, we had access to a wider pool of talent. For instance, Jeff Pierre (who plays Chad), is a series regular on the CW show Walker. His filming was delayed because of COVID, which freed him up to be a part of our cast.
The series was mostly shot in Christina’s apartment, and we limited scenes where more than one actor was unmasked in the same space (note how we shot the neighbor, Mrs. Vaccaro, through a window at a safe distance).
We did have to scout a few outdoor locations in Silver Lake and Echo Park. Constantly we were surprised by the willingness of people to get involved and help out. We struggled with where to shoot the street vendor sequences, for instance, because anywhere that looked public enough to pass for a vendor location had too much road noise and foot traffic or required a permit.
We passed a liquor store with this awesome mural and thought it was a long shot, but we decided to stop in and buy a few bottles of wine and talk to the owner. To our surprise, he was totally on board and said yes immediately.
We shot our principal photography during the first four days of August 2020 with a seven-person crew. We were very lucky to work with the extremely talented cinematographer Kristin Mendez, who shot the entire series on a Red Helium.
Because it was such a tight schedule, we had to shoot out of order. This can be extremely challenging for a small crew, because we had to track all costume changes, hairstyles, and set design ourselves. Anna also had to constantly shift between different moments of her characters’ emotional character arc (for example her love life hits rock bottom for a scene at 7 a.m., and then an hour later, she’s starting a new career venture).
After production, Eirinn spent about a month and a half assembling the footage into a rough cut. The three of us watched the rough assembly and identified any missing story beats or transitions that needed more attention. We also showed the rough cut to a few trusted friends for feedback. We then did a day-long pickup shoot in early October to grab those missing pieces. This helped a ton with the final edit.
A lot of people don’t realize the level of detail that goes into post-production. Thanks to Eirinn’s experience working in post-production on studio features, we were in good hands with her leadership.
First, we brought on our college friend, Nick LaFalce, to compose. He’d spent the last year producing music for other artists and was interested in transitioning to TV/film. Almost all of the music in the series was created by Nick and his band Atlas Engine.
We were also fortunate to have found an extremely talented graphic designer, VFX artist, sound mixer, and colorist—each of whom was instrumental in pulling off such an elevated final product. For instance, our graphic designer, Brad Aldridge, designed an original dating app and texting graphics. Given how central those forms of communication were to our pandemic lives, and how few examples there are in cinema history, his design was essential to making the world of online dating feel alive and visually engaging.
We are eternally grateful and indebted to this team for helping us with all the little details that took our project to the next level.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): This We knew we wanted to make the most out of our festival run so we sought advice from experienced filmmakers who had navigated the festival circuit before. We were advised to attend as many screenings and in person events as possible. In doing so, we learned how many valuable connections can be made by coming out to support your fellow filmmakers.
Another practical piece of advice we received was to have a postcard or favor to hand out to encourage people to attend our screening. We created pocket-size hand sanitizer bottles with custom Love in 2020 labels. These have been very successful, because they represent our series but are also functional for festival attendees who are constantly shaking hands.
To complement the work we were doing on the ground, we collaborated with our publicist Deborah to promote our festival screenings to a wider audience through various outlets including radio interviews, podcasts, and articles.
The Release?
Christina Garofalo Bonifacio (CGB): We released our series on our website lovein2020tv.com in the spring of 2021. We released teaser trailers and did promotions leading up to the launch. Since our series is so timely, we wanted to release it as soon as possible. Our film festival run has helped us to further grow and expand our audience, as well as gather more feedback that we can take with us into the next chapter—turning Love in 2020 into a feature.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
Eirinn: Take it one day at a time. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of work involved in creating your own project. Just keep going and focus on completing the next task in front of you. The best way to learn and get better at filmmaking is by doing, so keep making stuff, keep building relationships with other filmmakers, and keep having fun!
Anna: Live in the solution. This is my favorite mantra when it comes to producing. Try not to dwell on the inevitable bumps in the road during the filmmaking process. They’re just minor detours that will ultimately make you stronger. Stay focused on problem solving and be open to creative solutions. When the film is complete, you’ll look back and be even more proud knowing all the obstacles you overcame to make your vision come to life.
Christina: Work with good people and be good to the people who work for you. We all know the horror stories of abusive bosses and toxic sets. This project is proof that if you create an environment where people feel safe, valued, and heard, they will give you their best work.
We are living through a pandemic: People are risking their health and lives for your project, respect that. It is the right thing to do; it makes the entire process more enjoyable, and it shows in the final product.
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