"Jonathan, Just Because" Makes Its World Premiere!

Left to right: Kirsten Major, Broadway star Hunter Bell, Adam Lehman, and Josh H. at the New York premiere of "Jonathan, Just Because" on March 22, 2009, in Midtown.

Oh my god, it's hard to know where to start. All of this is so crazy.

On Sunday, March 22, Josh K. and I debuted our short film "Jonathan, Just Because" (which we made with Kirsten Major and Adam Lehman) at a swank little lounge in Midtown Manhattan in front of a standing-room-only crowd of more than a hundred very supportive, fantastic friends. The lovely and talented Mr. Hunter Bell, co-writer and co-star of Broadway's [title of show] (and presumptive Tony nominee), served as emcee of the evening, introducing the film and leading a Q&A afterward.

It was crazy, crazy, crazy.

And amazing.

The whole thing started on November 23, 2008, when, over burritos in Brooklyn, Kirsten and I thought it might be fun to make a short film with Josh K. at the helm as director. Two days later Kirsten had a draft of the script in my hands, then I spent some time rewriting it, and then she spent some time rewriting my draft, and then we handed it over to Josh K. He was all about it, ready get back into filmmaking, excited about the story and the characters, and ready to put his fancy little camera to use.

In December we started casting and first saw Adam Lehman and, after one reading, we knew he was the one we wanted for Nick. After a few table reads and rehearsals, and several rewrites, we began shooting in early January, beginning with a seven-hour shoot on the Brooklyn Heights promenade (the second scene of the film) in freezing weather. But, no matter: The film had started, and we were really, really excited.

Over the next couple months we had eight shooting days, some of them going long into the night, resulting in cast sleepovers at my place in Brooklyn, sprawled out all over my apartment. And then, the last few days before the film's New York premiere, Josh and I huddled up in the editing studio, working 10 hours one day, a few more the next, and then the final day--the evening before the premiere--we pulled a 19-hour all-nighter.

But, at last, we had a film.

And, by god, The New York Times covered it, Next magazine ran a big ol' picture and a listing (and HX magazine ran a listing, too), and--bam!--then we had the premiere.

I can't tell you how much fun we had making the film. I can't tell you how many trials we also had, but all of them, in the end, worth it. What we each learned about every facet of filmmaking--from writing to directing, acting to lighting, sound design to editing, set scouting to film promotion--is actually pretty phenomenal. In a way we created something of a graduate seminar in indie filmmaking, and having this project online feels a little bit like graduation day.

Josh and I hope you enjoy it.

Click here to watch "Jonathan, Just Because"!

Also, check out the film's website, JonathanJustBecause.net!

"So, Where Have You Two Been?"

I know, I know, we've been naughty little bloggers. We haven't been posting lately as much as we should have been. Josh K. ended up entirely wrapped up in the editing process for a while, as well as the process of getting the film loaded online and set for its release, both of which were rather Herculean tasks. I've been continuing the magazine job hunt, and also been quite busy falling in love with an amazing guy. Then, on top of it all, Josh K. landed a short-term position as a production assistant at a cable network (yay!). Between the two of us we haven't been around as much as we'd like, but now we expect to have a little more time on our hands, and we plan on posting more frequent updates here on J&J.

Want more? After the jump are a collection of mobile mini blog posts I wrote over the past few weeks that previously went unpublished. Check 'em out if you need an extended behind-the-scenes J&J fix.