THE TALK | Short film script

Written by Dominic Morlino & Vincent Solis & Jacob Scherer

The following script is a short film that I wrote with my friends Vincent and Jacob in our junior year of college in 2020. It’s the first honest-to-goodness actual short film I wrote. Prior to this, we’d made a number of short films that served as the dance entertainments at our school dances: these were fun, but we always had an insane time crunch, so they often suffered artistically as a result.

This short was an idea that I came up with on my own, then the three of us threw around some ideas together, then I wrote the first draft myself, then we collaborated on the final draft. We had planned to film it in spring 2020 and submit it in our college’s first ever Student Short Film Festival, but oopsie! COVID happened and we all got sent home for the rest of the semester. I think I gave the script to the two actors the day of or the day before we found out we were all going home. Bummer.

I then wanted to film it that fall, but wasn’t able to until the following spring semester, now with two new actors, but still just in time for that student film festival! Jacob (my co-writer) filmed it, and our friends Joe and Dillon played the two characters. We filmed it in a classroom for a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon. Our friend David edited it with me and Jacob over a few hours - at a way more leisurely pace than we were accustomed to with the dance entertainment videos. I believe Dillon won the inaugural Best Actor award at the festival.

This short film is one of the most creatively satisfying things I’ve ever worked on. It was the first, and to date, the only thing I’ve ever directed. It is far from perfect, but every aspect was basically what I wanted it to be - dialogue, casting, performances, cinematography, edit, color grading. I’m very proud of it. I don’t have a copy of it, unfortunately. I think I used to, on an old computer that pooped out a few years ago. If I’m able to find a copy of it I’ll totally post it here.

Enjoy!