Way Gone

Phillip, a suicidal man with treatment-resistant depression, decides to visit two men before he kills himself: Dr. James, a well-meaning but uninvolved psychiatrist, and Jesus, an enigmatic local drug dealer. A series of strange occurrences put the three men on a collision course that will irreversibly change their lives.

Director/DP/Editor – Andrew Stevens
Writer/Producer – Harrison Fuller
Assistant Director – Daniel Brunner
Sound Mixer – Alberto García, Sabrina Cedeno-Tobon
Composer – Charlie Zacks

Starring
Jared Vandenberg
Tim Perez-Ross
Andrew ‘FAYRO’ Pierre Jr.

Featuring
Chiara Caputo
Lily Beauchard
Harrison Floyd
Harrison Fuller
Jimmy Ace Lewis
Tyler Hughey

The origin for Way Gone came out of what I can only call, looking back, naivety. In the summer of 2022, fresh out of our first years at film school, my best friend Harrison and I decided we had outgrown the typical student film, confined to 18-year-old actors and friends’ apartments. On a late night drive early in the summer, we told each other we had to make a film like the ones we watched together, something larger than life, an ensemble film set in a world of its own.

Over the next month, Harrison penned a 35-page script exploring his personal experiences with depression and suicidal ideation, and I worked to pull together a cast and crew of Atlanta locals, generously willing to support our student vision. By August, with our leads cast and a small crew assembled, we decided we were ready to shoot.

Production happened over the course of a week at the end of August. We ran around Atlanta with a 5 person crew and Harrison’s DSLR, calling in every favor we could, and regularly changing locations and cast in the midst of production. Despite our naivieté, maybe because of it, it worked out. We weren’t afraid to take big swings, nearly every part of this production was a first for us, and two years after that first late-night talk, we finished what we had set out to do.