Interviews with Southern California authors by our member writers to read online

INTERVIEWS

Let’s Make a Movie?
Showcase interviews Christina Hilliard and Andrew Battat

One day Drew Muxlow said to Chicago (formerly Los Angeles) comedians Christina Hilliard and Andrew Battat, “Let’s make a movie.” They proceeded to script Coco World, cast it, film it, enter it in festival competitions, and have just begun to shop it around. Hilliard has appeared on the Second City stage and Battat writes and performs standup comedy. Showcase pumped them for details.

Showcase: How did you fund the project, and how long did it take?

Battat: We conceived, wrote, and completed filming of Coco World in the span of three months. We set an arbitrary deadline for ourselves for when to begin production, and we stuck to it. In the beginning, we planned to produce the film on a budget of just a few thousand dollars, but as the process went on, and we got more committed and excited about what the movie could be, we put more of our own money into it (and we found an Angel Investor who fell in love with the script).

Showcase: Festivals make sense but shopping around generally means encountering closed doors. What’s changed?

Hilliard: Honestly, I have no idea. The guys bring me in when they want my take on something, and they haven’t yet brought me in for that stuff. I think they’re protecting me from all the “no’s.” So as far as I’m concerned, things are great.

Showcase: Who did you cast in Coco World?

Battat: The easiest casting was ourselves. After that, we cast some family members. But the harder casting came when we put out casting calls online and out to our network. And looking back, we got insanely lucky with our cast. Each person brought something we didn’t expect in writing for the character, and it all came together perfectly. And, we landed a star in the form of Chris Barnett to play our eye-candy hunk. That was a big moment for us. That’s when we knew “Wait, this could be something really special.”

Showcase: What did you walk away from Coco World with?

Hilliard: The belief in myself that I can do anything.

Battat: This whole experience, and particularly the two weeks we spent shooting, was the greatest and hardest thing I’ve ever been a part of. Drew and I both come from ‘entrepreneurial’ families, so there was a shared belief in our own ability to make it happen if we really put the work in. And we were absolutely naive as to just how hard it would be, but right in that we could make it happen.

Hilliard: And that, Showcase, is show business.

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