Emma Claire Crockett was born and raised in the humid heat of Alabama, to a nurse and an environmental scientist. A self-proclaimed “cinephile,” she spent much of her free time at Blockbuster, selecting movies for her portable DVD player. In 2020, she relocated to New York City to study acting at the Atlantic Acting School. There, she discovered her love for writing and filmmaking through improv and film classes. After graduating in 2022, she co-founded the production company Tomato Tomato Pictures with Sara Demetree. Emma is inspired by examining humankind in all its gore and glory. Elsewhere: A Place for Girls Like You and Me is her directorial debut. She would also like you to know she uses both “Emma Claire” and “Emma” interchangeably, and will respond to both!
I walked around New York City’s Chinatown asking for pig hearts, possibly angered Satan himself, and begged my old boss from a job I quit four years ago for $5,000 — all while my livelihood involved things like seating Sarah Palin at a table and staying late at work because of Bill Murray. In other words, I made my first short film.
When people say a film is their directorial debut, I’m like, Is it actually? Like they’ve never even made a short film for a class? If we’re getting hyper-specific, I have an unfinished short I made for an acting-on-camera class led by actress Cathy Curtin. Other than that, my experience was zilch before I made my first short film, Elsewhere: A Place for Girls Like You and Me.
My teachers were YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Google, observing my friends who go to SVA, years of movie watching, and reaching out to indie film director Amanda Kramer via email for advice.
I didn’t know shit. All I knew was I liked the story I wrote with my best friend, Julia Coffey, I wanted to make it into a short and I wanted it to be done well. That desire that was fueled by Julia and I being given assigned throwaway roles in our school play and deciding we wanted more agency in our artistic endeavors. We pulled Tarot cards to help inspire the narrative, which evolved into a story about two girls putting on a surrealistic backyard play for their next-door neighbor. The girls reconstruct biblical storytelling elements to help regain a sense of control over their own lives. Whether they succeeded at regaining autonomy or failed is up to the audience’s interpretation. Upon reflection, it’s an interesting parallel to the driving force that made us want to make the film in the first place. I never saw myself as a director, as I come from a small city in Alabama where the arts aren’t a priority. But as development went on, I realized I wanted to be the one to direct it. (There seems to be a recurring theme with a desire for some semblance of control.) The producing team was made up of me, Julia and our friend Sara Demetree. All newbies. All actors who went to acting school and wanted to try their hand at filmmaking.
The few weeks leading up to production were daily embarrassments of admitting our lack of knowledge. Our crew was a mix of friends who worked for low rates (or for free) as a favor, and actual professionals we had found on Instagram. I was working at a restaurant as a hostess during the duration of the making of the film, but was afraid to let these new cohorts know about this, in fear I would look less like a “strong leader.” My real livelihood was taking Sarah Palin to table 141 and staying an hour late because Bill Murray wanted to have dinner with an assistant basketball coach after we closed. I leaned on those who knew more than me to guide the way. Somehow we got a grant from Panavision (shoutout Panavision) for camera equipment. I still don’t know if it was merit-based or if it’s just because they liked our D.P.’s previous work, but I won’t question the powers that be.
About that opening sentence … Yes, I did ask my old boss for money. I have little pride and no shame when it comes to potential resources. I don’t discriminate against those who want to support the arts! We funded the film from our personal bank accounts and by running two separate campaigns. The censored version, and the uncensored version. Knowing that Julia’s family and mine are quite traditional, we decided couldn’t tell them what our film was actually about. Therefore we hatched a plan to make a watered down vague-as-shit campaign. The logline was fuzzy and focused more on framing it as helping these women filmmakers achieve their dreams. A trick inspired in me by John Waters trying to get New Line Cinema to pick up Pink Flamingos without even actually showing them the film.
The day before we left to shoot upstate, I was tasked with the job to find something that could feasibly be a real human heart in New York City. Google failed me at this moment. I knew pig hearts resemble humans the most – out of the hearts that are actually somewhat available to buy. I decided to search for pig hearts in Chinatown, since it has the most butchers. I was met with much laughter – which I am still, to this day, replaying in my head in an attempt to work out what was so funny.
Maybe it was the sheer sight of me. Maybe I just didn’t look like the kind of person who fine dines on pig hearts. Or maybe it was my leftover Southern drawl, and the way I pronounced “pig heart.”
- 屁股 (pì gǔ) – This means “butt” or “buttocks.”
- 屁哥 (pì gē) – Could be interpreted as “fart brother.”
I hope that these people find fart jokes equally funny as I do. I felt less like I was being laughed at, more so that at each of these shops I was sharing a collective moment of childish joy with them. Honestly, that day was one of my favorite days of pre-production and I can confidently tell you if you need a pig heart, go to Deluxe Food Market at 79 Elizabeth Street.
The first day on set, my A.D. (one of my close friends) and I argued over who yells “camera speed” and in what sequence we say these sorts of things. I have a photo I took of where she quickly Googled “What does an AD call out during filming?” as everyone stared in confusion at our hesitance to get the ball rolling.
A lot of things went wrong. So much so that there were whispers of a potential curse. The subject matter of the short does lightly poke fun at LaVeyan Satanism and its founder, Anton LaVey. We even have a shot of him where the characters had written “Skank” in red lipstick over a picture of his face. Was this enough to anger some metaphysical being who had it out for me and my micro-budget short? (I won’t go into specifics about the cursed events because I’m enjoying the version you’re now creating in your head of what potentially could have happened.) Just know there were some distant 2 a.m. forest screams.
On the drive back from the shoot, I searched up “podcasts about film sets where things went terribly wrong but somehow the film still turned out good.” We listened to one about The Exorcist. It did comfort me. They had it way worse. Ellen Burstyn lived to tell the tale, obviously, so much so she’s still reciting Shakespeare from memory at the Actor’s Studio at 92.
Nevertheless, for months I mourned the version of the film that had lived inside my head. I replayed what I did wrong over and over again and wallowed in my self-flagellating misery. But at the end of the day? I got the thing done. And as Amanda Kramer once wrote to me:
“i’m a proponent of making and not of dreaming. i love dreams, ha, but moreso i believe we have to manifest our ideas into the art that lasts. so whatever you have, whoever yr with, however you can – make that short. first of all it seems awesome, but beyond that – a pdf becomes meaningless. you deserve to realize the vision and share it with an audience.”
