The Last Day is a short film that explores the final, chaotic moments before a nuclear attack told through the eyes of regular people, in a regular place, far from the reality that caused it. We follow Samantha, a recent college graduate, heading to her first, real job interview. A brief stop into a convenience store, simply going about her daily routine, changes everything. In an instant, Samantha and the hapless others within the walls of the mundane gas station must grapple with their life decisions when faced with the knowledge that they will die in less than thirty minutes.

The Last Day was written as a film that, in theory, could have been filmed quickly and on a low budget. My intention was to film the project, but in creating the story I took what I thought was a mundane location, a gas station, and realized it’s one of the busiest and worst places to film for someone with a small budget.

I made an attempt to put together the film in the early days of Kickstarter. The process of preparing the film by creating budgets, shooting schedules, and facilitating all below the line production was very educational for me. I got a hand into every aspect of filmmaking apart from the normal creative driven elements. But, above all, I also learned a valuable lesson in financing a film. Crowd funding sounds good in theory but there is an entire marketing and sociological element to it that I didn’t foresee at the time. Now, crowd funding is almost rote, but in those early days it was nebulous and few had the secret to success. In the end the ordeal was more about discovering something about myself. The process forced me out of my childlike notions of filmmaking and artistic creativity in general. I was forced to “grow up.”

Written by Paul Pratt

© 2023 Paul Pratt. All Rights Reserved.

Poster designed from public domain photo of LGM-118A Peacekeeper missile system being tested at the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Image Credits: Gas Station dylanfraley