Our Associate Creative Director Callie Peck always has an exciting project up her sleeve – but this might be her biggest endeavor yet. After a year of collaborating on various projects with her partner (and friend-of-Sideways) Danny Dwyer, the idea for the short film “Two Stories Shy of a High-Rise” was born, and with it, Whitlow Productions. We caught up with Callie and Dwyer to hear just how they did it, and what we can look forward to from them in the future.

Sideways: How did you two come up with the idea for this movie? What was your inspiration?
Callie Peck: We started with the suggestion “Bridge” which is this year’s TropFest signature item. We’re both huge fans of This American Life (but really, who isn’t), and there was an episode that opened with a story of a guy in Chicago who lived under a major drawbridge for three years. We couldn’t get over the visual of a house totally tilting over on its side, so we began to develop a character who might have a different reason to live in a bridge.

Danny Dwyer: It was really fun to play with the theme of a rotating house. So we got to play with each individual object in the house and how it would be affected by the shift. To take it a step further, we also played with the story as an entity—shifting itself—when the bridge tilts. It’s all about story.

Sideways: You spent a month building a mobile set without an engineering background. How did you pull it off?
CP: We have awesome friends. The set plans changed a few times over the course of development, but started out with an amazing plan architected by (Sideways Co-Founder) Nate Catanio that would have given us an Inception-like set (and left us totally broke). But we worked back from there and came up with a pulley rigging and hinged system. There was some math, and a woodworking iPad app, and a lot of wishing. Plus we rented studio space from a bearded genius who checked all of our rigging and welded a few safety locks for us.

DD: I honestly think it had a lot to do with luck. By luck, I mean we were surrounded by such positive people that had SO MUCH to offer. It just became one of those things where we said we had this thing going on, and everybody wanted to be on board; so then we had no choice but to pull it off, or we’d look like a bunch of dreamers. I think that the more people we had coming on board it just inspired us to make it happen. Callie has never built anything more structural than a Lego Key West bungalo and I cheated my way through math—my uncle taught me how to count cards in blackjack but thats about it.

Sideways: What are your plans for the film?
DD: We’ve gone this far I’d like to take it on a little festival tour and meet people, that’s what its all about, meeting people that share the same passions and making cool shit.

Sideways: Do you have any advice for first-time filmmakers?
DD: Never forget why you started, surround yourself with positive people, and the golden rule: it’s all about the story.

Sideways: What’s next on the docket?
CP: We’re developing a few projects right now. A spoof porn site on the “fun and goofy” end of the spectrum, and a feature film on the “serious work” end. Oh, and editing. Also editing.

DD: Yep, we’re going to put this bad boy through post-production and do it all over again.