Finding Your Filmmaking Footing

by Owen Cassidy

Owen Cassidy @owencassidy_ directing on the set of Cadence of Mind

When I started my undergraduate studies at William & Mary as a second-semester sophomore, filmmaking wasn’t initially what I had intended to study. It wasn’t until the fall of my junior year, when I took a class titled “Race and the Supernatural,” that I began to venture into filmmaking seriously. Film was something I had always been interested in, and when considering what minor to pair with my music major, it seemed a natural fit. The subject material of the class I took that fall of my junior year wasn’t what made me get into filmmaking at William & Mary, but rather one person whom I met there, Tatiana Coleman.

As Tatiana and I became friends – a friendship which remains close to my heart now – I learned that she was the founder of an organization known as “WeMake Filmmakers” at the university. I attended a meeting one evening out of interest, and despite initial nervousness at many unfamiliar faces, I ended up staying late and becoming acquainted with the executives. Around Thanksgiving, the club hosted a script showcase, where students in the organization could pitch scripts they had written and hoped to be produced, and fellow students would sign up for roles on the cast or crew. The amazing thing about this was that the student films would be, for the first time ever, screened at William & Mary’s annual film festival, the Ampersand International Arts Festival. I went looking to find some films to compose music for, and after listening to pitches, I was struck by the lead character in Tatiana’s film, Listen (2024). Acting for the screen was something I'd hypothesized as something I could see myself doing, and what better opportunity to try! I signed up, got the part, and also composed the score for the film.

Working on Listen (2024) taught me a great deal about the process. Despite the amateur level and small crew, I “got the bug” when I felt the electricity of a set. It was scary to be a lead actor when I had never done it before, but I enjoyed it, and working with Tatiana as a director was fantastic (it also helps your nerves when your friend is the director). I met Griffin Martin, a good friend who’d become an essential part of Cadence Of Mind (2025). When the film went into post-production, Tatiana and I continued to work closely together as a director and composer. I was very nervous to see people’s reactions to the film at the premiere, especially because I had two areas of investment. It was this initial experience that showed me that, even though the filmmaking community at William & Mary was very small, everyone supported each other and lifted each other up. I have continued to feel this working in film.

Throughout the rest of my junior year, I worked on more films as a production assistant, sound mixer, and second assistant director. At the same time, I was thinking about what I was going to do for my senior project the next year. It was then that I realized I could bring a hypothetical idea to reality: to make my own film and compose the music for it. I would always listen to film scores and classical music, imagining theoretical scenes in my head, but it was never more than that. Now, however, I was given an opportunity to make it happen. This was the beginning of Cadence Of Mind. At the tail end of the year, I worked on another film with Tatiana and Griffin titled Pink Wedge. It was here that I met Andre Nguyen. I was struck by Andre’s knowledge and filmic instincts, and asked him to be the cinematographer on my film.

I wrote Cadence Of Mind in May after my junior year and began producing it independently throughout the rest of the summer. I knew I was going to play the lead in the film, as the story was a personal one, and I knew I could portray the performance I was seeking in my mind. I wanted to direct the project, too, because I had such a clear vision of what I wanted. When the fall semester rolled around again, I had obtained a cast and crew with a finalized production schedule. I then sat down with faculty from the school’s media center to discuss what equipment would be possible to rent – this was the first big hurdle. The university, while having extensive resources in creative learning, lacked production-quality resources in lighting and camera equipment. Andre and I had to source equipment from elsewhere, and this was challenging as our budget was essentially $0. We turned to ShareGrid, a platform where filmmakers can rent equipment for day rates, and we had a stroke of luck when one user made us a generous deal to pay a day rate and keep the equipment for the entirety of the production (around three months).

While that was going on, I had pitched the idea of having the university purchase some C-stands for the film and for future student use, therefore enabling the media center to buy industry-grade lighting equipment and not just small LED panel lights for vlogging. They agreed, and now William & Mary has three C-stands that students can rent for use! Andre purchased some camera equipment out of his own pocket, and with all of that, we had a solid amount of equipment to achieve what we wanted. If there is any part of the process I am proud of the most, it is how much pre-production work we did to achieve a smooth production process at the calibre I wanted, as well as leaving behind tools for future student filmmakers to elevate their productions and learn industry-standard equipment.

As I mentioned earlier, I took on many roles for Cadence Of Mind. Some of those roles I took on out of necessity (writer, producer, composer), but the rest I took on out of curiosity. I was still unsure of what aspect of filmmaking I liked best, so I wanted to take on many different roles and responsibilities at once to educate myself and get a feel for what I liked. It would be a lie to say it wasn’t stressful and intimidating at times, but simultaneously, it gave me the creative control to get a final product I wanted from multiple dimensions. 

Owen working with his crew filming Cadence of Mind

I loved many responsibilities associated with the roles, the most surprising being how much I enjoyed producing. Being able to guide and lead the process from its conception to a final product was something I really enjoyed, and I know now that I want to do that much more. I found the balancing act and self-management of multiple roles, especially between acting and directing, to be challenging. As I was in essentially every scene and we were always tight on time, I wasn’t always able to view footage playback and ensure that the shots were exactly as I had envisioned. I knew this going in, and that was why I was careful to pick a cinematographer I trusted and who I believed understood the vision. I also knew I could trust my assistant directors, Tatiana Coleman and Madeline Burdge, to handle the management of time and crew efficiently. If it had not been for them, the process would have been much more difficult. I am very thankful for their persistence, hard work, dedication, and reliability. I learned a lot, made powerful friendships, brought people together in creativity, and got to do what I love in more than one way.

During the middle of production for Cadence Of Mind, I founded my own production company, Crossed Keys Productions. The company is still very new, but the vision behind it is to bring creatives together from all parts of the production process to produce independent films. My goal is to create an environment where all ideas are welcome, and the company will invest in the ideas of every employee, along with external clientele. I believe that everyone has a story to tell, and I want the company to be a way for those stories to be told. If Crossed Keys Productions can inspire other people to create for themselves and discover self-expression, in whatever way that is, I will consider it a success. I am striving to become a film producer now, and my end goal with the company is to have it one day be a fully functioning production house. 

Tatiana Coleman on the Cadence of Mind set

If there is one big takeaway I have gotten from my time in filmmaking at William & Mary until now, it is how valuable people are. I couldn’t have achieved the creation of my own film alone, and there was an incredible amount of work that went into the project from start to finish that I never saw. I did, and still do not, pretend to know everything about making films, and I view that as a strength – we can always learn more. Finding your filmmaking footing starts with learning from your peers and understanding that, sometimes, the people you work with know more than you. Use that. Ask them questions, build connections, and expand your skillset in more than one area. Film is a labor of love, but as one of my professors and film producer, Milan Chakraborty, always says: persistence over time.

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