Sandburg grad teams with Chicago theater pals in LA
Their short film project, ‘Back Home,’ tells family saga
On June 1, Southland native David Cameli and some colleagues gave themselves one month to raise $7,000 through a crowdfunding campaign to get them across the finish line of a short film project. Never having raised money that way, Cameli said they had no idea what to expect.
They raised the $7,000 needed for their project and more, in just three days.
“It’s huge,” Cameli said. “To not only have hit the amount we set but to have done it so quickly was really inspiring and made us feel really loved and supported by our friends and family and the people who were rooting for us to get this done. It meant a lot.”
Cameli, 32, grew up in Tinley Park and Orland Park. He graduated from Sandburg High School in 2008, went to Indiana University then pursued acting through plays and short films in Chicago.
“It felt like we got to a point in Chicago where to take the next step we needed to move out west,” Cameli said, so he and his wife made the jump to Los Angeles in 2019.
Jeremy Schaye, a friend from Chicago’s acting community came to visit. The two started to talk about collaborating and workshopped ideas, and they realized they each had family members affected by multiple sclerosis.
That was the seed for their film, “Back Home,” which they started to explore “on and off,” Cameli said. Schaye ended up moving to Los Angeles, too, as did a third friend, Bailey Castle.
“We thought it would be so much fun to collaborate, the three of us, again,” Cameli said. “We had never done it in this form.”
This past winter, they started devoting a significant amount of time to “Back Home.” The film tells the fictional story of two estranged siblings who have one parent with a chronic illness. When their other parent dies, the siblings are forced to navigate the situation. Cameli said having a personal connection to someone with a chronic illness made that a “scary” story to write, but he hopes his experience adds truth to his work and will enable viewers to connect with “Back Home.”
The short film was self-funded and filmed in April, but they needed money for postproduction, said Cameli, who cowrote and co-stars in the film with Schaye. Castle is the film’s director.
“Even though it’s a short film, those can add up — things like editors, sound, having some music composed for the film,” he said. “Then, there’s festival submissions.”
Festivals are one of the main outlets for short films after they are completed but come with entry fees and other costs. Cameli said many fests only want films that have not yet premiered publicly, so the trio is hoping to exhaust those options before pursuing a wider release. The plan is to have the film done by August, and Cameli said they will continue to update backers and social media followers on its progress, and how they can see it down the road.
While fully funded, Cameli said people can continue to donate until the campaign is over at the beginning of July. Any additional funds will help to cover cost overruns as well as go toward a hopeful Los Angeles premiere.
Making a short film on a small budget necessitated that the trio wear a number of hats to get it done. In Cameli’s case,
that meant being an actor, producer and writer all in one. His degree from Indiana’s Kelley School of Business is in finance and he said he has “a little bit of a business mind.”
“The producing aspect definitely interests me from that angle,” Cameli said. “I consider myself an actor first. I’m a writer by necessity, at least at the moment. It arose out of that situation actors get in where you’re looking for work maybe you’re not getting offered to you, so you opt to create your own work.”
Short films, which typically have smaller budgets, were also a medium of necessity for the trio. But it is also one Cameli has enjoyed exploring.
“Since this film, I’ve really grown to appreciate it as its own independent art form where I can see myself continuing short films, even as other opportunities present themselves,” Cameli said. “It forces you to be succinct, because you don’t have a lot of time to tell your story. You have to be very purposeful in what dialogue you write or in what scenes you include. That can really help you grow as an artist, an actor.”
While he hopes his future lies in film, Cameli said he may still explore some live theater, too. The Los Angeles scene is “pretty lively” now that things are reopening, he said.
But for now, Cameli and his fellow transplants are looking forward to finishing “Back Home” on their own terms.
“We’re really proud of this film,” Cameli said. “We worked really hard on it.”