originally published on Medium

I’m on a mission to make 12 short films in 2021.

My name is Nancy Pop; I’m an actress and filmmaker based in New York City. I have been creating digital content, film, and theater for the past 7 years both in house and as a freelancer in various capacities: writing, directing, producing, acting, and modeling. A few of those years, I struggled to make ends meet and supplemented my income by working in bars and nightclubs, bringing home shitty rolled up tips at 4am and wondering when my career would begin. Others were more rewarding as I had opportunities to work with celebrity clients and large networks, developing talent and even dabbling in stand up for a bit. Prior to the pandemic, I was on what felt like a pivotal career upswing; my feature film directorial debut was getting ready to be released and I was about to produce and star in my first Off-Broadway play. 2020 was going to be my year bitch!!!!!

I was in major denial about the state of the world for the first month of Covid, happily using my newfound funemployment and free time to write, paint, and inhale edibles like it was Midol. I documented my creative musings on Instagram and connected with other creatives through webinars hosted by Seed&Spark, Sundance Institute, and independent filmmakers. I eagerly waited for the flashing headline “Hey Everyone JK About Like, Everything — You Can All Go Back To Your Mediocre Lives Now” but it didn’t come. After four weeks of living in my parents’ guest bedroom (wearing clothes from high school as I hadn’t packed to be there for more than a week), I cracked. I bleached my eyebrows, cut my bangs, and quickly put on the Covid 25. A bitter depression followed that lasted through the rest of the spring and summer; I’m sure many people can relate.

In May I decided that I needed to quit chain smoking menthols and drinking martinis at 11am with my mother. By day I was a budding alcoholic, and by night I was hosting a cooking show on Instagram Live fondly titled “The Slutty Vegetarian”. The lies needed to end! I hate vodka and I’m a pescatarian! The first step was getting back to New York. I knew nothing was happening in the city and there would be no work for me, but I didn’t care. The cheapest car I could find was a 26-foot box truck with a trailer attached to the back that I got from a guy named Rick in Rogers, AR for 300 bucks so long as I got it off his damn property. It’s taking up too much space, he explained, why don’t we help each other out? Hot.

the calm before the storm, posing with my pussy wagon

That morning it was storming in Bentonville. I don’t know how hail makes its way into Northwest Arkansas in the middle of May; I reckon it was a corporate-funded initiative to keep everyone inside. My parents and their friendly neighbor helped me load in a 20-year-old mattress, coffee table, and small dresser into the back of the truck. Chips Ahoy! I thought, and set sail for the Big, Dying Apple. Exactly twenty-four hours later I pulled up to my studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen with still-bleached eyebrows and a dream.

Despite this thrilling quest and being back in the city, I still struggled to cope. It seemed the world was burning all around us; people were dying, protests rang through the streets, social media divided us into our echo chambers, and we had nothing to do but sit around and be angry. I started gardening and most nights didn’t sleep.

After a few months, I went back to Arkansas to see my family for my birthday. A close friend got laid off during my return and I decided to purchase a shitty car so we could roadtrip around the country to give us something to do. We made stops in Atlanta, North Carolina, and Virginia, took a boat ride from Delaware into New Jersey before driving into the city and tripping on shrooms in Chinatown. It felt thrilling and reckless and at one point in Atlanta I almost broke my leg crashing a bike on a speed bump after one too many margaritas. But it just felt good to feel something again even if it was a pool of blood gushing down my leg and raw flesh on the palm of my hands. A spark lit up within me for the first time since April and I needed to keep the party going.

A short film I co-wrote, co-directed, and acted in on March 13th, 2020

Shortly after their visit, I received a text from someone I met at an internship my first year in NYC: hey do you know any Covid Compliance Officers??? I have a shoot coming up!

I had seen posts about this position going up in several film forums but knew nothing about it. I did a little research, signed up for the training, and responded, YES! ME!!! Two weeks later I was religiously sanitizing, checking temperatures, and enforcing social distancing on a commercial set. It wasn’t the glamorous, creative work I was used to doing, but it gave oxygen to that spark and I was happy — happy to safely connect with people again, happy to make a little bit of money, happy to help make something possible. I continued working as a CCO on a few independent films following this experience and realized that I could pick up where I left off in March if I focused on pulling myself out of the mental fog and made a plan.

Over the next few months I started a YouTube channel, began working as a development assistant for a filmmaker I had long admired, and got to work on new scripts and old. My CCO gig on that first shoot then turned into a freelance assistant gig to the senior creative producer, and now I’m an Associate Producer for the company. I’m absolutely in love with what I do (producing commercials and digital content for a company whose values I align with!)

As 2020 came to a close it was time to plan my next move, but I wanted to consciously challenge myself and not just fly by the seat of my pants hoping sprinkles of good fortune would continue falling into my lap. Like many people my age, the idea of grad school looked cute as a means towards stability and career prospects. I revisited the idea time and time again for several months. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t for me; I was a terrible student in college, getting by on half-assed work while I eagerly pursued internships, jobs, auditions, and partied like a bimbo. Still, the question tugged at me from the moment I first returned to NYC as I saw my career at the mercy of the pandemic’s effect on the film industry and economy.

What are the benefits to grad school? What would I even study? The answers were pretty obvious:

expand my network and portfolio
challenge myself
continue my education
I don’t know, maybe philosophy or writing? Filmmaking? Acting? Shit… Maybe I should become a trucker instead, I have a resume now…

During my many road trips through 2020 I listened to several podcasts while passing through West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri… my favorite one that I never tired of was Show Don’t Tell: Microbudget Filmmaking with Noam Kroll. I loved hearing the stories of filmmakers pulling off the incredible & seemingly impossible: making a feature film with $1,200 and iPhones instead of lavaliers, breaking through with a 3-minute short film, editing tips from Richard and Colleen Halsey, and more. I loved hearing where others failed and how they triumphed despite all odds. I admired the grit and passion behind their stories and wanted so desperately to have my own.

I can’t say which drive it was on but the idea just came to me: I’m not going to go to grad school. I’m going to make 12 short films in 2021, one each month. I’m going to call it “The 12-21 Film Challenge”. Rather than wasting $40,000 at a school I have no enthusiasm about getting into, I’m going to put every extra penny towards independent study and how-you-say, get my shit together. I won’t have a fancy certificate to prove I did it, but I’ll have 12 short films that demonstrate my skill and can be pitched as features and series.

Yeah… *rubs palms together*… and I’m going to do something different with each one… AND! I’m going to work with different people and put together different budgets and work with new genres and put my abilities to the test. If I have a seemingly “impossible” idea, I’m going to find a way. I’m going to pave my path. Maybe I’ll even DP one as like, a “final” or something… I’ll be my own professor and I’ll be so laser focused I might even quit smoking.

And I’m going to hire a fucking Covid Compliance Officer for each one, because I’m tired of doing it.

Check back soon for details about my January short, “METALMAN THE CATHARSIS PRINCE”

How 2020 Became the Year I Didn't Go To Grad School (again)

I’m on a mission to make 12 short films in 2021.