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PARK CITY, Utah — Writer and director Chelsea Christer wanted to make something fast.

Her 2024 short film, “Holding on Forever,” played at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California, with a budget of just about $15,000. On the other hand, her 2020 feature documentary, “Bleeding Audio,” about the rock band The Matches, took six years to make and two years to distribute.

Christer wanted to make a film while avoiding the less glamorous sides of show business, like fundraising and budgeting. For her new short film, “Out for Delivery,” which will debut at the second Short Film Program at the Sundance Film Festival, she wanted something more spontaneous.

“I just want to do the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing for my whole personal film career,” Christer said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Orange. “I just want to go fast, get it done, and try to be as instinctual as possible.”

Christer got her wish; shooting the film took place over just two days. In about 48 hours, she and her crew shot 17 pages worth of script. “Out for Delivery” stars Deanna Rooney and Martin Starr, of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and “Freaks and Geeks,” in a story about a terminally ill woman, Joanna, trying to die on her own terms via the Death with Dignity Act, only to find the delivery for her death medication has become increasingly complicated as the order gets delayed and shipped incorrectly.

The collaboration between Rooney and Christer started in late 2022 when friends suggested they meet for coffee. When they hit it off, Christer and Rooney looked for a project to work on together. In fact, Christer said Rooney was potentially going to co-write the film with her, but that fell through in early 2024. Still, Christer got to writing and specifically wrote the lead for Rooney.

In the short film, Christer synthesizes dark irony and existentialism to poke holes in the modern gig economy and expand on her own interests in the financial and cultural systems that govern our world today.

Christer believes many of the technologies that make life more convenient — like the online delivery services that bring Joanna her death pill — conversely make human connection more strained and cumbersome. With the film’s shooting done so quickly, Christer said her fellow crew and cast members had to stick together, an apt contrast to the conditions the main character finds herself in.

“It was a true community rallying effort,” Christer said of her collaborators. “It just felt cosmic. It was this beautiful symphony of everyone chipping in and coming together to make it happen.”

Courtesy of Cher Culver

Writer and director Chelsea Christer shot her upcoming short film, “Out for Delivery,” over the course of two days. Christer focuses on technological and cultural systems in her work.

After Christer received Starr’s availability last spring, she and the rest of her production team had to then hire a crew and plan the set decorations, wardrobe, shooting schedule, cars and decals in just nine days. On top of that, the film was done without a set budget, so everything was paid for at cost — in other words, if they needed it, they bought it.

The burst of creativity, especially on a time crunch, was precise, as the crew scheduled and shot “within an inch of its life,” Christer said. The director noted she and the crew knew precisely which shots were necessary. But being on this set was also a learning experience for her, especially since she had never thought or worried about credit sequences on a project before.

The final credit sequence features Starr’s character, Mark, a go-to funeral and morgue official for the death pill company, carrying Rooney’s character’s body uncomfortably and comedically to the back of his car. Christer said Rooney, who recently had experience in clown work and physically uncomfortable performances, pitched the idea and was interested in playing dead in an ironic and slapstick-esque endnote.

“It just blossomed,” Christer said. “And we’re gonna keep writing together. But I wanted to give them a starring moment and see how we did together in that capacity. And it was magic.”

Christer said the whole experience on set felt like a culmination of her career and all the projects she’s worked on, especially thematically. Most of the 16-minute runtime emphasizes technological systems and inconveniences, making the film all too reminiscent of a DoorDash order gone wrong.

“Out for Delivery” feels like a total subversion of that focus, especially with one of the final shots of the film depicting Rooney’s character looking at a leaf immediately after swallowing the death pill. With much of the runtime commenting on technology in today’s world, Christer felt it best to include a reminder for herself and the audience.

“To me, peace is recognizing our place within our environment and our Earth,” Christer said. “So it was meant to be this departure from everything else that didn’t have technology. Just to be peaceful on the planet.”

Published on January 23, 2025 at 8:46 pm

Contact Henry: henrywobrien1123@gmail.com