Indie Film Craft 2 | Trey Edward Shults on Working With The Weeknd, The Role Of The Camera & Vulnerable Storytelling

The Screenwriting Life with Meg LeFauve and Lorien McKenna

Meg LeFauve & Lorien McKenna

Tv & Film

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

JOIN TSL WORKSHOPS: https://tslwokshops.circle.so Trey Edward Shults is an inspiration to directors everywhere — including Jeff. His debut feature, KRISHA, was a no-name psychological drama shot in his own home on a shoestring budget under $30K. Against all odds, it won SXSW, screened at Cannes, and eventually sold to A24. KRISHA stands as a beacon for anyone looking to make a personal, ambitious feature with limited resources. Now Trey is collaborating with The Weeknd, and even though their new film HURRY UP TOMORROW feels bigger in scale, Trey's storytelling ethos remains unchanged: center the character, prioritize emotion, and use the camera as a tool to highlight the story — not to distract from it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Indie Filmcraft. I'm your host, Jeffrey Crane Graham, and if you're new here,
0:09.4	maybe finding the show through today's episode, we're a spinoff of the Screenwriting Life
0:12.7	Podcast, which I co-produced with Meglophove and Lorraine McKenna. I'm also a working filmmaker.
0:17.5	I recently sold my debut feature, Always Lola, which I wrote and directed, and which, more importantly, is partially inspired by today's guest, Trey Edward Schultz, a filmmaker whose work I've admired for nearly a decade.
0:27.6	Trey's really shaped the way I think about filmmaking.
0:30.6	I saw his debut, Cretia, when I was just starting out, and the movie was actually a really important tool for me as I assembled my own production. I teach a class on micro budget filmmaking,
0:38.7	and I actually assign Kresha to my students
0:40.9	to model how they can create a personal story
0:43.2	with sharp directorial intention on a budget.
0:45.5	So it's really meaningful for me to get to chat with Trey today.
0:47.8	I love his work.
0:48.9	His newest film, a collaboration with the weekend,
0:50.7	is called Hurry Up Tomorrow, and it drops in theaters tomorrow
0:53.2	May 16th, how hypropos.
0:55.0	To contextualize this conversation, Lionsgate sent me a 25-minute mood reel, so I still haven't
0:59.0	seen the full thing, but what I saw offers a compelling glimpse into what has made Trey's
1:04.0	work so fascinating to me over the years, impressionistic and emotionally intense storytelling
1:08.0	told through the camera.
1:10.0	So in this conversation, we'll talk about Hurry Up tomorrow,
1:12.6	but we'll also zoom out to explore how Trey builds his films from the ground up,
1:16.4	even when working with low five-figure budgets like he did with Kretia,
1:19.9	which I know will be useful to listeners.
	...

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