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LA Shorts: Filmmaker Erin Gavin explores Love and Video Games with “Gaming For Love” — See it July 22

“Gaming for Love” is a poignant narrative inspired by true events which follows the journey of Maisie, a young girl battling cancer, as she finds solace and strength in the world of online gaming.

“Gaming For Love” screens at LA Shorts Monday July 22.

Erin Gavin’s career has spanned over motion pictures, television series, theatrical
productions, print and live-action commercials.

Erin’s other film credits include “Dread”, “The Last Investigation”, “Junk,” and most recently played the Iconic star Marilyn Monroe in a hit stage production.
Erin signed with Serdica Record (Classical contemporary) label and her first song ‘I’m through with love’ has been a global success.

“Gaming for Love” Filmmaker Erin Gavin

Through themes of love, sacrifice, and the power of human connection, “Gaming for Love” beautifully illustrates the profound influence of gaming in Maisie’s life and the bonds forged beyond the confines of the digital realm.

Today’s conversation with Erin Gavin from “Gaming For Love” has been edited for length and clarity.  For the full, un-edited conversation, visit our YouTube channel here.

Joe Winger:

We are back today with Erin Gavin, the writer, producer, and director of short film Gaming for Love. Erin, thanks for joining us today.

Erin Gavin:

Thanks for having me. This is brilliant, Joe. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Joe Winger:

My pleasure. I’m looking forward to learning more about you and sharing your message with the audience today.

You direct, you produced, you wrote this; and it’s a very powerful short film Gaming for Love. What’s the most important message you want to share with our audience today?

Erin Gavin:

So for me, the reason I wanted to tell this story is because it’s loosely based on true events. I felt this wave of emotion come over me when I was reading this article and I thought, what an amazing, powerful real loving story.

I just felt compelled to tell it.

From that thought to where we are today feels absolutely incredible. So I’m very grateful.

Joe Winger:

You’ve done a lot of prolific work, both in front of the camera and behind the camera. On stage, on screen, with music.

What inspired you to choose this project next for you?

Erin Gavin:

Other filmmakers will probably relate to this. But it just felt right. There was no part of me that was hesitant not tell this story. Every part of me just said that’s it. This is the story. This is what I’m doing. It’s happening. That was really it. There was no ifs, and’s, but’s, maybe’s about it.

Joe Winger:

That’s very courageous. We often hear so much glamour about Hollywood. But behind the scenes, the production itself isn’t always so easy.

So without giving away any plots or any spoilers, what was one of the biggest challenges of your production? And how did you solve that challenge?

Erin Gavin:

One was the budget.

So in order to make a movie, as we know, we need money. So I literally I thought, I need to ask for help here, which is something I’m not very good at doing in terms of asking people to put together a GoFundMe and let’s do this.

That was a challenge for me to swallow my pride and be like I need to help.

It was amazing how many people came together and just wanted to help. It honestly made me well up and just feel so appreciative of everybody and everyone’s support.

The other challenge was to get crew together. So I was really lucky. I partnered with a company called Up Next studios.

We had a lot of help.  People were just coming on board and helping, but naturally, sometimes people fall off and then you have to get somebody else in. That can be challenging in the final days, when someone drops out two days, I didn’t have too much of that, but it worked out in the end and who was meant to be on the movie was on the movie.

Joe Winger:

That’s a great way of thinking about it. Just to detail that out a little bit more, where, location-wise, where on the globe were you shooting?

Erin Gavin:

It was all shot in Scotland.  I wrote it the second week in January, and we had the first cut by end of February.

So it was really rushed, really quick and really intense. We had to find locations really quick and we had to really narrow down those locations. I was in Scotland, so it made sense to just let’s roll. I was really lucky with the locations. I had friends just pull in together and be like, You can shoot here.”

So it all worked out really well.

Joe Winger:

How many days of production?

Erin Gavin:

Three days.

Joe Winger:

Three days in Scotland. You shot about a month and a half after you wrote it, is that more or less right?

Erin Gavin:

After I wrote it, I had about 3-4 weeks to pull all the crew together, locations together, everything together.

It was intense.

Then three days of shooting and then editing.  Obviously the final cuts and then putting the music together.

But I’m really thankful for the team.  Without the team, this would not be possible, and everybody’s support, it wouldn’t be possible.

Joe Winger:

Just going a little deeper on what you just said a second ago, two things to think about.

Number one, a lot of the people that are watching this interview right now have never been on a production set. The closest they’ve been is the movie theater.

Second thing is how many people out there, they’ve written something. But they may not have the courage or the audacity to actually get out there and shoot it, or as you brought up, to go out there and raise money because it costs money to do these things.

Do you have any advice or inspiration for someone out there who wants to be doing what you just accomplished, and they’re scared, hesitant, or nervously excited?

Erin Gavin:

I think you have to be very vulnerable. You have to put ego aside and let people read your script,  polish it, get advice on it, make sure it’s as solid as it can be.

That’s hard to do when you pour your heart into this piece and you obviously this piece of paper has everything that you’ve just poured out onto it.

Then to give that [heartfelt script] to someone to be super critical is really hard, but that’s the first step and make sure it’s as good as it can be.

I would say community is key.

So perhaps maybe look at how you can narrow it down budget wise. So that’s your locations. Everything that costs money.  And ask for help.  Build that community.  G to your local drama schools, go to your local film schools.

People want to film.  People in the creative world, they want to be doing something.

So people do want to help. That’s what I would say, [at] home and in your community, ask for help, get the script solid. That would be the first two key things to be doing.

Joe Winger:

Good advice.

The title Gaming for Love, gaming is a big theme of the story.

I’d love to believe everybody in the world knows what gaming means. But just in case, can you tell us what gaming means?

What message do you hope the gaming community receives when they see the short film?

Erin Gavin:

We’re talking about computer gaming and [my short film] doesn’t shine it in a negative light.

I actually spoke to somebody last night who’s in the gaming world, for all the major companies and does computer programming in terms of the creative side of things.  He said, they would love this story because it shows that this can help people in certain ways. It also has a community to it as well. Like most things in life have some negatives and some positives and everybody has their own opinion, right?

But for this shines it in a light that is true in terms of belonging to this story and how it helps someone.

Joe Winger:

That’s beautiful.

Erin Gavin:

Yeah, certainly this one has a twist at the end.

So I hope the viewers get to watch it and they’ll see exactly what I mean.

I also created a song about gaming which is also very true. A lot of gamers who have heard the song [feel] it’s so relatable.

Joe Winger:

Let’s talk about the cast.  The performances are subtle and thoughtful and deep.  I was surprised how much I was feeling in such a short period of time.

How did you find your cast? Any favorite moment that really stands out with you?

Erin Gavin:

I love that you felt that. We were really lucky because we just gelled and it made sense and it worked and not a lot of movies have that luck.

I reached out to a Gent who owns a theater school in Scotland. I said I need a young girl for one of the leads.

He happened to also have a Gent who teaches at the school who would’ve been the perfect, and he’d also been in like big shows like Outlander and whatnot.

So I thought, okay, he can act. I checked him out. He’s good. And she was great. And that all came from a gent called Rhys Donnelly who helped me with the casting. And also I reached out to a friend of mine who plays one of the other parts. Who I know is a great actor, Paul Donnelly, and he’s been in Outlander and a bunch of stuff.

So it, again, it was just a community aspect. It’s Oh, who knows who, and who can, how can I connect this and make this all work? And that’s how it happened.

Joe Winger:

What I love about what you just said is we are talking about the plot and the story and the gaming community earlier. You’re talking about the community behind the scenes of production.

I feel like whether it’s deliberate or not. You just found all these different communities to work together to highlight other communities, really a community effort in front of the scene, behind the scenes, in the story, all over the place.

Joe Winger:

Our audience knows we talk usually with chefs and winemakers and mixologists.

We’re talking about food and drink and travel. This topic is a little bit not what we usually talk about, but if you don’t mind, can we talk about food and flavor for a minute with you? Is that okay?

Erin Gavin:

Sure. All right.

Joe Winger:

You probably eat very healthy is my guess, but I could be wrong.

But when you’re indulgent, When you’re looking for flavor. What’s your favorite or what’s it? What’s a good guilty pleasure for you or what’s one of your favorite food and drink pairings?

Erin Gavin:

Being from Scotland, right? I was, Oh, have you tried haggis? Yeah, of course I tried haggis, but haggis is Most things in life, if it’s made well and it’s done it’s really good.

But it can also be the opposite, but I have to say, I do actually love haggis. But now I don’t really eat meat so much. But they do a really good like vegetarian option these days. So when I’m home, especially around Christmas time that would be my sort of go to but to pair with it, I’m going to be really sad here.

I like to drink milk with it. Most people like, yeah, this wine from this region. I’m like, nope, just milk. But but that’s when I go to at home. So when I’m in LA I actually, we like in LA, we have the best sushi. most extending sushi [00:13:00] restaurants. So sushi would be my go to when I’m in LA and definitely sake.

Joe Winger:

What’s the taste profile of haggis? What’s what’s it similar to?

What’s the aroma? What are we tasting? Will you take a bite?

Erin Gavin:

There’s another drink in Scotland. Sometimes I like to have Irn Bru with haggis. It sounds disgusting to a lot of people, but I like it. So it’s just like Irn Bro and haggis.

It’s an acquired taste.

Joe Winger:

Erin, what’s the best way to follow you and learn more about the short film, whether it’s a website, social media, something else, what’s the best way to follow your film festival journey and just what you’re up to with you yourself.

Erin Gavin:

Erin Gavin:

Oh, I appreciate that. On most of the social medias Erin Gavin Artist, like Instagram,  Twitter and Facebook, TikTok.

Gaming For Love has its own pages on Facebook and Instagram.

It’s screening 22nd of July at 1pm at LA Shorts in Los Angeles.