Slipper Cinema
Why can't cinema-making feel more like being at the SPA?!
I would like to propose an idea to you: What if making cinema felt as enjoyable and restful as being at the spa?!
Ask anyone: The first thing I do, when I arrive somewhere new is take off my shoes, pull out my phone and map out the best whiskey bars, specialty food spots and used bookstores. It helps that the narrative around most of the film projects I work on, seem to center around people who would do the same. It certainly makes for great character development and a helpful tax write-off.
I recently acted in and produced a no-budget (…okay under $5k) feature film in Denton, Texas. We shot the film in a rental house in 6 days, on an Iphone 16/17. The film features a cast of three (me, being one of them), under the direction and lens of my buddy Joshua Labure (“In a good Way”, “Twenties”). We have had long talks about this film for a few months now and flew in from various ends of the country, one actress came from LA and I, from New York. Josh is based in Omaha. We approached the details with an open mind and a desire to discover something unexpected excavated from our collective unconscious. There is something about gathering in a new place with new friends, that awakens the creative soul. The “creative bubble” blossoms from a simple desire to just make some weirdo art together. After a productive but not exhausting week, I’m happy to report that the future of indie or NonDē or arthouse or mumblecore or no-budge or DIY or Punk Rock filmmaking…is alive and well. And for the purpose of this exploration, we are calling our process, SLIPPER CINEMA….let me explain:
The purpose or loose (see: malleable) definition of Slipper cinema is a filmmaking process in which, in theory, could be done whilst wearing cozy slippers. Now, I’ll let the collegiate types debate this, but for my money, it’s a worthwhile pursuit. And I think I can defend my thesis here, when I say: Good cinema doesn’t (necessarily) need to be hard to make. We have 5 basic tactics we use, to make this kind of cinema.
Find a cute rental in a new town you want to explore.
There is something about working in a new town, that creates an ideal bubble to feel just a touch more alive and creatively charged. What may seem mundane or routine to a local, has an elevated sense of creative potential for us. Though most of our scenes in this new film, lived inside our humble rental house, it was our daily lunch excursions to some of Denton’s international culinary offerings, that ignited the strongest ideas, sense of purpose and generated the right amount of re-set to keep the interior work meaningful. And yes, I mean interior work, both ways. The rental needs to suit your story, but since we were also living there together, it needed to fit our needs and prioritize creature comforts. We didn’t need to shack up just to save money, we wanted to go to film camp together!
Slow Mornings.
I respect anyone who knows their own sleep cycle and maintains a healthy bed time but when you are at film camp…you may intend to go to bed early or “on time” for an early start the next day but guess what? THE CAMPERS ARE IN CHARGE NOW…and you may stay up later than expected, sipping whiskey, organizing (even editing!) daily footage and probably watch one or two too many of each others old films. So I just want to saw that it’s okay to start at 10am and go slow. We started each day of this film with an intentional hour of sipping great coffee together (Thanks to Joshua) and talking through our scenes, our ideas, our nightly dreams and what we wanted to eat later! In between things, we listened to ambient music. The SETting of your SET matters. We went for brisk but warm walks after lunch and made sure to end our days before dinner time. So we could unwind together…and yes, chase whiskey at local spots. The ride home from dinner always required old punk songs. Immersing ourselves in the experience of just BEING THERE, present in the reality of our creative bubble gave us a higher purpose. We made a film that required us to soak in the life of our characters and without being wildly method, live a little tiny bit of our film’s story in real time. Being present for your art, in an intentional ways, makes it more about your actual human experience and less about a final result. I used to swear by the idiom “The audience won’t see your process, only your results”…But I was wrong. The process IS the film. So enjoy a slow morning. Don’t move fast and break things. Get cozy with your ideas!
Improvise based on an outline.
It is my opinion that what happens in and around the set with the cast and crew will always show up in the fabric of your film. So being mindful of what stories or moments or characters arc are emerging as you work through the material with real people who have real lives, could take your film to new places. And one once you’ve gotten into a creative groove, improvising can be a cool way to integrate a deeper sense of authenticity to your story. I find that improvising based of a loose outline or a more detailed script-ment keeps everyone listening a little deeper and more likely to comfortably pivot a scene in an unexpectedly profound way, even if its a simple story beat or transitional moment. But also provides a road map or an easier answer to: What comes next?! It’s always nice to save room for dreaming. I also believe there is a deeper connection that gets created between storytellers, cast members etc, when you are able to pull from depths of your own life or at least stretch your imagination beyond the script, to dig into human experience you are having and bring it to the table. Real stories will always feel better than plot-heavy dialogue or calculated, well articulated scripted monologues. That said, WE LOVE WRITERS and bless a beautiful script…but in slipper cinema, we want to work at the pace of our imaginations and not burden ourselves with the dead-letter-perfect approach to screenplay-centered filmmaking.
Limit your gear to the bare necessities.
I think there is this idea that good art has to be hard or at least HEAVY. Now I don’t intend to dismiss the rigor of making cinema, which historically has long days, exhaustive ideations and weighty equipment but what if we imagined a world in which we could actually make beautiful things with more intentional ease? Less burden on our backs? But with the same cinematic backbone of our mentors. We want to make beautiful films, yes, but let’s face it, we don’t have A24 money (We can say that now!) and we LOVE Hong Sang-Soo, so we aspire to make things beautiful but in a simplified way. Now I’ve utilized the Iphone in many of my projects, especially the hybrid-meta ones like Ex Ex Ex and Ice Saints but in the context of a persona camera or something with a distinct self-pov. It creates a sort of digital-social cinematic language that we recognize as modern. Now this idea of shooting an entire film in a formal way, using an iphone camera attached to a moment super cage and being monitored and operated remotely from an Ipad using the blackmagic camera app, was very exciting. The burden of gear was suddenly erased by tech we are mostly already using on a daily basis. It’s such a simple set-up, that we could take it out into the world without causing a whole lot of extra attention…”stealing” shots became as easy as capturing daily life but shot in log with Apple Pro HQ in 4:3 Open Gate. Suddenly everywhere we looked, we saw CINEMA.
Wear your own slippers!
Now, when I work as a cinematographer or as the director and we are filming in a lived-in space like someones home or business, we usually issue a shoes-off policy but I’ve made it a regular practice to bring my own indoor arch-supporting shoes….like slippers…to not crush my feet all day. So for what it’s worth, slipper cinema is not just about a philosophy but has a practical application too. Since, as I mentioned, most of our scenes were indoors and the work was emotionally complicated…it felt nice to be comfortable. Of course, not everyone packed slippers…but the symbolic approach made this shoot especially lovely. Between slippers, good coffee and ambient music, all in a aesthetically enjoyable setting, we had embedded a meaningful sense of Hygge to the whole production.
There is a lot of hubbub written about content creators vs filmmakers and in 2026, it’s exciting to see the bridge between those visual languages finally colliding in a way that has philosophical depth and intellectual weight along side their shared tools. Something new or hybrid is emerging and at it’s core, characters are centered and story has the power to break through the noise. The noise? The hubbub: That's all just advertising. I’m talking about good old darn cinema-making here. And I think folks are making it. Both on Youtube and for microcinemas, film festivals and even streamers EVERY SINGLE DAY. The crushing weight of “content” is actually creating a gravitational inversion…what was being pulled backed to earth is now expanding our universe. What creative person wants to be anchored to a rock flying around in the dark abyss, any way?!
So if you need to wear sturdy boots to make your film or slippers will suffice, I’d recommend comfy shoes either way. It’s going to be a long day and food is on it’s way. Probably running a little late but now you can sneak in that shot you just thought of! Dream big. Eat Ice Cream Sundays. Quit making your masterpiece and make your damn movie.
Viva La Slipper Cinema!