While studying screenwriting, Catherine Daniels’s professors often advised her to just write and not think about the nuts and bolts of actually producing the project.

The impracticality of that advice came home to her this year, while bringing her short film, Collateral Damage, to life.

In her last semester at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia, her biggest challenge was money.

“Before I entered university, there were realities I did not understand, such as financing a project,” the 28-year-old said.

The college had film equipment for its students to use, so that was covered, but there were still filming permits, locations and crew that needed to be paid for. She also only had a weekend to film.

Collateral Damage is about a young legal assistant, who finds herself at the centre of a high-profile divorce drama after having an affair with one of her clients.

“It is a drama with a bit of comedy,” Ms Daniels said.

She first wrote it while an undergraduate in New York, but was unable to produce it.

“It ended up left on my computer,” she said. She pulled it out again this year when she needed a thesis for her master’s.

She found herself editing her script down to its very essence to make it easier to film in a short time with limited funds.

“I already had the characters honed down,” she said. “Even then I had to take out a part.”

To finance the project, she asked for assistance through an online crowdfunding site, saying: “With your help, this film cannot only reach completion but also make a powerful impact on audiences.”

Ms Daniels put up advertisements for the project, including a QR code that led to the crowdfunding site, in shop windows around Hamilton. She raised $2,565, of her $3,700 goal.

The majority of the money went to the cost of renting locations.

“We had two places,” she said. “Part of it was filmed in an office and the other was done in an Airbnb.”

Even with money coming in through the crowdfunding site, things were not always smooth. For one thing, the timing of funds coming in did not always coincide with when bills needed to be paid. She was on a steep learning curve.

“I had one situation where some people wanted to be paid in cash, but I had already put the money on my credit card,” she said. “It was a bit of a hassle.”

In the end though, she was able to produce her film. The camera work was done over the course of a weekend in October, then editing took several weeks.

She graduated from Savannah a month after finishing filming.

“I’m happy that I was able to see it come to life,” she said, “especially with the resources I had. It was a great learning experience. Looking back at it, I would not change too much.”

Ms Daniels is now looking at putting Collateral Damage on the film festival circuit.

“I would like to get it into the Bermuda International Film Festival,” she said. “They do not seem to be taking submissions right now, though.”

She first became interested in film and television while watching the PBS television show Barney & Friends, about some children and a purple, singing dinosaur (I love you. You love me. We’re a happy family).

At five years old she knew Barney was not real, but was fascinated by the children acting alongside him.

“I thought that was something I wanted to do,” she said.

The show inspired her to try acting and theatre. While a student at Somersfield Academy in Devonshire, she fell in love with movies. She went on to obtain a bachelor’s in film and television at St John’s University in New York, then took her studies to the master’s level at Savannah college.

The competitiveness of Atlanta’s film and television industry surprised her. Although Los Angeles, California, is usually thought of as the film capital of the United States, websites such as Set Hero list Atlanta as first and Los Angeles as second in US film-making, mostly because Georgia has a more affordable cost of living. Television series such as Netflix’s Stranger Things and films such as Guardians of the Galaxy were made there.

“Usually, if you wanted to get into the industry, you would start as a production assistant,” she said. “If you become more familiar with a particular department, you would go in that direction.”

However, she said, Atlanta’s film industry is still reeling from last year’s strike in California involving more than 11,500 screenwriters. The labour unrest brought film production worldwide to a standstill. The strike ended in September 2023, after five months of stand-off, but the industry is still bottlenecked.

“Things are being made more rapidly now,” Ms Daniels said. “Some productions are being dropped while studios give priority to other projects.”

That has not made things easier for people looking to become production assistants.

Instead of throwing herself into the fray, she decided to come back to Bermuda. Her priority now is to write more.

“I also want to finish a project I had planned for Bermuda,” she said. “I might possibly go back to the United States to get into the film market one day. Right now, I am here getting back on my feet, and recovering my finances after being in school for several years.”