Better Love

A short film by Thomas W. Campbell

2024 is the 10th anniversary for my film Better Love (Through Surveillance). There is a link to watch the short film for free at the bottom of this page.

Better Love is a short New York comedy about surveillance, suspicion, and knowing (or not knowing) what one wants in a relationship. Madeline (Marianne Hettinger) has been screwed in past relationships so is determined to help other women. It’s a business, and she expects to turn a profit. With a right hand girl to handle the tech side side of marital surveillance (Carrie, played by Abby Lee) and a client named Stephanie (played by Cheryl Horne) who is confused just enough to follow along with her plan, things seem to be falling into place.

Madeline sets up a series of tests in Central Park for Dennis (Stephanie’s husband), who encounters scenarios placed along the path he takes for his weekly walk designed to test his character and faithfulness. But the best strategical plans can be no match for the chaos of the city and Madeline soon learns that being a cyber-sleuth is more complicated and dangerous that she could ever have imagined.

The idea for the short film – originally called Better Love through Surveillance (BLTS) – came from the necessity to write a script that would lend itself to shooting in the city, ideally in the neighborhood of the upper west side. The desire was to write a comedy about what has become a quite serious subject. The story brings together many potentially dangerous and troubling ideas – a jealous wife, cutting edge technology, private investigation, eavesdropping/spying, crime and maybe punishment.

The comedy comes, I think, from seeing how far characters will go to get what they may (or may not) want, the joy of dialogue and performance, the way that love can creep into work (or vise versa). The story was designed to have fun with, to give the actors and crew chances to stretch and improvise, and to be created with ingenuity and inexpensive digital equipment.

We shot on a number of digital formats, mostly on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera utilizing the uncompressed RAW format (DNG in BM terms). But we also shot much of the interaction between Dennis the husband and the actors he encounters with subjective HD GoPro cameras and there are even a few shots during the Thoth performance scene that we captured with an iPhone and a 10X long lens.

Post production was a longer process than I thought it would be – but life has its interruptions, good and bad, and mine have all been mostly good. And the process of originating in Cinema RAW files and figuring a path to final output has been as tricky as I imagined it would be. But that’s a tech story and needn’t be told here…

There are three edits of the film – I shortened it over time to try to fit the whims of film and video festivals. The first edit was 34 minutes, the second around 29 minutes and the third just under 20 minutes. Instinct tells me the middle length version is the best so that is the one I am screening.

Watch the film for free by clicking below:

Better Love credits

Producers

Arnold C Baker II
Thomas W. Campbell

Writer and Director

Thomas W. Campbell

Cinematography

Antoine Themistocleous

Featured Cast:

Dennis – Arnold C. Baker II
Madeline – Marianne Hettinger
Jack – Jay Frisch

Stephanie – Cheryl Horne
Carrie (Tech Girl) – Abby Lee
Singer / “Bag ThisLady” – Charlotte Schioller
Bike Buy / Beggar – William Thomas
Hollis – Frank Turano

With

Tourist Cam 1 – Tanya Velasquez
Tourist Cam 2 – Madeline Boldyrew

Guest Performance – Thoth

Sound Recording

Brendan Duffy

Kenn Dunn

Jay Frisch

Nick Denitto

Thomas W. Campbell

Tanya Velasquez

Original Music, Performance and Lyrics

Reese Desormais

Original Musical Performance

Charlotte Schioler

Theme Musical Recording, Editing and Mixing

Chris D. Butler

Hand Drums and Percussion

Nkumu Isaac Katalay

Electric Bass

Chris D. Butler

Trumpet and Valve Trombone

Duncan Herb

Produced at Butler Recording, Brooklyn, NY

Makeup and Wardrobe
Tanya Velasquez

Still Photography

Veronica Szarejko

Production Photography

Veronica Szarejko
Hauwa Turner

Thomas W. Campbell

Nick Denitto

Editing, Sound Design, Post Production
Thomas W. Campbell

Made in cooperation with SAG and the Mayor’s Office of Film and Television/New York City

Shot in Central Park and on the Upper West Side of New York City

Very Special Thanks to

Lily Moy

Ina Rosenthal

The City of New York Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting

The Screen Actor’s Guild

Central Park Conservancy