By Michael Howard

April 26, 2026

Before there is a script, before budgets, late nights, location scouting, casting – before any of it, every indie film is just an idea.

“It was just a thought,” says Caitlin Weis, producer of the San Diego based, pre-production indie short film The Last Favor about two childhood friends turned criminals on the run after an arms deal gone wrong.

That thought, that premise, might have stayed exactly that – just a thought, another unrealized project in an industry full of them, if not for a decision both she and the film’s lead actor and creator Daniel Figueroa eventually made: to stop waiting, and start building.

Independent filmmaking is often characterized as creative freedom. It is – when it comes as the spark of an idea. Then, after that brief burst of creative exertion, once the script is written, in reality, after that,  it’s logistics, compromise, exhaustion – and constant uncertainty.

Just ask Figueroa and Weis. For them, the process didn’t begin when the script was finished. It began when they committed to doing everything themselves.

“We’ve been doing everything,” Weis says. “Marketing, crew, social media, all of it.”

Their Kickstarter campaign recently finished up fully funded, raising a whopping $20,000, but that wasn’t the finish line. It was the starting gun. “We secured funding,” Figueroa recalls telling the team. “Now the work really begins.”

That work has meant balancing creative ambition with practical limits: trimming script pages, negotiating locations, building a crew from scratch, and stretching every dollar of that $20,000 budget.

“I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew,” Figueroa says of choosing to make a short film rather than a feature. “The logistics behind that – I can’t imagine.”

Even so, the process has been a constant recalibration. Draft four of the script is locked – for now, but a fifth is already in motion. “It’s one of those things, is doing less, doing more?” he asks. That question – what to show, what to hold back in a plot that can be constantly evolving – defines not just the writing, but the entire production process.

And for Figueroa, the filmmaking process isn’t just technical – it’s deeply personal. The story of The Last Favor draws directly from his own life, particularly its most difficult moments. At the center of the film is Emilio, a man caught between a dangerous criminal life and caring for his grandmother, who suffers from dementia. It’s a conflict rooted in current lived experience.

“I have family members who are currently experiencing it,” Figueroa says. “I’m just basically trying to translate the emotional toll that that takes.”  That translation – from life to screen – is one of the hardest parts of filmmaking. It requires distance and honesty at the same time.

“There’s weight to this,” he says. “There’s a lot on the line,” he admits. The dementia storyline isn’t a narrative device, it’s an anchor. It grounds the film’s larger themes of loyalty, responsibility, and sacrifice in something painfully real. And it raises the kind of question that lingers long after the credits roll. 

“What would you do?” Figueroa asks, referring to the hard choices that not all of us have to make, but for those who do, how difficult it is. 

And that is exactly why independent filmmaking is vital to our human experience, Figueroa and Weis exert. Without the storytelling device, how else could we learn about our fellow human beings, their struggles, fears, traumas experienced? And learn from each other, feel empathy and unite over common human emotions?

“We’re all just trying to learn more about other people,” Weis explains. Figueroa agrees. “Perspective, man, perspective is so important,” he adds.

A perspective that many of the audience rarely see is the sheer volume of invisible work required to get a film off the ground. Before a single frame is shot, there are weeks – months – of preparation: building an audience, crafting a pitch, convincing people to believe.

“We started at zero followers,” Weis says. “Now we’re at around 1,100. We’re super proud of that.” 

That growth didn’t happen by accident. It came from daily effort – posting updates, sharing progress, inviting people into the process. “We want to share our process too,” Weis explains. “People deserve to see the journey along the way.”

The result is a film that doesn’t just belong to its creators. It belongs, in part, to the community that helped bring it to life. That’s why, for both filmmakers, the importance of independent filmmaking goes beyond personal ambition. It’s about preserving a space for stories that might otherwise go unseen. “There’s so much beyond studio [films],” Figueroa shares.

He recalls the loss of Landmark Theater in Hillcrest that once championed independent films. A place where smaller, riskier stories had a home. “It gave a place for independent film,” he said, sweeping his hand upward toward the mezzanine where the sign once graced its facade. “So many stories that don’t get seen.”

That absence has only strengthened their resolve.

“The goal of this project,” he says, “is to really show what can be done with independent filmmaking.” Weis frames it just as simply: support the ecosystem, and it grows. “Support your community,” she says. “Support those filmmakers.”

In an industry driven by outcomes – distribution deals, festival wins, streaming placements – Figueroa and Weis are focused on something more immediate.

Completion.

“We want to see if we can get it done,” Figueroa says. It’s a modest goal on paper. In practice, it’s everything. Because finishing a film – especially independently – means overcoming every obstacle the process throws at you: doubt, fatigue, limited resources, and the constant temptation to stop.

“Welcome the obstacles,” Figueroa says. “That is how you progress.”

Looking back, the transformation is almost surreal. “I’m reflecting on where we were just having a discussion about [the story idea],” Figueroa says. “And then where we are now.” What changed wasn’t the idea. It was the decision to act on it.

“Don’t just say you want to do it,” he says. “Walk the walk.”

For Weis, who holds a Masters Degree in Producing from the University of London Royal Holloway, the journey carries its own kind of redemption. After stepping away from film during the uncertainty of the pandemic, this project became a way back.

“It took a long time for me to find my space again,” she says. “And now I feel empowered.”

If The Last Favor has a message, it exists both on-screen and behind the scenes. On screen, it asks hard questions about love, loyalty, and sacrifice. Behind the camera, it offers something simpler—and arguably more urgent: Just start.

“Don’t be afraid,” Weis says.“ Remove that self-doubt,” Figueroa adds.

After all, sometimes the most important step in filmmaking isn’t writing the perfect script or securing the perfect shot. It’s deciding that the idea in your head deserves to exist in the world – and doing whatever it takes to make it real.