By the Time You Read This Filming Locations

By the Time You Read This is a dark comedy about a perfectionist trying to write a suicide note. According to Director Mishu Hilmy, "I was stuck. Going through my usual struggles of absolute creative inertia. The daily broodings of self-declared and self-pitying insignificance: how whatever I do isn't enough or worthy of follow through. My mind had a clever way of delivering censorious jabs and rationalizations as to why I don't deserve to write, express myself, or pursue my dreams. But then I found a DVD copy of the Duplass Brothers film, The Puffy Chair, from the Chicago Public Library. The movie itself was fine, but it was the special features section which included one of their shorts, "This is John" that lit something up in me. Their short is about John, played by Mark Duplass, trying to set up his voicemail greetings, and having a brilliant pathos filled and progressive meltdown. One actor, one location, one idea. I decided to use that as a model to give myself permission to stay focused and simple. And to just effing commit to creating something. What was bubbling in me at the time were hang-ups around perfectionism, insecurity and dithering inaction. What came out was a story about Alex (played by Katie Bates), a perfectionist, trying to write a suicide note. I tried to create an elevated context and capture an extremely vulnerable situation to show a character getting derailed by every single possible decision. My hope is that an audience witnessing Alex's descent will be able to find humor, poignancy, and a degree of self-recognition in what is typically represented as--and understandably so--an utterly unfunny scenario."