about the film

It all started when…

This story was written early in the morning on March 21st, 2020. California was in the early days of lock-down, and the realities and anxieties of life in the era of COVID-19 were just starting to seep in. Writer Brent Rose typed out what would become the text for this piece as a means of processing what was unfolding both around him and within him.

A couple of days later he was on the phone with his old friend from high school Rebecca Silvers, now an animator, also sheltering on her own. She suggested they find a project to work on together to give themselves something positive to focus on amidst all the chaos and to keep themselves from going stir-crazy. Brent said he’d recently written something that he was hoping to have published somewhere, and he sent her the text. She said she liked it, and immediately started sketching on her couch. Brent stuffed a closet full of pillows and recorded the voice-over on his laptop.

From there they decided to get more of their old friends involved. Rebecca asked visual artist Dylan Ricards if he would be up for creating background illustrations, and she asked photographer C. Bay Milin if he would provide photographic textures she could use. Brent asked musician Yea-Ming Chen if she would be willing to compose the score, and pro-sound guy Greg Sextro if he would step in as sound designer. One of the few upshots to life in lock-down is that all of these normally busy humans had some time on their hands, and miraculously everybody said yes.

The six of them had grown up together and hung out constantly during high school and in the years that followed, but they probably hadn’t all been in the same room together in 20 years. And now here they were, reunited, working together, each from their own separate quarantines in New York, the SF East Bay, and LA. Zoom calls were a real love-fest. Back when they were teenagers they used to sneak out of their houses to hang out with each other at night. A couple of decades later Sneakout Studios was born.

The filmmakers behind Going It Alone hope everybody can find something to relate to in this story regardless of their relationship status or living situation, even though it is “a guide to being single in a pandemic.” The coping mechanisms the protagonist develops are the same tools that have helped us get through the many ups and downs of this difficult situation, and we hope they’ll work for you, too. We have also compiled a list of resources that may help you during this, or any other, trying time. Pandemic or not, single or coupled-up or living in a family of 8s, we hope you, too, will find the ways to fill your heart.

-The Sneakout Studios Collective