Jack Dignan.

After accelerating through high school and gaining early access into film school at the age of 16, Jack Dignan has established himself as a writer, director and producer with a unique style and a fresh voice in genre filmmaking.

His recent short films It Feels Like Spring and Does Nobody See the Gun? have gained global recognition on the festival circuit, with the former now available to watch on ShortsTV and the latter available on YouTube. 

Jack began his career as a well-regarded Australian film journalist, publishing written reviews across multiple platforms while working on his own DIY short films. In the leadup to his feature length directorial debut After She Died, Jack spent years working on high-profile Hollywood productions, such as Thor: Love and Thunder, Furiosa, Elvis, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and more.

He’s collaborated and worked with numerous Oscar winners and brings that knowledge and experience into his own filmmaking career.

In this article, Jack writes about his experience making his new film, After She Died, and what kept him motivated during challenging times.

After She Died follows a young woman who’s horrified to discover that her father’s new girlfriend looks identical to her dead mother. 

Jack Dignan on the set of After She Died.

Article by Jack Dignan

We all dream of that perfect moment. That one moment where everything we’ve ever dreamed of comes true, where a big-wig walks into the room and serves us all our hopes and dreams on a silver platter. We keep going, keep slaving away, keep shovelling the shit because we know the “perfect moment” is coming. 

“It’s just not the right time,” we tell ourselves. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no right time. There’s never a “right time” to do anything, and if we all keep waiting for that right time to come, it may never come at all. 

I was pitching After She Died around to producers and investors back in 2020, right as the pandemic started to hit but right before it became real bad. I got, to put it kindly, a lot of rejections. Some nice, some interested in seeing the film once it was finished, and some not so nice. One thing I heard, one thing that stuck with me, was one producer saying it’s just “not the right time” to make the movie. Then COVID hit, and it wasn’t the right time to make anything. So, nothing new got made… nobody wanted to invest in new material… and absolutely nobody wanted to make After She Died. 

It was during that first seemingly never-ending global lockdown where, stuck at home with nothing better to do, I made a decision that would change the course of the next three years of my life. I wasn’t going to wait for the “right time” to come around for After She Died. I wasn’t going to wait to prove myself to the world and get the dream budget with the dream studio. I wasn’t going to wait for the perfect moment. The perfect moment doesn’t exist. I had a film I wanted to make, and my god, was I going to make it. 

After She Died.

So, I did. I just started. It was no longer “I want to make a movie.” It was “I’m making a movie. Are you in?” And people were in. From there, it grew. The crew got bigger and bigger. The money, as little as there was, found its way to us (or more accurately, we found a way to it). Using up endless IOUs, volunteer work, deferred payment contracts, free weekends and days off from work, and a shoestring budget stretched further than we all thought possible, I made After She Died. It wasn’t the “right time,” but it was my time, and I didn’t let anybody stop me. (If you’re thinking of quoting this article in your review of After She Died and want to use the snarky one liner of “maybe somebody should have” I’m afraid I’ve already thought of that one and you can’t steal it off me, sorry.) 

It’s a film I’m proud of. It’s a film I, and many others, worked very hard on. The cast and crew were all incredible. I couldn’t be prouder to have worked alongside every one of them. It wasn’t the smoothest production – no movie on this level was ever going to be – but we prepped and prepped and prepped until we all knew both the film and the plan back to front and y’know what? All things considered, it could have been a lot worse. Sure, we had ANOTHER lockdown halfway through, which shut down production 10 days into an 18-day shoot (and kept us locked down for over 100 days!), but we got through it and when it was safe to start filming again, we finished it off. 

Cut forward a year and the film has picked up multiple awards, played at festivals all around the world, and has been picked up for distribution in North America. Not bad for a film that wasn’t made at the “right time.” But despite all of that, as good as all that sounds, I just wanted to release the film in Australia. I wanted my friends and family to see the movie. I wanted the cast and crew to show off all their hard work. I wanted to bring the film home. But when pitching it round to local distributors, I heard something all too familiar. “Not the right time.” 

After She Died.

Why, I wonder? Was it Australia’s lack of interest in homegrown content? Was it because similar films had failed at the box office? Did these studios just simply not like the movie? I don’t know. But it’s okay. I’d been down this road before, and I know I’ll be down it again. There are no hard feelings here, it’s all business, but a business mindset isn’t going to stop me from living my dream. It didn’t when I had a script, and it didn’t when I had a finished film. 

I made the film on my own terms, in my own time, with money I raised myself. I know there’s an audience for it. We sold out festival screenings, we got picked up internationally, I get messages from people asking where they can see it all the time. Heck, we got enough interest in the film that it’s coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray internationally. I got sick of waiting for the perfect moment where an Australian distributor would reach out asking to release the film. After She Died deserved better than to sit exclusively on my hard drive (or for me to explain to loved ones how to use a VPN so they can rent it from an international VOD site). It was time to distribute the movie myself. So that’s exactly what I did. 

I say there’s no right time to do anything, but on second thought, maybe that’s not entirely true. The right time is whatever time you want it to be. You want to make a movie? Now is the right time. You want to release it to the world? Now is the right time. If you’re passionate about something, if you put in the work, you’ll find your audience. The world has changed so much these past few years – tradition is out the window. Make cool shit and let the world see it. If I waited for the “right time” to do anything, I wouldn’t be here writing this article today, and you certainly wouldn’t be reading it. Now go be creative, go make a movie, and go watch After She Died. 

After She Died is streaming January 13th on Vimeo on Demand. More details at http://www.aftershedied.com