**THANK YOU to everyone who donated so far and helped us reach our goal! All in all, our budget is going to be a little over $12,000, so any future donations to get there are very much still appreciated!

My name is Gus Reed, and I'm a writer, director and editor from Cape Cod, based in NYC.

I just wrapped production on a short film called Black Egg. This is the eleventh narrative short I've directed but the first I've made since returning to NYC after spending almost five years in LA, where I attended the AFI Conservatory and got my masters in Directing in 2022. Like a lot of the films I've made and am interested in making, it is a sort of horror story, but on the quieter, eerier side of the genre, and centered around queer characters.

In the film, David (Taylor Trensch) invites the man he's been seeing for a few months, Cam (Julian Sanchez) over for what should be a romantic night, but can’t shake the feeling that a subtle but sinister change has overcome him. Cam seems to be fixated on a painting he's recently seen, an unnerving self-portrait of a woman holding a black egg. When Cam asks David what’s the worst thing he’s ever seen, their evening takes a tragic turn.

The story of their ill-fated night is relayed, in turn, by three other couples in bed, for whom it has become an urban legend and a cautionary tale that tests their own intimacy, boundaries and connection.

This is a very special film for me because it allowed me to work with a really staggeringly talented ensemble of artists both in front of and behind the camera, many of whom I've been trying to find the right opportunity to collaborate with for upwards of five years. I wrote the film with a lead actor, Taylor Trensch, in mind, and from there, built out an ensemble of eight other remarkable performers (the largest cast I've ever worked with). I still can't really believe that it all came together in the way it did.

Even though I wrote the script over many months, the actual opportunity to make the film with our very busy cast and crew all free for barely a three-day window came up very quickly, without much time to fundraise. We were able to make it happen through the hard work and generosity of many people who worked for free or a fraction of their standard rates, and generous discounts from both ARRI for our camera package and Lightbulb Rentals in Brooklyn for our lighting and grip gear, but between feeding a cast and crew for 3 days, purchasing general liability, worker's comp and equipment insurance, transportation, props, and other unavoidable costs, I still spent over $6,000 out of pocket, and we could easily spend that amount or more on a proper post-production process, even with generous discounts.

This process has been worth that and more to me and I wouldn't trade the experience of making this film for anything, but I am hoping to recoup even part of that out-of-pocket cost and raise funds for post (a professional sound mix, color grade, score, poster, graphic design, and festival submissions) in order to make the film the strongest version it can possibly be and get the chance to show it to as many people as possible.

The talent that came together to make this film both in front of and behind the camera far outpaces our very limited financial means, but I believe that with a little help from our community, this film has the potential to grow into something really special and go quite far.

All the funds I'm able to collect here will go towards completing the film, and if by some miracle there is anything left over, will be fairly distributed to the cast and crew who donated their time to this project (not including me!)

Thanks so much for reading and donating, it really means the world to me to get to do this with your help.

-Gus

WHAT WE'VE ALREADY SPENT MONEY ON:

WHAT WE STILL NEEED TO FUND IN POST-PRODUCTION:

BLACK EGG

starring:

Taylor Trensch

Julian Sanchez

and

(in order of appearance)

Yesenia Ayala

Ben Tyler Cook

Jakeem Powell

Zeke Lindsey

Lío Mehiel

John Bubniak

Daniel Liu

written and directed by: Gus Reed

producer: Alex Hare

executive producer: Tara Austin

associate producer: Selena Leoni

director of photography: Audrey Biche

camera operator: Michael Fuchs

production sound: Sophia Wilson

first AC: Carter Chun

gaffer: Tinbete Daniel

costumes / styling: Jensen Edmondson

still photographer: Ben Tyler Cook

TEAM BIOS:

Gus Reed (writer, director) is from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and is based in New York City. He graduated from the AFI Conservatory with an MFA in Directing in 2022. He made his Broadway debut as a performer in the 2020 revival of West Side Story, directed by Ivo van Hove. His 2022 horror short film, RINGING ROCKS, stars Hunter Doohan, Max Sheldon and Rhian Rees, and premiered at the Overlook Film Festival. It won Best Short at the 2023 Portland Film Festival, and screened in over twenty festivals around the world, including Beyond Fest, Grimmfest, and the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. His work centers queer characters in stories of the eerie and the uncanny.

Alex Hare (producer) is a director/writer/producer of theater and film, focusing in particular on original musicals. Recent directing: The Monkeypox Gospel (Ars Nova, Edinburgh Fringe) and A Statement Concerning the Dialogue Surrounding the Open Letter to the Theater Community Regarding the Current Situation (co-director with Chris Myers, produced by the collective Necessary Labor). Alex received the SDC Foundation’s Charles Abbott Fellowship for young musical theatre directors. Assistant credits include School of Rock and Side Show (Broadway). For four years, Alex was the associate artistic director of Corkscrew Theater Festival, an NYC-based festival of new plays. He has frequently assisted director Bill Condon on film and stage projects. Columbia University alum.

Tara Austin (Executive Producer) is a Los Angeles–based film producer with an international background, having lived and worked in Montréal, Berlin, London, & Goa, India. An AFI Producing alum (MFA 2022), she is drawn to character-driven stories with global resonance. Her work has won awards & screened at Academy-qualifying festivals, including Tribeca, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Shorts Fest & many others.

Austin has produced multiple films for the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women (AFI DWW+). Her film HAINT, developed through the 2024 Tribeca CHANEL Through Her Lens Program, was selected for Hillman Grad’s Rising Voices (Season 5), premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, and is now streaming on Hulu. Austin’s film BEST EYES won a DGA jury award and was recently nominated for outstanding live action short film at the 57th annual NAACP Image Awards.

Audrey Biche (director of photography) is a cinematographer, raised between Spain, China, France and the Caribbean, based in Los Angeles. Shooting on both film and digital, she is an ASC Heritage Award and Laszlo Kovacs Award nominee. A two-time Panavision grant recipient, her work has screened at AFI Fest, EnergaCamerimage, Palm Springs Short Fest, Zagreb Film Festival, Raindance, and Urbanworld. Audrey attended the American Film Institute Conservatory as a Fulbright/Georges Lurcy Scholar and is the recipient of an ASC Vision mentorship.

Michael Fuchs (camera operator) is a camera operator, Steadicam operator and cinematographer based in NYC. A graduate of Northwestern, he has experience shooting 35mm and Super 16mm along with a variety of HD formats. Recent credits as “a” cam + Steadicam operator include: Weapons (2025), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2024 series), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2024), tick, tick… BOOM! (2021) Candyman (2021) and many more.