David Long, associate professor of theatre in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, created his first short film, “Betty Lou Had a Son.” The film earned Top 5 honors in the 2022 Louisiana Film Prize competition and will have a screening in March at the Omaha Film Festival.
In the film, a struggling musician, played by Long, is forced to care for his spirited mother suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The film was shot last May over three days in Shreveport, Louisiana. It premiered at the Louisiana Film Prize festival in October and continues on the film festival circuit through August.
Long has also secured a distribution deal for the 15-minute film with Shorts TV, where it will start running later this year.
“This was my first film working as a director, producer, writer and actor,” Long said. “Having that recognized was great. But one of the most impactful things for me at that festival was all the people that approached me after watching the film who shared their stories of loved ones who had suffered from the disease [Alzheimer’s] and how they really appreciated how I addressed the topic with such respect. Some of the best feedback I got was from people who admitted to ‘ugly crying’ after viewing the film. Although I don’t view the film as particularly sad, I think it is an emotionally impactful and hopeful film about a mother and son and it was a thrill just to be recognized.”
In 2014, his own mother died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
“That started me thinking about legacy and how an individual is remembered,” he said. “It occurred to me—is legacy defined by the accomplishments of the person who passed? Or is it defined by the accomplishments of those they inspired?”
His experience with his own mother helped inspire the characters he wrote for the film.
“Though that’s clearly not my mother in the film, much of the central character’s behavior and humor was inspired by her,” Long said. “I learned so much when visiting my Mom at her memory care facility. Her behavior, her relationships with family members, everything. It was both fascinating and heartbreaking.”
Music also played an important part in the film. Long plays Louis, the struggling musician. The mother, Betty, is a pianist of the highest caliber who has lost the ability to play because of the disease.
“When doing research on Alzheimer’s for the film, I discovered that the music memory part of the brain is not affected by Alzheimer’s until almost the very end of life unlike other memories,” he said. “This was the case with my own mother. She got to a point where she no longer recognized me but would still be able to sing the songs she sang to me as a child. That memory has really stuck with me.”
But at its heart, it’s a story about a son and his mother.
“I don’t see a lot of films like that. I see a lot of fathers and sons and fathers and daughters but don’t see a lot of mother and son movies,” Long said. “I thought that really needs to be explored. That relationship is so unique between a mother and a son, and that’s what inspired me to write it.”
In the film, his mother is played by actress Babs George.
“She’s probably one of the finest actors I’ve had the privilege of directing,” Long said. “I directed her in several plays when I was living in Austin, Texas and she was the only person I had in mind when writing this film. She just knocks it out of the park. It’s just so thrilling to be working with an actor of that caliber.”
Long has been a professional actor, on stage and on screen, for more than 30 years. Creatively, he was ready for a new challenge in filmmaking.
“I’ve always been interested not only in filmmaking, but telling stories,” Long said. “I wanted to take it to the next level where I had ownership of all those things—not just of my performance, but writing, directing, producing.”
He started writing the film around 2016, but eventually put it on the back burner until he came to Nebraska in 2019. He received a Hixson-Lied Faculty Research and Creative Activity grant to help make the film and revived the project.
But Covid restrictions created challenges in securing locations to film.
“One of the principal locations in this film is a nursing home, and during Covid, that was not a very accessible place,” Long said. “I made a lot of calls and had some leads here and there, but eventually everything just fell through, and I started getting discouraged.”
But then he had a part acting in the Glenn Korff School of Music opera film, “The Real Gemma Jordan,” filmed by former Lecturer Alisa Bellflower and alumnus Alexander Jeffery (B.F.A. 2011) in 2021.
Long and Jeffery hit it off.
“We had coffee, and I asked if he would be interested in working on this project with me,” he said. “I made the pitch, and Alex was really excited about it.”
Jeffery and his partner, Paul Petersen, won the Louisiana Film Prize in 2015 for their short film, “The Bespoke Tailoring of Mister Bellamy.” They suggested Long consider filming in Shreveport, and Long subsequently scheduled to film there in May to meet the Louisiana Film Prize deadline in July.
“The people in Shreveport were so open and welcoming, even during Covid,” Long said. “It turned out to be a perfect location for the project. They won my admiration and respect.”
He submitted the film and learned he made the top 20 for the Louisiana Film Festival in September and attended the festival in October. As a top five finalist, Long earned $1,000 towards festival submission fees and a four-year distribution deal with Shorts TV.
“There were 4,000-5,000 people who viewed this film, which was amazing,” Long said. “The whole community comes out for this festival. It was not only great exposure for the film, but I met a lot of really great filmmakers. It was really inspiring.”
Long said he’s been bitten by the filmmaking bug and is already at work on his next film, which he hopes to shoot this summer.
“All I want to do now is make films,” he said. “It’s just a different creative experience writing and producing your own work as opposed to just serving as the role of an actor, so I’m going to continue to do this as long as I can. I may not always star in the film, but I will certainly continue writing and directing.”
His next film will be about a mime, played by Long, struggling to find relevance within our modern culture.
“I’m in rewrites right now and getting close to final draft,” Long said. “The short film is about the relevance of art. We often get access to art at the university because it’s embedded in the university culture. But outside the university access can be limited and people might find more relevance in the culture of Tik-Tok than in the fine and performing arts. Because arguably, that’s becoming our culture. So that’s the challenge of mime and how an older discipline seeks artistic and cultural relevance.”
Long likes what he can do within the medium of film.
“I love all elements of storytelling, and I’m also very visually oriented so film is a perfect vehicle for my artistic expression,” Long said. “In this medium, I gain control of the audience’s perspective. There’s a lot of power and responsibility in that.”
He also likes the broader audience of films.
“There’s the ephemeral quality of theatre that I love where, say, you witnessed a performance where something magical happened and it changed your life. But that experience was limited to that one audience. That’s the beautiful and fleeting nature of theatre,” Long said. “But with film, it’s different. You’re able to reach a much broader audience yet still affect them in a very personal way. I think both mediums are incredibly important and I love them equally. But filmmaking is a new experience for me and I’m now able to reach an audience I never thought I would have access to.”