John Horan & Kyle Vorbach – Somewhere in Between

By: Kelly Kearney

Q) I absolutely loved this short because it is not often that I watch a film in this format that leaves me feeling satisfied and not wanting more. Somewhere in Between felt like a full-length feature in under twenty minutes and the only thing I wanted more of was more shorts from you two. I felt nostalgic for the days of those fun films of my youth, like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Back to the Future and even Crazy, Stupid, Love. What inspired this idea?

Kyle: Ultimately, we made the movie we wanted to see. We started with a core story about relationships and anxiety, but we couldn’t figure out a genre to mash up with it to make it work. At one point we had a Sherlockthing going on almost. When we finally figured out the time travel angle, that’s when it all clicked. We both grew up loving Back to the Future so this was deliberately leaning into that.

John: We love putting way too much thought and care into the dumbest of ideas and I think this is our biggest version of doing that.

Q) Alongside Ryan O’Flanagan and Taylor Misiak, John played the future man returning to the past to tell those two the fate of the future lies in their hands. I don’t want to give away how these three characters are tied together, but was it always the plan that he would play the role? I think it adds to the comedy element– especially some of the reactions from Taylor when she figures out his character might be telling the truth.

John: Having me in it was always an intention. I wanted the opportunity to either do some serious acting or play an over the top crazy character. Kyle always saw me as the time traveler, but I had initially thought of myself as Jack because I pulled a lot from life into his character. It didn’t take long for Kyle to convince me that I was better suited for the crazy man and once we had Ryan and Taylor on board that decision became even clearer.

Q) Everything from the junky time machine to the film score just felt bigger than what is normally contained in a short feature. Did you have full-length feature aspirations in mind with this piece but condensed it due to cost or was it always going to stay in a short format? Either way, it still feels like a 90-minute film, which is a testament to your ability to tell good stories.

Kyle: Our first priority was of course to make a good short. We looked at other shorts and felt like what we wanted to do was tell a complete story, not the brief snippets of a story often found in short films, which is how we approached cramming a three-act structure with multiple timelines into fifteen minutes. But we also absolutely designed this to be a proof of concept for a feature length version, which we’re trying to get off the ground. The feature script is really exciting because we get to really dig into all these ideas and moments and build on them in a way we wished we were able to with the short.

Q) About that time machine, who built it and what went into bringing that to life? 

Kyle: It’s funny, when writing the script, we sort of just put a “and then they see a photo realistic time machine” and solving how to do that for our future selves. When it came time to produce the movie, we realized it turns out you can’t just go buy a time machine. We had to build it ourselves!

We looked at all sorts of time machines from things until we landed on a literal clip art image of a wacky time machine and thought, “Let’s do that, but cool!” After planning it all out, I designed the machine in 3D and generated blueprints. We had to make it so the whole thing could be broken down and reassembled at our location.

And then the two of us built it! John handled a lot of the construction elements, I designed all the interactive practical electronic panels on the inside and we brought on a great production designer, Kaitlyn Robertson, who added a million brilliant touches that made it come to life and feel real and lived-in.

Q) Did I read that you self-funded at least half of this film? Production at this level is not cheap and often we see filmmakers lean into their fans with campaigns to get that financial momentum going. You have plenty of fans who love your sketch comedies, so was Indigogo the obvious plan to get this venture off the ground?

John: It wasn’t the obvious plan from the start, we initially intended to self fund the whole thing, but as you know the costs add up quickly and the more we got into it we saw how big that hole was going to get. We decided this was us taking our big shot and in order to make it the best thing possible there was no shame in asking for some help. On top of receiving direct funding help with donations we also received a lot of generous donations in labor, gear, and discounted “friend rates”. All of these favors combined allowed us to put the money we did have on screen and take this thing the extra mile.

Q) How long did it take you to complete the project from the initial storyboarding to entering the final product into the festival scene?

John: We wrote our first draft of this script during the pandemic in 2020. We had our first attempt at making it in summer 2021 and then that pushed to fall 2021 when we actually shot it. 2022 was pretty much all postproduction and early 2023 was when festival submissions began. So, all in all about three years.

Q) Speaking of, what was your reaction to finding out it was selected for the Tribeca Film Festival?

Kyle: Speaking for myself — I am a perpetual pessimist and when John called me with the news, I literally expected him to tell me about a cancer diagnosis or something. After he told me, I felt optimism for almost an entire day (a lot for me).

John: As the opposite of Kyle, I am an eternal optimist so I always believed we could do this, but for it to actually happen was a lot to take in. This was the first time we were really recognized on a professional level, so it was extremely validating to our years of effort.

Q) When people are walking out of the theater, what do you hope lingers with the audience or has the audience left talking about with this short?

Kyle: One of our goals was to make a “short that feels big.” Like you said, it feels like you watched a whole movie. I want people to feel excited, like they just watched a summer blockbuster, before remembering it was just our little guy.

John: If we did our jobs right, people will leave the theater questioning their existence. Kidding, of course, but we do want them to feel like they just went through a jam packed fifteen minutes that made them question what was and wasn’t real. Or at the very least just that they had fun.

Q) Talk about your partnership with writer John Horan. Fans might know your work as Future Boyfriends where you started out doing short sketch comedies that segued into this idea. What are your backgrounds in film and what makes this partnership work?

Kyle: John and I have been making stupid stuff together since film school. What makes our thing work is our skill sets complement each other. If there’s something I can’t do, he can. For example: I absolutely could not play the time traveler in this film. But while John’s on camera, I can be behind the camera…berating him.

Q) What advice would you offer other up-in-coming filmmakers who would like to one day land their work in distinguished festivals such as Tribeca’s?

Kyle: Make your own stuff. We wasted too much time barking up the wrong tree, trying to get someone to fall out of the clear blue sky who would wave a wand and make things happen for us. The greatest decision we made was to go out and make THE thing we had been waiting to make. Oh, and also make sure your stuff doesn’t suck!

Q) What else does Future Boyfriends have upcoming and what’s next for Somewhere in Between?

Kyle: Action figures, board games and amusement parks. Honestly, I’m superstitious and don’t want to say anything until it’s set in stone.