She Shot Her First Feature in Just 11 Nights — Making 'Lockjaw'

Writer-director Sabrina Greco joins No Film School to discuss the making of her feature debut, Lockjaw, a dark comedy centered on a woman whose jaw is wired shut after a car accident. Greco explains how the project grew from a short into a feature, why she committed to an 11-day all-night shoot in Los Angeles, and how a tight-knit filmmaking community helped make the production possible. She also breaks down directing Blu Hunt’s physically constrained but highly expressive lead performance, adapting scenes when they stopped working on set, using two cameras to move quickly, and drawing on her editing background to reshape the film in post-production.

In this episode, No Film School's GG Hawkins and guest Sabrina Greco discuss...

How Greco went from studying film at Boston University to editing for digital media, Nickelodeon, and feature films

Why filmmakers like John Cassavetes and the mumblecore movement changed the way she thought about feature filmmaking

How Lockjaw evolved organically from a 25–30 page short into Greco’s first feature

Planning the production a year in advance so winter’s early sunsets would make an entirely nighttime shoot more manageable

Building the film around an existing Los Angeles creative community of actors and crew members

How producer Abby Davis helped secure a house where the production could shoot for eight of its 11 days

Deciding to move forward with the movie after Greco lost her job during the Hollywood strikes

Developing Rayna as an active, magnetic, self-destructive protagonist rather than a passive victim

How Blu Hunt approached Rayna without judging the character’s choices

Using Rayna’s wired jaw as both a physical filmmaking constraint and a source of conflict, comedy, and miscommunication