Award-winning filmmaker Blake Winston Rice reflected on ‘DISC,’ a 14-minute drama about connection under pressure that was written in months and filmed in a single day.
“It’s one of those things that’s on your bulletin board as a filmmaker, and to be in that class, in that echelon of other directors and projects was an absolute honor,” Rice said of TIFF selecting ‘DISC’ for its short film program.
Blake Winston Rice tells Awards Focus how ‘DISC’ grew out of a story idea from lead actor Victoria Ratermanis, with the two quickly shaping it into a short centered on intimacy, anxiety, and unexpected connection. Written in just a few months and shot in a single day inside a Pasadena hotel room, the 14-minute film relied on extensive prep and trust between collaborators, including Jim Cummings, whom Rice brought on through his creative circle. Working within the physical constraints of a tight, mirror-lined space presented logistical hurdles, but the focused setting ultimately heightened the film’s emotional tension. For Rice, the film’s selection for the Toronto International Film Festival represents both validation and motivation—an energizing milestone as he looks toward larger projects, even if ‘DISC’ itself will remain a short.
Following a brief hookup during a professional conference, a man (Jim Cummings) and woman (Victoria Ratermanis) awaken to an unexpected dilemma. As a career-defining presentation looms, they are forced to navigate both a deeply personal crisis and the fragile connection it exposes.
‘DISC’ is currently playing the film festival circuit following the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
Awards Focus: It’s so nice to meet you. How are you doing?
Blake Winston Rice: I’m doing well, doing well. Been a busy start to the year, but I cannot complain. Things are staying super busy, for lack of a better word right now. I’m excited. How about you?
AF: Well, I’m doing well except for the brunt of winter.
Blake Winston Rice: Yeah. Where are you based?
AF: Chicago.
Blake Winston Rice: So, yeah, naturally.
AF: It’s been brutal.
Blake Winston Rice: Yeah, I bet.
AF: What was the genesis behind ‘DISC’?
Blake Winston Rice: My dear friend Victoria Ratermanis, who’s the lead of the movie, initially had the idea of the main crux of the story for us. She came to me with this idea. I thought there was really something there, and talked about the themes of connection and intimacy, and how to dive into those. Together, we jammed on a new draft that was based off that idea, and the rest kind of took off from there.
AF: Yeah. How long was the writing process?
Blake Winston Rice: Oh, good question. I think the writing process was probably about maybe 2-3 months. We had a new draft pretty quickly that we liked, and then dove into the rest of prep, getting us ready to shoot, but not too long. It wasn’t years and years and years that this thing took.
It’s a short film, it rides on hype, and so once we got excited on it, we were able to move the pieces quickly.
AF: Yeah, for a 14-minute film, I could not imagine that taking a year or two years to write.
Blake Winston Rice: Hopefully not. It’s a problem if it takes too long.
AF: At what point in the process did Jim become attached as one of the leads?
Blake Winston Rice: When Tor and I got a draft that we loved and ready to go, we started casting. Jim was so helpful on past projects I was working on, a short called ‘Tea’ as well, he’d given some great advice from and we became quick friends from that.
And so, once we started to cast ‘DISC’, besides just casting and going through casting director and all that, we were just looking through our immediate network. He just felt like a great fit, an incredibly talented actor, and someone who’d be super trusting, too, which is what the role demanded.
I reached out and just straight up asked, “I thought you’d be great for this,” and he was like, “I’m all in.” Can’t be more thankful for what he brought to the role, either.
AF: I have to say that seeing his name attached in the cast list is what initially piqued my interest when I was looking at the films selected for TIFF just because of being a fan of his work for quite some time now.
Blake Winston Rice: Oh, yeah. He’s the best. He’s got cool stuff coming out right now, too.
AF: Yeah, I know, I wasn’t in Park City for Sundance, and I tried everything to cover ‘The Screener’, but they were being very selective.
Blake Winston Rice: That’s right. You gotta go see it. I think that’s the rule.
AF: Yeah. How how long did it take to film?
Blake Winston Rice: Filmed in a day—had a great crew, filmed it out in Pasadena, and, really just had a lot of time to prep, which was really cool. I was able to prep a lot in the performance with Jim and Tori one-on-one, and then together, and then able just to basically really storyboard and shot list this thing out as specific as possible.
Because all of it’s in one fixed location, we had a hotel room that we could get access to. Honestly, we could just rented the hotel room nights before, and prep it and all that. We only really felt like we needed day to shoot it. It really worked out for us.
AF: Were actual hotel employees used as background?
Blake Winston Rice: No, no, none in this. I probably tried on the day. I think the hotel cart that the worker is using, that’s really there, and we were like, “Can we push this thing around?” They were like, “Yeah, go for it.” But no, no actual employees. Trained actors.
AF: What was the most challenging aspect of the, production?
Blake Winston Rice: I would say fitting into the actual space. There’s two beds in that room, so you basically have this little walkway around, and then a ton of mirrors right before the bathroom. Physically shooting around those and not catching something with a boom-opp and a shadow, and only one source of light from the window.
I think it was honestly the logistics of fitting people in and out of that room with light, and not blocking the light, not casting shadows. A lot of that, there was some fixes on the day that took us there.
Once we were in the bathroom, look, you’re in the bathroom, and it’s an operator and two naked people, so that was less hard, but moving in and out in those longer sequences is what—it wasn’t impossible at all, we definitely got it all, but that’s something that speed bumped us through production a little bit, I’d say.
AF: I’m trying to imagine that taking place in a larger blockbuster production, where you have a lot more people and you can’t fit that many people into a small space.
Blake Winston Rice: No, we’ll build a fake room. We’ll build a fake hotel at that point.
AF: How honored was the team to be selected for TIFF?
Blake Winston Rice: It’s one of those things that’s on your bulletin board as a filmmaker, and to be in that class, in that echelon of other directors and projects was an absolute honor. It’s also motivating.
You’re here as a short filmmaker—at least for me, I’m out here working on the next thing, and a bigger project, and a bigger project, so it feels like not only something that’s an honor, but it’s a stamp of motivation, and it fires me up.
It makes it something like, okay, if I can do this, then the next thing’s in reach, too. It always makes me want to go bigger and badder, and that’s essentially what I’m partly grateful for from prestigious festivals like TIFF. It’s showing me that, oh, we can do this run to the next one, and let’s go, and let’s get after it.
AF: It’s had quite the festival run, and if I recall correctly, won a few awards.
Blake Winston Rice: I gotta think what it has won. I don’t know what awards we’ve taken. Maybe you know better than me, but I don’t know specifically which one we’ve won.
We’ve been honored with a bunch of great festivals coming up. We have Claremont Front this week, and that’s kind of our next stop, and we have a bunch more coming up, too, so we’re psyched. We’re thrilled and we’re flattered to be a part of these festivals.
AF: Well, I know the Solzy Awards were one of them.
Blake Winston Rice: Oh, we’ll take that. We’ll take that, thank you!
AF. Yup. Could this potentially be expanded into a feature film?
Blake Winston Rice: I love the themes that we’re talking about in this one. I really do, and intimacy and connection, and doing that with the pace and the anxiety thriving through everything here, I love that living in my next work, for sure.
Is there a ‘DISC’ the feature? I don’t think so. I think I’ve got enough of this. I think viewers would be like, we got this one, okay? We don’t need to see another one like that.
But no, I would love to work with Tori and Jim again, and everyone else who made this, too, so the team and the ideas behind it, those will definitely live on.