YOU AND I
New York City, New York | Film Short
Drama, Musical
YOU AND I is a love story about a friendship. The short film follows Amelia as she navigates a night out at a party with her magnetic, mysterious best friend Lola. It takes place in a slightly surreal New York City filled with beautiful, electrifying music that the girls can hear and dance to.
YOU AND I
New York City, New York | Film Short
Drama, Musical
1 Campaigns | New York, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $12,279 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
74 supporters | followers
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YOU AND I is a love story about a friendship. The short film follows Amelia as she navigates a night out at a party with her magnetic, mysterious best friend Lola. It takes place in a slightly surreal New York City filled with beautiful, electrifying music that the girls can hear and dance to.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Amelia and Lola are best friends. For them, life feels like a wild and perilous adventure, a journey they are bound and fated to embark on together. They live in a slightly magical version of New York City. This world is filled with beautiful, electrifying music—music only Amelia and Lola hear. This film is the love story of their friendship.
Amelia is a true charmer who can’t help dancing to any music she hears. She is sharp, perceptive, and almost bursting with vitality. She is sweet and deeply sensitive, but her intensity can lead to an overexcitement that often causes her problems. Sometimes she says too much. Sometimes she says the wrong thing. But—even when all the odds are against her—her charm and warmth lend her an undeniably endearing charisma that always seems to win the day.
Lola is radiant, magnetic, and beautiful. She lights up the world and every room she enters. She possesses the power to bend reality to her will, and a natural intuition that lets her move through the world with grace and ease. She draws people in with her disarming smile and mysterious light, but she can turn cold, cruel, and distant just as fast. She is less expressive than Amelia, but is at the mercy of an overpowering internal emotional world that she struggles to see beyond.
The girls have a deep, intense, and complicated bond. Amelia can become resentful of her friend’s natural magnetism and is paralyzed by a fear that she could not navigate life without her. Lola can become stifled and frustrated at Amelia’s neediness, and simultaneously overwhelmed by the intensity of their bond. When things are good, when they dance together, no one in the world has more fun. But they can oscillate rapidly from a sweet, affectionate closeness to a tense and frightening distance that feels unbridgeable. Ultimately, the strength and truth of their love always seem to bring them back together.
We meet Amelia on the empty, enchanted streets of New York, listening and dancing to the music she hears everywhere. She meets up with Lola, and the girls return to their apartment to get ready for a mysterious party that Lola has been invited to. The rest of the film follows Amelia as she navigates this night out in Lola’s orbit, clinging to her side before being stolen away by a handsome stranger. The evening gives rise to the tensions latent in the girls’ relationship, and, as it goes on, they are forced to reckon with the beautiful, terrifying intensity of their bond.
This is a dance film. The camera dances with the characters in slow, precise movements. Long lenses isolate characters from the background, allowing us to see the subtleties of their experience as they float through a vast, uncertain, and shimmering environment. The anamorphic format augments the dreamlike nature of this world. A widescreen aspect ratio permits a play of closeness and distance in composed, painterly framings. Theatrical high-contrast lighting—using beams of blazing tungstens—dramatizes the emotional narrative, externalizing a story about feelings and interactions into an expressionistic cinematic experience.
Your generosity will help bring YOU AND I's stylistic ambitions to life through:
- Paying our talented cast and crew and supporting them on set
- Camera and Lighting: Sony Venice, Anamorphic Lenses, Tungsten Lights
- Original score writing, recording, and mixing
- Locations for our party scene
Goals +Stretch Goals
$15,000:
Complete a 4-day shoot
$28,000:
Complete post-production, from editing and sound to color and soundtrack
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Locations
Costs $4,000
Help us pay to rent locations for rehearsals, Lola and Amelia's apartment, and for our party sequence! Or lend us your own!
Anamorphic Lenses
Costs $500
Help us rent a kit of four vintage anamorphic lenses to fully realize the visual world of the film!
Camera and Lights
Costs $1,500
Help us pay for a kit including a Sony Venice 1 camera and beautiful tungsten lights!
Van Rental
Costs $700
Help us rent a van to transport all of our equipment! Our lend us your own!
Festival Submission
Costs $300
Help us cover the fees to submit YOU AND I to festivals!
Craft Services
Costs $3,000
Help us feed our cast and crew for the duration of the four-day shoot!
Cast & Crew
Costs $3,500
Help us pay our amazing cast and crew!
Score
Costs $1,500
Help us cover composing, recording, mixing, and editing the original score that drives the film.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Jonathan Green (writer/director)
Jonathan Green is a writer and director born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He fell in love with movies at age six, and has been hooked ever since. Jonathan recently graduated from Brown University, where he launched Afterhours Productions with creative collaborator Aidan Blain. YOU AND I is Jonathan’s third short film, following Nice People (2023) and Tigers and Sparrows (2023, co-written and directed with Aidan Blain). By day, Jonathan works as a busboy in Gowanus, and has developed a reputation for extreme competence in his field.
Amelia Mason (Amelia)
Amelia Mason is a New York City-based actor, singer, and dancer. She earned a BA in Theatre with minors in Sociology and Dance from Barnard College of Columbia University — graduating cum laude and receiving the Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Award in Acting — and also trained at the British American Drama Academy in London. Her work has grown to encompass physical theater techniques, classical voice, Shakespeare, and new devised work, and in recent years she has centered her practice on developing original theatrical projects alongside film and media work. She was most recently praised for her performance as Sasha in a production of Chekhov's Ivanov at Royal Family Theater in Times Square.
Violet Savage (Lola)
Violet Savage is a New York City based actor, producer. NYC theater credits include: Fyre Fest Was So Fun!!! (GirlPox), Winning is Winning (Hoi Polloi / Jill @ JACK), Fefu and Her Friends (Farmhands), Family by Celine Song (Hoi Polloi / Amanda + James), galatea 2.0 (BK Art Haus / Invulnerable Nothings), Mad Forest (TFANA), & Promenade in Concert (Mabou Mines). Film: The Invisible Girl (Bohemia Media), The Philosophy of Dress (Fairform), Foxhole (Sameul Goldwyn). She is a graduate of Bard College’s Theater and Performance program and recently co-founded GirlPox, a new production company. IG @violetsavage
Peter Garajszki (director of photography)
Peter is a Cinematographer based in New York, prior in London and Berlin, originally from Budapest. Specialities in lighting and directing. He is looking to help make production, and the film world in general, a modern place that respects the human dignity of others on set and the final films as well. His work includes features, music videos, and commercials for Gucci, Mercedes, and Harley Davidson.
Lev Sheinfeld (composer)
Lev Sheinfeld is a songwriter and musical artist in Chicago. At Brown University, from which he recently graduated, he scored two short films, Nice People (2023) and Running (2023). Lev is currently at work on a debut record for his solo project.
Aidan Blain (producer)
Aidan Blain is a New York based writer, director, and producer from Santa Monica, California. Graduating from Brown University in 2025, Aidan directed two short films during his time there — Running (2023) and Tigers and Sparrows (2023, co-directed and co-written with Jonathan Green) — and is directing his third film, Days and Nights, this summer. Aidan and collaborator Jonathan Green co-founded Afterhours Productions, through which they plan to share their passion and love for cinema with the world.
Elliott Stephanopoulos (producer)
Elliott is recent graduate of Brown University whose academic work focused on the intersection of entertainment and politics, culminating in a course she designed and taught at Brown titled "American Politics on Screen.” Simultaneously, she wrote, directed, and starred in a short film—an experience that deepened her passion for storytelling from multiple angles. Over the past 5 years, she has contributed to a range of projects including the upcoming "The Great Beyond," "Griffin in Summer," "The Crowded Room," and several University-sponsored shorts.
Isabella Langley (producer)
Isabella is producer (& production designer & PA & occasional actress) based in New York City and has worked across narrative, musical, and commercial projects. She worked on over 10 projects during her time as a student at Brown University in roles ranging from executive producer, to 1st AD, to voice actress, and she has since taken that experience into various NYC-based projects. In her not-free time she works as an assistant at a PR and production agency.
Ula Pranevicius (producer)
Ula is a Lithuanian American, born and raised in Queens. She studied film at Wesleyan University and is now a freelance producer, filmmaker, and video artist. Her work has been featured at The Lithuanian Alliance of America.
Annie Stein (casting director)
Annie is a recent graduate of Brown University. As a producer, she has worked on three independent short films and overseen the casting for all three—Uncle Uncle by Amar Ahmad (Downtown Festival 2025), Commencement by Davis Jackson, and Nice People by Jonathan Green. She also writes plays and produces theater with Uptown One Train Theater Co. Her one-act The Ghost of Bob Dylan Shows One of Us Greatness was a finalist in the 2025 Soho Playhouse Lighthouse Series, and her full-length play White Elephant will be produced by Uptown One in June 2026.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Amelia and Lola are best friends. For them, life feels like a wild and perilous adventure, a journey they are bound and fated to embark on together. They live in a slightly magical version of New York City. This world is filled with beautiful, electrifying music—music only Amelia and Lola hear. This film is the love story of their friendship.
Amelia is a true charmer who can’t help dancing to any music she hears. She is sharp, perceptive, and almost bursting with vitality. She is sweet and deeply sensitive, but her intensity can lead to an overexcitement that often causes her problems. Sometimes she says too much. Sometimes she says the wrong thing. But—even when all the odds are against her—her charm and warmth lend her an undeniably endearing charisma that always seems to win the day.
Lola is radiant, magnetic, and beautiful. She lights up the world and every room she enters. She possesses the power to bend reality to her will, and a natural intuition that lets her move through the world with grace and ease. She draws people in with her disarming smile and mysterious light, but she can turn cold, cruel, and distant just as fast. She is less expressive than Amelia, but is at the mercy of an overpowering internal emotional world that she struggles to see beyond.
The girls have a deep, intense, and complicated bond. Amelia can become resentful of her friend’s natural magnetism and is paralyzed by a fear that she could not navigate life without her. Lola can become stifled and frustrated at Amelia’s neediness, and simultaneously overwhelmed by the intensity of their bond. When things are good, when they dance together, no one in the world has more fun. But they can oscillate rapidly from a sweet, affectionate closeness to a tense and frightening distance that feels unbridgeable. Ultimately, the strength and truth of their love always seem to bring them back together.
We meet Amelia on the empty, enchanted streets of New York, listening and dancing to the music she hears everywhere. She meets up with Lola, and the girls return to their apartment to get ready for a mysterious party that Lola has been invited to. The rest of the film follows Amelia as she navigates this night out in Lola’s orbit, clinging to her side before being stolen away by a handsome stranger. The evening gives rise to the tensions latent in the girls’ relationship, and, as it goes on, they are forced to reckon with the beautiful, terrifying intensity of their bond.
This is a dance film. The camera dances with the characters in slow, precise movements. Long lenses isolate characters from the background, allowing us to see the subtleties of their experience as they float through a vast, uncertain, and shimmering environment. The anamorphic format augments the dreamlike nature of this world. A widescreen aspect ratio permits a play of closeness and distance in composed, painterly framings. Theatrical high-contrast lighting—using beams of blazing tungstens—dramatizes the emotional narrative, externalizing a story about feelings and interactions into an expressionistic cinematic experience.
Your generosity will help bring YOU AND I's stylistic ambitions to life through:
- Paying our talented cast and crew and supporting them on set
- Camera and Lighting: Sony Venice, Anamorphic Lenses, Tungsten Lights
- Original score writing, recording, and mixing
- Locations for our party scene
Goals +Stretch Goals
$15,000:
Complete a 4-day shoot
$28,000:
Complete post-production, from editing and sound to color and soundtrack
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Locations
Costs $4,000
Help us pay to rent locations for rehearsals, Lola and Amelia's apartment, and for our party sequence! Or lend us your own!
Anamorphic Lenses
Costs $500
Help us rent a kit of four vintage anamorphic lenses to fully realize the visual world of the film!
Camera and Lights
Costs $1,500
Help us pay for a kit including a Sony Venice 1 camera and beautiful tungsten lights!
Van Rental
Costs $700
Help us rent a van to transport all of our equipment! Our lend us your own!
Festival Submission
Costs $300
Help us cover the fees to submit YOU AND I to festivals!
Craft Services
Costs $3,000
Help us feed our cast and crew for the duration of the four-day shoot!
Cast & Crew
Costs $3,500
Help us pay our amazing cast and crew!
Score
Costs $1,500
Help us cover composing, recording, mixing, and editing the original score that drives the film.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Jonathan Green (writer/director)
Jonathan Green is a writer and director born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He fell in love with movies at age six, and has been hooked ever since. Jonathan recently graduated from Brown University, where he launched Afterhours Productions with creative collaborator Aidan Blain. YOU AND I is Jonathan’s third short film, following Nice People (2023) and Tigers and Sparrows (2023, co-written and directed with Aidan Blain). By day, Jonathan works as a busboy in Gowanus, and has developed a reputation for extreme competence in his field.
Amelia Mason (Amelia)
Amelia Mason is a New York City-based actor, singer, and dancer. She earned a BA in Theatre with minors in Sociology and Dance from Barnard College of Columbia University — graduating cum laude and receiving the Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Award in Acting — and also trained at the British American Drama Academy in London. Her work has grown to encompass physical theater techniques, classical voice, Shakespeare, and new devised work, and in recent years she has centered her practice on developing original theatrical projects alongside film and media work. She was most recently praised for her performance as Sasha in a production of Chekhov's Ivanov at Royal Family Theater in Times Square.
Violet Savage (Lola)
Violet Savage is a New York City based actor, producer. NYC theater credits include: Fyre Fest Was So Fun!!! (GirlPox), Winning is Winning (Hoi Polloi / Jill @ JACK), Fefu and Her Friends (Farmhands), Family by Celine Song (Hoi Polloi / Amanda + James), galatea 2.0 (BK Art Haus / Invulnerable Nothings), Mad Forest (TFANA), & Promenade in Concert (Mabou Mines). Film: The Invisible Girl (Bohemia Media), The Philosophy of Dress (Fairform), Foxhole (Sameul Goldwyn). She is a graduate of Bard College’s Theater and Performance program and recently co-founded GirlPox, a new production company. IG @violetsavage
Peter Garajszki (director of photography)
Peter is a Cinematographer based in New York, prior in London and Berlin, originally from Budapest. Specialities in lighting and directing. He is looking to help make production, and the film world in general, a modern place that respects the human dignity of others on set and the final films as well. His work includes features, music videos, and commercials for Gucci, Mercedes, and Harley Davidson.
Lev Sheinfeld (composer)
Lev Sheinfeld is a songwriter and musical artist in Chicago. At Brown University, from which he recently graduated, he scored two short films, Nice People (2023) and Running (2023). Lev is currently at work on a debut record for his solo project.
Aidan Blain (producer)
Aidan Blain is a New York based writer, director, and producer from Santa Monica, California. Graduating from Brown University in 2025, Aidan directed two short films during his time there — Running (2023) and Tigers and Sparrows (2023, co-directed and co-written with Jonathan Green) — and is directing his third film, Days and Nights, this summer. Aidan and collaborator Jonathan Green co-founded Afterhours Productions, through which they plan to share their passion and love for cinema with the world.
Elliott Stephanopoulos (producer)
Elliott is recent graduate of Brown University whose academic work focused on the intersection of entertainment and politics, culminating in a course she designed and taught at Brown titled "American Politics on Screen.” Simultaneously, she wrote, directed, and starred in a short film—an experience that deepened her passion for storytelling from multiple angles. Over the past 5 years, she has contributed to a range of projects including the upcoming "The Great Beyond," "Griffin in Summer," "The Crowded Room," and several University-sponsored shorts.
Isabella Langley (producer)
Isabella is producer (& production designer & PA & occasional actress) based in New York City and has worked across narrative, musical, and commercial projects. She worked on over 10 projects during her time as a student at Brown University in roles ranging from executive producer, to 1st AD, to voice actress, and she has since taken that experience into various NYC-based projects. In her not-free time she works as an assistant at a PR and production agency.
Ula Pranevicius (producer)
Ula is a Lithuanian American, born and raised in Queens. She studied film at Wesleyan University and is now a freelance producer, filmmaker, and video artist. Her work has been featured at The Lithuanian Alliance of America.
Annie Stein (casting director)
Annie is a recent graduate of Brown University. As a producer, she has worked on three independent short films and overseen the casting for all three—Uncle Uncle by Amar Ahmad (Downtown Festival 2025), Commencement by Davis Jackson, and Nice People by Jonathan Green. She also writes plays and produces theater with Uptown One Train Theater Co. Her one-act The Ghost of Bob Dylan Shows One of Us Greatness was a finalist in the 2025 Soho Playhouse Lighthouse Series, and her full-length play White Elephant will be produced by Uptown One in June 2026.