Expiration: Interview with Gavin Heffernan

Armed with a digital camera, an extremely tight budget, and a passion for film, 23-year old writer/director Gavin Heffernan has made his second feature-length independent feature that has been making the rounds of film festivals. The film, entitled Expiration, focuses on three central characters in Montreal whose lives are intertwined one night following a convenient store robbery that leads two of them searching for the criminal in order to retrieve the valuable possessions stolen from them.

After being asked to review the film for Heffernan and clan, I requested for an email interview with Gavin to get a more detailed glance at what his process with independent moviemaking involved. Since some of our readers may be looking to head into relevant turf some day (along with my infatuation with behind-the-scenes coverage), getting a point of view from a young, up-and-coming source seemed ideal. Below you will find the Q&A session with Gavin Heffernan, and you may also check out my review of Expiration.



How long did it take to write the screenplay?

I spent about four months writing the screenplay we eventually began shooting with. As it turned out, issues like weather, the university schedule and several other timing elements pushed us to begin shooting with what was really a rough draft. Though the bones of the story remained true to the original
version, a lot of the themes, moods, and feelings had yet to emerge.

And most of those changes oddly became fictional reflections of the actual experiences we underwent making this film under such f***** up circumstances. Not to say that the production schedule included shooting heroin, Russian roulette or prostitution (despite what you may have heard?) but more so the spiritual issues that arose, like the loss of childhood, or the influence of the past on the present, or the realities of love and sex, destiny?