The Making of a 13-Minute Love Story About Human Experience

When creative studio Revery set out to rebrand, they decided to start shooting without a script or a premeditated storyline. The 13-minute documentary-style film, ‘A Love Story’ features the voices of 20 real people reflecting on the most intimate and vulnerable parts of their lives and identities. With no definition narrative before filming began, the process became what the team describes as “a creative leap of faith” letting human stories forge the path.

Watching it feels personal. It’s a look at love in all of its vastness, shortcomings, complexity, ease, and overwhelm. How the team managed to fit such a spectrum into 13 minutes is nothing short of impressive.

“Just about every part of the process was revelatory. There was no defined narrative before we sat down with each individual,” says creative director Zak Marx, describing the project’s open-ended production.

Early on, the crew felt both excitement and uncertainty. “During the shoot, we were definitely nervous, thinking, ‘I hope this turns into something,’” he recalls. It wasn’t until the editing stage that the story began to take shape. He credits co-director and editor Alexander Gilbert, who “found these beautiful throughlines and turned them into one cohesive journey” from a trove of disparate interviews.

Approaching each interview as an act of care became a guiding philosophy for the team. “It’s an emotional experience to sit down with someone and say, ‘Nice to meet you,’ then proceed to ask them about the most intimate and vulnerable parts of their life and identity,” Zak says.

In practice, this meant creating a safe, trusting space on set. “You can’t really phone it in when you’re hoping people will open up to you as a stranger,” he tells me. “We had to approach each subject with incredible care – to offer a space and conversation to deeply connect.”

In an age of endless bite-sized content, committing to a 13-minute, dialogue-driven film was a risk. “Our vertical scrolling world ain’t begging for 13-minutes of talking-heads without a CTA,” says Zak. Yet the team leaned into this unconventional format wholeheartedly. They believed that if viewers invested their time, the payoff would be meaningful.

For those who do sit and watch, “the takeaway is far richer than your average 15-second dopamine hit,” he says. It’s a gamble on depth over brevity, one that the filmmakers hope will guide their future projects. In fact, the team sees this project as “a compass, not a map” for Revery’s creative direction – a guiding principle to continue taking chances on unorthodox storytelling that makes people feel something real.

Despite its non-traditional tactics, the film’s reception has been strikingly deep and thoughtful. Viewers aren’t responding with perfunctory praise; they’re engaging in conversation. “Rarely do you hear something as simple as ‘It’s nice,’” notes Zak. “What has happened is people have engaged in a deep dialogue – as if continuing the conversation or exploration we started in the film – which is just about all you can ask for as a filmmaker.”

The week-long shoot delivered a breathtaking range of human experiences. In one striking 24-hour span, the crew interviewed a pregnant woman due to give birth the next day and, by the next morning, sat down with a man freshly released after 38 years in prison.

The stark contrast between those two lives, back to back, left a lasting impression on the team. “The beautiful part of this experience was being taken on the roller coaster of life by speaking to 20 unique humans in a week,” he says. That roller coaster – the soaring hopes, deep fears, and enduring love across many different lives – became the heart of the film.

For Revery, the message that endures is that authentic stories can trump slick scripts, and that empathy in filmmaking can forge genuine connection.  It’s worth taking the time to sit with it.