Your Lucky Day tells the story of how one winning Mega Ball ticket changed the lives of many after an encounter in a local convenience store goes awry.
Editor Nick Pezzillo, who has an extensive background working with music videos, commercials and short films, helped bring this story to life through the post-production process. While he was present on set for a portion of the roughly 15-day shoot, Pezzillo’s work mainly occurs after filming has wrapped.
Throughout this entire process, “[the film] is actually written three times,” said Pezzillo. “[Besides the film’s script], it’s written once in your shoot, because you get what you get. Then it’s written again in the editorial.”
It’s a tedious process when it comes to editing, with a main part of the job being able to establish the proper use of each shot, thinking about the pacing and characters at each point in the film.
“Sometimes just a little bit of subtraction can make a scene great from good,” said Pezzillo.
He goes on to explain his relationship with the film’s director, Daniel Brown, who he has been best friends with since they met in the early 2000s as students at the Art Institute of Seattle.
Your Lucky Day has been in the works for many years, with the pair having created a short film of the same name in 2010. While both are based on the same premise, “it is kind of the cliche dream come true to be able to make one of your first movies with your best friend and do all that collaboration and see it into the world together,” said Pezzillo.
He also added that when it comes to how he and Brown work together, “some of the professionalism has left the building.” There was a high level of trust between the pair going into the project because they knew each other well enough to count on the fact that they both deeply cared about the film they were creating.
“With Dan, and I, it’s funny, because sometimes we’ll be snippy with each other and other people around just to be like, ‘whoa, those guys either love each other a lot or hate each other a lot,” Pezzillo said with a laugh.
While recounting his favourite memories from production, Pezzillo spoke about the week and a half that he and Brown spent in Palm Springs during the editing stage. The duo was, “waking up at seven in the morning and going to bed at three in the morning,” said Pezzillo, adding that he would wake up early and settle into his work at the editing system. However, his early mornings didn’t come without his fair share of fun, with Pezzillo waking Brown up to the sound of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Encanto (2021) on repeat.
“I would wake him up every morning with that song just on blast,” admitted Pezzillo. “That for me, just made me really happy because as hard as that week was for us, it was just you know, it was the little moments.”
Pezzillo also took the time to describe his experience on set alongside actor Angus Cloud, who unfortunately passed away in July.
Pezzillo met Cloud on set, adding that he, “was just such a joy to be around and brought levity and heart every time he was [on set].” He laughed as he shared that Cloud would record rap-style songs on his voice memos app in between shoots. Pezzillo said that Cloud’s performance undoubtedly “elevated the film.”
“[Cloud] has that amazing ability to build empathy with an audience without doing much at all, I think it’s in his eyes,” said Pezzillo. “I think there [are] certain people that have that quality, and that we meet in our life that everyone just wants to be friends with, and he has that in spades.”
Your Lucky Day has been dedicated to Cloud, and his memory will live on through his performances that audiences are sure to love for many more years to come.
The film premiered this past September at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. Pezzillo shared that viewing the film for the first time with a live audience is an experience he’ll never forget.
“It filled me with so much joy and as nervous as we all were, everybody just had a great experience with it,” said Pezzillo.
Your Lucky Day will be released in theatres throughout the United States on November 10, with viewing options on demand beginning November 14. You can watch the full trailer here.
Tune into Met Radio’s Movie Mixtape on Friday, November 10 at 1pm, or Saturday, November 11 at 2pm to listen to the full interview with Pezzillo, or listen to it below.
