Principal photography for I’m Not Matt Damon began on July 12th 2008. Filming locations included Hollywood, Westwood, West Los Angeles, and Sherman Oaks.

Rothman says, “The challenge of the production was to make it exceptional. The title is unique, but I wanted to make a short film that would really knock your socks off, not only in the story but visually as well. I wanted the short to have a film look, like it was shot on actual 35mm. For that, I turned to the RED Camera. Luck prevailed when I walked into the Camera House and found Rufus Burnham, the owner of the Camera House, and Mel Mathis, the vice president, intrigued by the concept of the film, and more than happy to help.”

As the scope of the film grew, so did the budget. Rothman writes, “By this point, the budget was reset at $15,000. Then, after I saw the 2008 Mustang Bullitt at the L.A. Auto Show I knew I wanted to use that instead of my Honda for the driving sequence. Through a series of emails and pavement pounding I found Ben Maccabee. Ben not only had his own Mustang Bullitt, but he was a renowned stunt car driver. And his Bullitt just happened to be the world’s only supercharged 2008 Mustang Bullitt. Talk about luck.”

A unique series of challenges faced the production, least of all, the compressed shooting schedule. Rothman writes, “When you’re working with no budget on a small project, typically, time is the luxury you get. You can take your time, go one day at a time, no need to rush. But at the level of production I wanted to film, the number of people involved, and with minimal financing available, we had to go for it. Getting all of these elements together again, each time, would have taken months. That meant, instead of comfortably shooting twelve to fourteen setups per day at one location, I had to shoot twenty to twenty four setups, with two company moves, each day.

Rothman adds, “I was afforded the ability to shoot everything I wanted, but the lack of funding did not allow everything I needed. There was no set designer, props department, costume department, etc. Everything that was created was created with what was available. Taking a lead from the books that I read, I wrote to my devices. I only included what I could realistically obtain. And even that required a lot of luck.”

The most notable challenge facing the production was the driving sequence involving the Mustang Bullitt. Recalls Rothman, “I wanted to make the type of driving sequence I had seen in films like Bullitt, French Connection, Ronin, and the Bourne Movies. In a full-fledged production, armed with millions of dollars, they allot weeks and weeks of time to film a sequence like this. I had three days. The one positive working for me was I had two RED ONE cameras to use. One camera was devoted solely to the Bullitt. The other picked up the necessary B roll footage I needed. I gave a camera to the 2nd Assistant Cameraman and his crew and told him to go shoot the phone book. They came back with a lot of usable footage and much of it made it into the final sequence.”