Cameron Robins, a video production professor at BYU-Idaho, finished a narrative short film in 2023.
Robins has taught video production classes for almost six years. During his Faculty Leave Fellowship in 2023, Robins had three months to create a short, narrative film entitled “No Matter What."
The film follows the true story of Robins' college friend Levi Antoine, who also helped co-direct the film.
“Levi Antoine and his brother Omar have grown up on the streets of Mattapan Boston, where life is hard, and only the toughest kids seem to survive. After both of them convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Levi chooses to serve as a missionary and is sent to Florida,” according to the film's IMDB page.“While he is away, Omar is killed in a drive-by shooting only a block away from their home. On coming home to attend Omar's funeral, driven by pain and anger at his brother's murder, Levi must choose to either embrace his new beliefs and forgive those responsible or reject his faith and dive back into his past of violence and destruction that promises revenge.”
The film has been in the works since 2019. Robins spoke with Antoine about the idea to make it into a film and began to write the first of roughly 17 script drafts.
“I started thinking about the story three years ago, during COVID, when we had a little extra time on our hands from all the remote teaching,” Robins said. “I probably spent 100 hours or more just trying to refine the story. Once the Faculty Leave Fellowship came and I had a full semester off, I spent the full three months taking that script and turning it into a film.”
Robins enlisted nine students and used most of his budget on actors who could bring the story to life. He also hired three of his professional friends to work on the film.
“I spent most of my budget on actors because they were letting it come to life, and they deserve to make as much as they can off of something like that,” said Robins. “So none of them (were) making what they would normally make; a lot of it came from the kindness of their hearts.”
After finishing “No Matter What”, Robins held premieres for the film in Utah and Rexburg. The film was accepted into and aired at Zion’s Indie Film Festival in Utah this year.
Robins’ first motivation to create “No Matter What” was to become a better narrative filmmaker.
“First and foremost on my mind was the fact that I'm teaching how to make what we call 'narrative films,' 'Hollywood-style films,' where you just invent it out of your head and turn it into a film," Robins said. "It's really a cool form of artwork. My job was mostly to do documentary and training-style videos... I am not experienced in narrative filmmaking, and so I said, 'Well, I'm going to teach it; I ought to at least apply these principles and make sure that they work well.'”
Robins’ was also motivated to make the film because Antoine’s story inspired him.
“If I'm going to spend all of that time and effort and money on a narrative film, I want to make it something that I'm passionate about that, that speaks to me, that I feel like I can. It's a story worth sharing,” Robins said. “And my mind immediately went to Levi, he's got the greatest story... I mean, that's the mission of this university, right? It’s to create disciple leaders, and he's one of the best disciple leaders I know.”
No Matter What is available to view on Youtube as “No Matter What Film.”