WENDELL — Have you ever looked back at a crossroads in your life and wondered if you should have handled something differently?

Brian Jones and Jordan Brooks have, and it just so happens those crossroads resulted in a 23-minute short film shot over six 12-hour days in Wendell and Shutesbury earlier this month.

Jones and Brooks have co-written and co-directed “Thickly Settled,” which Jones said is about a marriage that has deteriorated and a man who encounters a physicist trying to create a time machine to save his wife who died 20 years earlier.

“It’s a personal story, mostly about my own life,” Jones said.

Jones, who moved to Wendell in the 1990s, explained self-reflection was the catalyst of a screenplay he started writing in December 2024. He has an editing studio in Wendell and hopes to complete the film, which he described as “ultra-low budget,” this year.

“Brian and I were having lots of these conversations, as you do in mid-life, about all the different choices that have brought you to where you are. What would you do differently?” Brooks recounted. “Brian said he had this idea of a screenplay.”

The two recruited the services of Elizabeth Aspenlieder, a producer based in the Berkshires, and filmed from March 1 to March 6. Nathaniel Miller, the director of photography, is a longtime friend of Jones.

“I’m very grateful to be a part of it. This is one I’m really proud to be a part of, from the get-go,” said Aspenlieder, who has been in the industry for 30 years. “Everyone on the team rallied. It really felt like a family.”

Aspenlieder mentioned the four lead actors were SAG-AFTRA union members, but the other roles were filled by locals cast for the film.

“There were times on set that I lost it — I was tearing up seeing the emotion that the actors brought to the scene,” she said. “It was a well-oiled machine, and things just went unbelievably smoothly.”

The cast and crew stayed at Pine Brook Camp and Conference Center in Shutesbury during filming.

“We wanted it to be fun, but it’s also a lot of hard work,” Brooks said. “I’m emotional even talking about it. … I could talk about this thing all day long, because it was such a magical experience.”

The cast includes Naheem Garcia, who played Danny the janitor in “The Holdovers,” a 2023 movie partially filmed at Deerfield Academy.

“I’m very excited to see him on film,” Brooks said.

Brooks spent 17 years living and working on various projects in southern France before moving to Shutesbury a few years ago.

“There should be tons of movies being made here, because it’s a really special place,” she said.

Photos taken during filming can be found on the movie’s Instagram page, @ThicklySettledFilm.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-930-4120.