The idea for this film evolved from a short I originally produced whilst at University titled Stranger. I was never particularly happy with the original effort, and I frequently daydreamed about one day having another go at the concept. Almost eight years later, I felt ready to tackle the subject matter again.

Dinner With Mum was conceived and written in August 2018, and took one afternoon of solid writing and a quick glance over any spelling error corrections before I sent out the script for feedback. The initial response was promising, and the script excited me enough to think about producing it - I often write scripts that never see the light of day. 

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I knew Meryl from a previous project titled The Missing Hand, and felt she would be a natural choice for the role. Luckily she liked the script, and so did Lucy-Jane, who I had just worked with on S.A.M. I opted to fill the rest of the cast with actors I knew and had worked with before. 

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Admittedly, this project is a step down in size and budget in comparison to my last project. I had little choice but to shoot by myself, with help from Georgina as AD, as I couldn't afford to hire anyone else for the camera department. I knew make-up would play a huge role in this idea so that's where most of my budget went. I had worked with Brittany before, and she did an incredible job. 

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The edit took almost six months to complete because I was hired as an editor on a stop-frame animation titled Strike which took up all my time. Once that project was finished, I was eager to get Dinner With Mum finished ASAP. I met Peter (the composer) on Strike, and he was keen to build his credits and accepted the challenge of scoring our film. 

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