Nice AF Productions is an indie production company founded by actor, writer, and producer Martha Millan (The Cleaning Lady, The Gentlemen, Cape Fear).
Short Thin Lines was produced with a lean 3-person skeleton crew across fast-paced NYC locations.
Celtx provided the complete digital pre-production framework to take the project from script to post-production.
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Nice AF Productions
Short Thin Lines was written by and stars Martha Millan, and was shot across four days in New York City.
From Network TV Sets to a Lean 3-Person Indie Crew
Shooting handheld across NYC’s crowded streets, subway platforms, and unpredictable public spaces, Martha designed Short Thin Lines to embrace chaos and immediacy, letting production constraints shape its visual language. To make a tight budget work, she structured the narrative to take place over a single day—minimizing hair, makeup, and wardrobe changes and also to avoid continuity errors. Filming was streamlined into two key setups: FD Photo Studio for indoor stages, and a single-day on location for Times Square and subway exteriors.
“I was constantly shifting gears on set—jumping from producer, to caterer, to production assistant, to literally clapping the slate sticks myself right before stepping into frame to act. Shifting between ‘producer brain’ and ‘actor brain’ left no time to think, but Celtx kept production moving.”
Martha Millan, Actor & Producer
Going from Script to Shoot with Integrated Pre-Production Tools
Having written the initial concept in Celtx years earlier, returning to the platform gave Martha the digital framework needed to plan a fast-moving production. As an actor-producer, respecting her cast's time was paramount. She wanted every actor to "SWF" (Start, Work, Finish) in a single day. Using Celtx’s scheduling tools, she dynamically reordered scenes based on studio availability, location constraints, and talent schedules without losing track of the master script.
Explore the Celtx tools used to bring Short Thin Lines to life
Writing
Schedule
Budget
Call Sheets
Managing Indie Production Budgets and Set Operations
Martha wore nearly every departmental hat on this production. The one exception was casting, where actor Liza Weil (Gilmore Girls, How to Get Away with Murder) lent her talent and support during auditions. With that many roles to juggle, keeping financial track of a shoot can quickly become overwhelming. Celtx’s integrated budgeting feature became a lifesaver, tracking costs in real time across cast and crew pay, studio rentals, props, parking, and the daily Dunkin’ and DoorDash catering runs.
“Ten years ago, my pilot Thin Lines was born in Celtx, and ten years later, so was its proof of concept, Short Thin Lines. It didn’t just help me write the script; it helped me film it, and genuinely served as my digital crew.”
Martha Millan, Actor & Producer
Streamlining Post-Production Workflows from Set to Edit
The organization built during pre-production provided a crucial safety net when wrapping principal photography and transitioning to post-production. Deliverables handed off to industry veteran editor Diva Magpayo and our acclaimed sound team, supervised by Emmy winner Charlie Crutcher, were organized by shoot days alongside Celtx daily call sheets. Having a structured blueprint gave the post-production team the exact context needed to map footage back to the original script, enabling an efficient edit and streamlined post-production workflow. Colorist Mike Bonner then brought the final visual finish to the film and delivered the master file.
What’s Next for Short Thin Lines?
With principal photography wrapped and a successful crowdfunding campaign hitting over 118% of its goal on Seed&Spark, Short Thin Lines has completed post-production—gearing up for a 2027 festival run while actively developing the series expansion, Thin Lines.
Coming from a TV series with armies of crew members to a 3-person crew, Celtx gave me the digital framework to build an efficient, professional production schedule on an indie level.”
Photo credit: Eric Fischer