Caprice Crane (top) didn’t want to make a trailer for her second novel, Forget About It; she was interested in making a short film, but Disney had already picked up the movie rights, so a straightforward adaptation was out. “But I could do something completely different yet ‘inspired by’ it,” Crane recalls, so while both Forget About It and Passing the Time, the film she’s written and directed, use amnesia as a plot device, and both are quirkily, romantically comedic, the similarities end there. (The novel does, however, have a cameo appearance in the film.)
Actress Abigail Spencer was part of the coffeehouse conversation that led Crane to write the script, and immediately accepted a leading role when she saw the final draft. “Abby had just guest-starred with Reid Scott on My Boys,” Crane continues, “and we thought he’d be perfect, so we got the script to him and he totally dug it too. Next thing I knew we were scouting locations, getting a crew together and making this no-budget short.” Crane will probably be glad to take questions about the film—which can be seen on her MySpace page and on the comedy site FunnyOrDie.com—when she reads from Forget About It tomorrow night at the Lincoln Triangle Barnes & Noble, and at a group chick-lit event Wednedsay afternoon at Bryant Park, and then again at a Santa Monica B&N Thursday.