Photograph courtesy of Wax & Wane
In January 2023, Atlanta filmmaker Madison Hatfield performed a reading of her raunchy rom-com short, I Could Dom, at RoleCall Theater. Afterward, four producers approached her, interested in helping her make the film; among them was Rocco Shapiro, a producer, director, and writer at Wax & Wane Films. He was a familiar face: They had already worked together years before, when he was assistant camera operator on another one of her shorts. “He was now a producer, and I was ready to direct again,” Hatfield says. “I really liked the idea of working with someone just like me, who had been learning and building things in Atlanta.”
For Shapiro, the connection also felt right. “If we like a creator and can see their vision, we are interested because we feed on other people’s passion for projects,” Shapiro says. Cristian Bernal, a cinematographer at Wax & Wane, was so inspired by Hatfield’s screenplay, he offered to be cinematographer—his first time working in narrative film.
After a spring crowdfunding campaign that raised nearly $11,000, a three-day shoot in June, and eight months of editing, I Could Dom premiered this April at Aspen Shortsfest, an Oscar-qualifying festival for short films.
Shapiro and Bernal started Wax & Wane with Tré Loren and Sean Valdivieso in 2022, but the group has been working together for longer. In 2015, Bernal and Valdivieso started No Usual, a filming and equipment rental company that creates commercials for clients like Nike and Mercedes. Loren joined in 2016, with Shapiro following two years later. While running No Usual, they developed Wax & Wane as a creative parent company to write, produce, and direct everything from commercials to films, while still supplying all the gear—a boon for indie filmmakers. “Most of [our] money goes to cameras, lights, etc., but they had all of it,” Hatfield says. “It was pretty world-changing.”
This unique blend of commercial and narrative work has allowed the Atlanta production company to make a name for itself in just two years. The company has only four people on staff, but they regularly work with up to 40 local crew members on their productions. While a short film can let someone flex their creative muscles, a commercial production, like a recent one for Grammarly, can pay full rates and keeps collaborators coming back. Wax & Wane has so far produced 10 shorts and plans to expand to features next.
“What makes a Wax & Wane set unique is the crew and the diverse kind of talent we have,” says Shapiro. “We treat our sets like a party. Everybody is open to collaboration; there’s no ego or hierarchy.” They bring the same sensibility to monthly screenings of cult classics like Twilight at the Plaza Theatre. The films are accompanied by what Shapiro calls a “vaudeville” atmosphere of Q&As, costume contests, trivia, and live music: “I wanted to relive the excitement of going and seeing something for the first time.”
This collective work environment sets Wax & Wane apart in an industry mostly composed of freelancers. But that congenial, ensemble approach has drawn admiration throughout the film community in Atlanta. “We developed the company structure we wanted to see,” Bernal says. “We create a community of film lovers, and that helps create a vessel for us and other filmmakers to have a better shot at creating their art.”
This photograph appears in our July 2024 issue.
