Behind the Scenes

Lemonade started the way a lot of later Dollars & Donuts projects would. Found, not built.

The script came from Marc Prey, discovered on Reddit and optioned in early 2023. The setup was clean. A traveler walks into a roadside bar, catches the attention of a small-time criminal couple, and turns out to be something far worse than either of them expected. What made the script especially interesting was its structure. Two threads unfolding in parallel, with a pair of barflies circling the story in conversation while the real trouble plays out somewhere else.

Daryl wasn’t particularly interested in making another alien film. After the UFO-heavy work of When Stars Are Bright, the instinct was to move away from that territory rather than repeat it. But Lemonade offered a way to carry some of that imagery forward while doing something different, meaner, and more noir-y.

The first major change came with the bar dialogue. In Prey’s original script, the two men talk openly about aliens from the beginning. The scene worked, but it tipped the hand too early. Daryl wanted them discussing the same idea without ever naming it. Strange encounters. Things hiding in plain sight. Secrets a person might be happier never uncovering.

That brought in the Summers Brothers, whom Daryl had met through the ATX Short Film Showcase. They were asked to rework the opening and closing dialogue while preserving the basic structure. The alien talk became Bigfoot, chance encounters, urban legends, and the uneasy possibility that something impossible could pass right by without being recognized. The pair also became younger, sharper, and less broadly comic. Instead of explaining the movie, they became a kind of sideways chorus for it.

There was a minor disagreement later when Prey saw multiple writers listed on IMDb. It was quickly resolved. Prey retained the film’s “Written by” credit, while the Summers Brothers received “Additional Dialogue.”

Kayla Emerson led the film as Tammy, with Sasha Boggs producing and Max Isaacson playing John, the traveler at the center of the story. Taylor Fredricks and Ryan Castro rounded out the principal ensemble, with Castro appearing opposite longtime Dollars & Donuts regular Lorenzo Ocon in the bar sequences.

That mix of old and new became one of the film’s defining features.

By 2023, the ATX Short Film Showcase had become a regular part of Daryl’s life in Austin. The monthly screenings were built around a simple idea. Get local filmmakers, actors, and crew into the same room, show the work, and see what grows from it. Lemonade was the first Dollars & Donuts production to really capitalize on that network.

Jacob Stone, known to the crew affectionately as Big Beard Man, joined as 1st AC and was eventually talked into playing the bartender. Maxwell Franko handled production sound after coming into the orbit through Patrick Duggan, another showcase connection. For the first time, a Dollars & Donuts film in Texas wasn’t relying primarily on the old roster. The circle was widening.

Lorenzo Ocon helped bridge the two eras. A familiar face from earlier productions, he carried some of the old company chemistry into a cast and crew that was still largely new to one another. Lemonade would also become his last Dollars & Donuts appearance to date. Whether that remains true is another matter.

The Lone Star Bar became the production’s anchor. Daryl’s mother, Nina, walked in and secured the location the old-fashioned way. She asked. That introduction led to a friendship with manager Shana Lloyd, who closed the bar for the night and would later open the door to more collaborations.

The location also produced one of those coincidences that seemed almost written after the fact. The film’s lead character was named Tammy. The Lone Star Bar had a real Tammy Edwards working there. She became part of the extended Dollars & Donuts orbit and later appeared in Pretty Mess and Love’s Long Shadow. Austin was beginning to feel less like a place where the company happened to be working and more like a world of its own.

Kayla Emerson brought effects artist David Woodruff onto the production. Woodruff, the son of veteran creature-effects artist Tom Woodruff Jr., expanded what the team could attempt practically. The alien reveal was built around physical effects, including the split-body work, tentacle elements, and transformation pieces. More elaborate ideas were discussed, but the schedule was tight and the film had to move quickly. What survived that process became the centerpiece of the climax.

The final sequence was shot at a Rodeway Inn. It gave the production exactly what it needed. A controllable room, enough space for the effects work, and no unnecessary complication. The movie reaches the motel, shows its hand, drops the bodies, and gets out.

Jacob Stone’s bartender came with one unusual production choice. The character was voiced using an early AI recreation of Bob Garrett, whose voice had been a recurring presence throughout early Dollars & Donuts.

The decision was made cautiously. The intention was not to manufacture a new performance from Garrett, but to preserve a familiar presence within the narrow range of things he might plausibly have recorded for the company himself. Even then, the choice raised questions that were not treated as automatically settled simply because the technology made it possible. It became an early example of a problem filmmakers would increasingly have to confront. Where preservation ends and imitation begins.

The film closes with Lori Carsillo’s original song Pretty Mess, her first country track, written for the bar sequence and carried through the end credits. Like several ideas from this period, it refused to stay contained inside one project. The song soon became the basis for its own music video, shot back at the Lone Star Bar.

By then, Lemonade had already done more than produce another short film. It had connected a new group of collaborators, established a recurring location, introduced people who would return in later projects, and helped turn the Austin chapter of Dollars & Donuts from an experiment into something permanent.