Director Lynn Shelton’s follow-up to My Effortless Brilliance, Sundance Dramatic Competition entry stars Mark Duplass (HumpdayThe Puffy Chair) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) as two college friends who meet up a decade later and somehow end up pacting to make a boy-on-boy sex tape together. Answering our 4 Questions We Ask Everyone, Shelton declared her love for The Princess Bride, named the crew member she poached from Medicine for Melancholy, and explained her philosophy of low expectations.

Tell us about your movie: who did you work with, what did you shoot on, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

Humpday is like Bang the Drum Slowly meets Jaws. Only no-one dies. Either by tumor or by shark.

It’s about the reunion of two old college buddies, Ben and Andrew, who haven’t seen each other for years. Somehow, within 24 hours of being in each other’s company again, they manage to box themselves into a mutual dare to have sex with each other on film. For an “art project”. Which wouldn’t be so radical or weird except for the fact that Ben’s married, and both guys are about as straight as straight can be.

The film’s about fear of conformity; of not living up to your own image of yourself; about long-term romantic relationships; about a certain kind of male friendship between two guys who adore each other but who also bring out the most absurdly competitive aspects in each other.

Why I made the movie: 1) an overwhelming desire to work with Mark Duplass, and, 2) a sadistic desire to watch a couple of straight guys squirm.

I’d met Mark Duplass in August of 2007 on the set of True Adolescents, a film shooting in Seattle that he was acting in and I was shooting stills for. Watching him act, seeing how generous he was with the other actors, and how far he was willing to go in every single scene, I knew immediately that I wanted to work with him. We bonded at the craft services table and I pitched the idea for Humpday to him about a month or two after the production had wrapped and he’d gone back to LA. I think Mark found the premise—of two straight dudes deciding they had to try and have sex together—an intriguing, if slightly insane, challenge. He introduced me to Joshua Leonard as his potential co-star almost immediately and the two of them seemed to have just the right kind of chemistry for this intense, nutty, onscreen friendship. I brought in Alycia Delmore, a great Seattle actress, to play Mark’s wife and, soon thereafter, Mark convinced me to play the supporting role of Monica, Josh’s love interest, myself.

We shot on two HVX-200s over the course of 9-10 days at the end of June, 2008. Ben Kasulke (who shot my first two features) was the DP and Nat Sanders (who I’d met on the festival circuit last year…he edited Medicine for Melancholy) moved himself up to Seattle from LA to edit the film with me over the next two and a half months.

If you funded your film through a “day job” or through working on projects that were not your own, tell us about that. If not, tell us a story from your past work life, before you became a professional filmmaker.

I funded the film through grants and donations and fed myself and my family by teaching part time at the Digital Filmmaking program at the Art Institute of Seattle. My most exotic past employment experience: working for 4 months on a factory trawler in the Bering Sea when I was twenty-two years old.

Have you been to Sundance before? If so, tell us your best moment (or worst, which ever is funnier). If you haven’t, what are you most (or least) looking forward to based on your impressions of the festival?

I have never been to Sundance before, (although I have been to Park City; my first feature film, We Go Way Back won Slamdance in 2006.) I am imagining long lines, icy sidewalks, and a constant headache the first few days due to the high altitude. (I like to keep my expectations low so if I end up having a fabulous time, it will all just be a pleasant surprise.)

Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?

This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride.