When juniors Lucas Marcelo Milk and Kasey Day wrote the script for their short film “Strays,” they knew the project was something special.

The story follows four children in the foster care system who sneak out of their house the day before one of them is set to be adopted. Along the way, they find a dead stray cat and, with a homeless man called “The General,” the children decide to hold a burial.

Initially meant to be a quick submission to the “Advanced Production Workshop” class in the hopes of being chosen to complete a senior thesis, Milk and Day, who are both majoring in writing for screen and television, ended up falling in love with the story.

“Lucas and I really like writing stories from the perspective of children because it gives such an intimate view of all of these really big adult problems that we’re dealing with in life,” Day said. “Coming at it from very innocent eyes, it’s able to humanize these stories.”

But there was a problem — the class wouldn’t allow projects that would make production ”exceedingly challenging,” according to Milk. So, they decided to make it their own.

“We didn’t want to give it away,” he said. “We love these characters so much and they ended up becoming really personal … They were like our kids.”

The short film still posed a variety of logistical problems. Besides the thousands of dollars needed to fund the film, the project also required licenses to work with children, an abandoned train track as a filming location and an animal wrangler. But co-producer and junior cinema and media studies student JJ Klein-Wolf was not intimidated by these hurdles; in fact, she wanted to rise to the challenges.

“I read the script and I was like, ‘Not only is this a story that really needs to be told, but I am excited to learn how to do all these things, because I’m not in a lot of classes where I’m getting opportunities to work with kids or to work with animals,’” Klein-Wolf said. “I just was really drawn to the ‘dreaming big’ [theme] that the script had.”

The team put their heads together and started fundraising. Whether it meant hosting house shows where attendees could get $40 permanent tattoos, holding a clothing drive or throwing a bake sale, “Strays” was going to get made no matter what. Milk and Day even started handing out cat portraits on campus to raise funds for the film.

“We’d go out on Trousdale like three, four times a week,” Milk said. “We’d just sit down, get a desk set up, and if people would come by, we would be like, ‘Cat or human portrait?’ … I would do a human portrait for $5, and Kasey would draw them as a cat for $3.”

By the end of their fundraising campaign, the group had raised almost $12,000. But the money was only the beginning.

Location scouting, obtaining licenses and getting insurance were only a few of the problems that the film crew had to overcome. Despite everything, the group continued to persevere together.

“It really feels like the work is not work, especially when you’re working with people that you love and your best friends,” said director and junior Tai Sandhu, who is majoring in cinematic arts, film and television production. “It really feels like we’re all kids again at recess, playing make-believe.”

Klein-Wolf similarly felt that the group’s friendship had not been compromised by the working environment.

“[It’s a] very different relationship between a personal relationship and a professional relationship when you really begin to mix the two,” she said. “But the four of us have a really great dynamic and are really open and honest in communication … There was never a doubt in my mind that Lucas and Kasey and Tai weren’t always on top of their stuff.”

To complete the film, the group had enlisted the help of friends and family both at USC and around Los Angeles: Klein-Wolf’s roommates bought cat portraits, Milk’s mother acted as a studio teacher for the children on set while his younger brother ended up being cast in the film, and other connections led to little successes around set. By the end, “Strays” no longer solely belonged to the four; it was a community affair.

“I am personally really, really proud of how many people touched this film,” Sandhu said. “It’s really, really amazing to see just how big of a community we have, not just here, not just in L.A., but also in the world. I’m also really proud of the fact that we took on an incredibly difficult challenge, made it work.”

The group hopes that audiences will connect to the film’s message of family and kindness. The four also intend to donate the project’s earnings to charities that aid those represented in the short film.

“This film brings representation to so many communities that need support,” Day said. “We want the audience to take away that they can also make a change through these small acts of kindness by hearing other people’s stories and seeing them as people.”

The film will be premiering 8 p.m. Friday at the School of Cinematic Arts Theatre 112.

Disclaimer: Tai Sandhu formerly served as the Photo Editor at the Daily Trojan in Spring 2026. Sandhu is no longer affiliated with this paper.