Joshua Reinhart’s musings about how teenagers are seemingly connected to everyone today with their phones, but in truth are disconnected from the world, quickly coalesced, thanks to the Holy Spirit, into a fleshed-out idea for a short film.

Five minutes later, the recent Grade 12 graduate from Lloydminster, Alta., phoned his cousin Christopher Connelly in St. Paul. Reinhart pitched the idea, piqued his cousin's interest, and soon the two were calling each other to storyboard their project.

Shot over four days in December, the pair produced the short film Choice. It depicts a young man named Alex, portrayed by Connelly, who experiences a crisis that forces him to confront the passive way he approaches daily life.

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Reinhart, the project’s cinematographer and editor, said certain scenes were in his head before they began filming, while others emerged through discovery on set.

“I had the shot of him in the shower in my head,” said Reinhart. “We wanted the yelling shot of Alex with his dad in the film. From the beginning, we wanted a few scenes of him scrolling on his phone constantly.”

Connelly sat during the dinner scene with his actual parents and brother. His father, John, with a stage acting background, was game for the film’s raw dramatic scenes, including an argument and a hospital scene.

“The argument was neat,” said Connelly. “My dad just shines in that scene. It was so neat to finally actually get to see my dad acting after hearing about it for so many years.”

The two young filmmakers were creatively advised during this journey by Connelly’s older sister Jenny, who possesses extensive multimedia producing, hosting and communications experience. The communications coordinator for the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association admires how her brother and cousin navigated this experience together.

“We're just so proud of them for having the tenacity to go forward with a project like this and noticing how much love they were putting into all of the details,” she said. “There's a lot of perseverance that is in filmmaking, especially the editing process and learning how to work together. I know that they were learning a lot about the dynamics of teamwork, and anything that's creative comes with a lot of emotion because that's what partly makes it so great.”

There was a day when the cousins realized there were very few usable shots, and there was even a moment later in the journey when they felt tempted to scrap the project, but they were ultimately rewarded for their endurance.

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The climax of the film is  a choice of prayerful surrender inside a church in front of the monstrance, beholding the consecrated Eucharistic host. The cousins agreed from the beginning that the solution to the existential crisis the young protagonist is experiencing must be faith-based.

“If you try to give someone an answer for any of their issues in life when it comes to their mind and their heart, if you don’t involve Jesus, I think you're selling them short,” said Connelly. “What came instantly into my mind was, ‘this is going to be a faith-based film.’ Any time that we're able to involve evangelization in any project, then I'm ready and rearing.”

Reinhart said he and Connelly wanted to avoid the “cringy” aspect of some faith-driven films that come on too fast with the sermonizing.

“If you put the faith right in their face and like they don't practice anything, then they're more likely to click off the video and not be as interested,” said Reinhart. “We wanted to convey that message of a normal teenager with (typical) habits nowadays of what teenage life looks like.

“We wanted to introduce the faith a little bit later. So, when they're watching, it's like just normal day-to-day life. And then the faith comes in later, but then they have to keep watching because they're curious what's going to happen at the end.”

During the editing process, the cousins had enough content for a strong 16-minute video, but while reviewing the cut, Jenny taught the boys about the concept of “killing your darlings.” Sometimes, to enhance the narrative flow of the overall film, you have to be willing to leave really good artistic shots on the cutting room floor.

They ended up with a potent 10-minute final cut.

Just weeks after its upload to YouTube, Choice has already garnered thousands of views. For the filmmakers, though, it is not about the volume of people who see their work. They hope the people who need to hear this message encounter the video.

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“We’re like, ‘Lord, just leave the film to the people, the right people that need to see it today,’ ” said Reinhart.

A broader message Connelly would like viewers to adopt through the decisions Alex makes towards the end of the film is that “joy, happiness and discipline are huge outward signs of a faithful life."