Happy Belated

Once Manuel Saldaña had Happy Belated's story laid out, the only person he had in mind to play the lead role was Samantha Rae Bass as he had worked with her once before in his 2019 romantic film, "CO-WORKERS". Originally Samantha auditioned for the lead role of Emma in that film but got a smaller role or Stephanie instead. But in that small role, she impressed director Saldaña so much with her performance, that he wanted to work with her again but in a bigger role. Hence he wrote "Happy Belated" with Samantha in mind as the lead.

Tariana's purse is not consistently on her. SPOILER: She walks in with her purse strapped on her shoulder and has it for most of the movie without taking it off. But in some parts it just vanishes between cuts or scenes. When Tariana is looking at her birthday cake and she realizes they spelled her name wrong at 7:30 to 7:33 when she turns around right before getting approached by Terrence, her purse is not on her. At 8:27 she has her purse back on. At 10:45 before she walks in on Sarah and Kyle having sex, the purse is gone again. The purse is back at 12:31. At 13:42 the purse is gone yet again as she approaches Jeffrey at the desk. 14:08 she has her purse back as she walks towards Danny. At 18:30 she takes off her purse and places it on a table behind her and never recovers it again as she storms off from the building after her birthday speech. Maybe Monica can go back in there and recover it for her. Both the Samantha (Tariana) and key production assistant Alexandra notice the inconsistency of the purse days into the production but by then it was too late to re-shoot those scenes and director Manuel didn't think it was a big enough issue to warrant a re-shoot. Unfortunately on the first day of filming, Manuel had no PA's so the cast would step into help behind the scenes with no one catching that continuity error that day. But Manuel figured most of the audience wouldn't notice anyway and it would be fun for those who do to see it pop up every now and then. Having the purse on was Samantha's idea to add more realism instead of coming into her job empty handed.

"Caramel the Guinea Pig - As Himself"