IDEAS...those magical little things.

It's pretty easy to forget where certain ideas or aspects of a story came from or when they came into being during the course of writing. Especially if that writing is over a long period of time and especially if it's for a movie.

But I do get asked where the ideas come from? Both the short films I've made and the feature length scripts I've written get to the point where they begin to feel like something that just happened and I'm just finding the best, most important bits to put on paper so that the story can be told in the most compelling way possible.  Happens every time.

But where do the ideas come from? How about I answer a different question and hope it satisfies: What were the original ideas and where did those come from? Answering that is a little easier. The germ. The seed of an idea is what you start with. From that you cook and build and write and test and toss and love and hate and punch and kick and hug and doze off until whatever ends up on screen, ends up on screen.

So enough with the prologue, on with the story-

Dirge (2011) - I've probably answered this in earlier blogs. If you're any sort of decent human being, you'll go back and read them anyway. ---> Right Here.


Night Job (shot in 2008, final cut in 2010) - This was born out of a chat with my high school buddy and old band mate, James Owens. He'd been talking about his workout regime and that he'd been thinking of taking up some martial arts or even fencing. Stocking up on sweet skills. We talked about how your average joe, who was in good shape and had just a few skills was better equipped for a fight than the rest of the average joes. I told him I hoped he took up crime fighting.

After that the idea of a regular guy, with no resources but maybe a set of skills that were above average but did not make him an unstoppable force would be a cool comic book. Then it became a movie idea, wrote the scripts, shortened one into a sort of pitch/short film for a feature length version and made, "Night Job."

It evolved into a story about depression and worth and and "how far is too far." About family. Fatherhood. Getting a bit generic in here ain't it? Moving along...

I've written 7 drafts of the feature since around 2005. I am on a very new and different draft that I hope we get to make some day. There have been a lot of average joe, indie super hero/crime fight flicks and many of them have been good but Night Job is different, has it's own voice...you know, just like the others.

It still feels fresh to me and I can't wait to make it some day.

Proxy (2011) - This was our 48 Hour Film Project (concept to script to production to editing and scoring to finished film in less than 48 hours). The core group of people who'd blocked out 48 hours to work hard and sleep little got together and started brain storming. Alison Brown, half of the multitalented, musical core of our team suggested the idea of someone borrowing someone else's body, for instance: a roommate's body, every night and using it to do things they wouldn't do with their own.

And we ran from there.

Bent (2011) - was a sort of commissioned peace. NewChurch, Georgetown asked me to do something based around the concept of "waking up" to your life. Someone close to me once had a very wise therapist give her some advice, the kind of advice that does just wake you up. Helps you fight back against all the lies you tell yourself.

That advice became the speech the friend is giving to our main character in the middle of the film.


Our upcoming Western, Blood Guilt, came from a friend of mine who is in film school. He needed a short script that could only be three pages, have two characters, and occur in one location. He had been spit balling ideas with me over the phone and one of those ideas really struck a cord with me: What if a man on horseback came upon another man, hanging in a tree but wasn't dead. He'd been left to die but was fighting for life. What next?

We tossed a few drafts back and forth but he ended up writing and directing a short called "Land or Sky," a post WWII story of a young ex-Army pilot at a cross roads concerning a career path. It was partially based on his Grandfather. You can catch it Here.

Time goes on and this friend, Jason Baumgardner, and myself decided to co-create a film together. We've worked on with or for each other on two seasons of a web series, a feature film, three shorts and have had input on almost every project either of us has made in the last 5 years. As of right now, Jason is co-writing Blood Guilt with me as well as co-producing and hopefully coming all the way from California to be my Assistant Director to my Director.

We couldn't be more excited and hope you are as well.