Queen Anne: Shooting a short film entirely on pinhole

I’ve always been fascinated by stories set in one location. When I was young I was startled by the old time radio dramatization of Sorry, Wrong Number, a twisted tale about an invalid woman stuck in her apartment bedroom who slowly realizes one evening that she’s being stalked by a killer. I also had the idea growing up that if there were ghosts, they stayed in one place, way out in the middle of nowhere in the cold and dark, alone and unmoving. I’d look out the window on starless winter evenings driving home from my grandparents’ farm imagining lost souls in the black tree lines miles from the road, standing motionless in the sharp cold, listening to the trees creaking in the wind.

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July Flame: Capturing Summer in Northern Illinois

My whole life I’ve longed to capture the essence of the world and seasons around me. All of my short film projects incorporate this desire to some extent, and when I can watch one of my projects in the dead of winter and get a faint whiff of the heat of summer baking blacktop, I feel I’ve at least partially succeeded.

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Sword and Suburb: My Newest Loner Narrative

Loners have always fascinated me. Being a part-time loner myself, I’m compelled by the narrative force of a character who is alone by choice or necessity, striving to accomplish a goal by their single strength or choosing to do nothing and fade into obscurity. There is both a flaw and a strength to the loner. On one hand their absence from others shows their selfishness and fear, but on the other it shows their discipline and focus. Loners are more likely to become delusional and do foolish things because they have no one to correct them, but they’re also able to take risks that others wouldn’t take.

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Summer Stories: Penguinarium

Here’s episode 2 of my new miniseries Summer Stories. In this episode I wanted to capture the essence of 1940’s and 50’s horror with silent film storytelling. I shot the entire episode on my new Sony A7S II with a vintage Canon FD 20mm lens for a slightly surreal, off kilter look, and I chose a penguin to be the antagonist because they are inherently funny. Actually, this is an example of a prop inspiring a script. I found a retro plastic penguin statue at my local antique store this spring and the script just kind of fell into my head.