July 3, 2025

A Human Reaction

This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--

DID I MAKE MY GOAL?

Big picture, I’m working away on the post-production of our horror film, Dead Media. Last time, I committed to the goal of incorporating at least half of the pick up shots we got in Minneapolis into the current edit of Dead Media!

And I made that goal! Amazing how much easier it is to hit your goals when they’re reasonable. Even more amazing that I seem to forget that every week.

It’s been great to add the pick-up shots into the main edit. It’s like scratching an itch I’ve had for six months. Some of the pick-up shots involve a quick drop in of one image without really altering the scene. Others involve pulling scenes apart and rebuilding them. Those scenes are taking a while.

As always, my main enemy with the film work is time.

And focus. (I just paused in writing the blog because I had a brainstorm about a different way to crop a shot. Hey, it worked!)

So, main enemies: Time and focus.

Oh, also, money.

Anyway, if you’re interested in helping us pull the film across that finish line, I need to raise a bit more money for post-production. You can make a one time tax-deductible donation via Film North here. Thanks to the folks who have made contributions in the last few weeks. Deeply, deeply appreciated.

ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--

My adventures this week have been mostly internal as I’ve been hunched over my laptop editing away on the film.

For a fun break from the film, I did some taxes, watched 28 Days Later with my wife, and worried about the future. (More on that below!)

A bright spot of the week was last Wednesday night.

My old friend and star of Dead Media, Sam Landman, was in Los Angeles for a screening of another indie film he starred in called Good Sport.

It was playing at the festival, Dances With Films, so Sara and I went to see it. We got to chat with Sam as well as my old friend from the Twin Cities, Michelle, who I did several shows with at the History Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.

We enjoyed the film very much. A fast-paced, character-driven comedy with lots of great eccentric choices from the cast and a kids’ basketball game as its narrative spine. (Again, it’s called Good Sport. Check it out if it plays in a festival near you!)

I would have enjoyed the film if I had just watched it at home, but what made it particularly rewarding was seeing it in a theater and experiencing the community.

The film was shot in Minnesota, but a lot of the actors are based in LA. As every name came up on the screen, a big howl of applause filled the theater making it clear the actors and their supporters were in the crowd amidst the regular festival attendees.

The mood in the theater was warm and open. You could feel people get hooked into the main emotional thread of the film and pulled along, wishing for the best for the main character.

I’m sure there were people in the audience who were critical, analyzing every little editing and lighting and acting choice. I’m sure there were some folks who just didn’t enjoy the film. It’s a conversation, after all, and the film is only one half of that conversation. Each audience member brings the other half.

But the overall vibe of the conjoined hive mind of the audience was just engagement. Just leaning forward and watching a story flicker away on the big screen.

It was a reminder of the power of seeing a story in a communal space. Of the simple joy of connecting with the trials of an imaginary person up on the big screen. Watching a film, particularly with other people, is an act of empathy.

Which brings me back to worrying about the future! As I’ve been working on the film, my hand has drifted over to my phone to check social media without me even realizing I’m doing it. It’s like that old Peter Lorre film, The Beast With Five Fingers, but instead of murdering people, my hand just wants me to be more stressed.

There’s the obvious horrors of the world, but I also struggle with how social media often talks about art.

There is a lot of casual cruelty about art that people don’t like. Of course, it’s always fine to not like something or to vent if a film upset you. But I think a lot of our discourse has gone beyond that. It feels like art is a piñata—just something to smash until some anger dopamine falls out of the battered corpse.

On the other side of the spectrum, art that people love is venerated. And, again, that’s great! There are artists and films that I love and I like being loud about what I love. But I think we also tend to put artists on an unhealthy pedestal. Treating them as god-like figures who were preordained to accomplish artistic feats mere mortals could never aspire to. Yes, filmmakers like Spielberg and Scorsese and some of my favorites—David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, Greta Gerwig—are incredibly talented. But their greatest gift is not being superhumanly skilled, it’s tapping into their humanity. Tapping into their own psyches, their own tastes, their own life experiences. Their films are good because they are NOT gods. Their films are good because they’re complex, flawed, honest, messy, and human.

As I work away on Dead Media, analyzing every frame of film trying to make it the best, most true film it can be, it’s easy to get haunted by the online discourse.

According to large swaths of social media, filmmakers are golden gods, obnoxious hacks, or—the worst criticism from my perspective—lazy. I think there are definitely corporate leaders who can make some lazy film choices, but I don’t think there is such a thing as a lazy indie filmmaker.

But like all things, this is a warped view focusing only on the lens of social media.

Attending the screening of Good Sport was a refreshing reminder of the true cinema experience. It’s connection. It’s storytelling. It’s people gathered around a fire listening to a tale and if it works—people will lean forward, shadows dancing on their faces, wanting to know what happens next.

Also a good reminder for me that the best path forward is to make something unique and true. To pour my humanity into this film.

The rest is just a conversation.

LIGHT PLUGS—

The Nightmare Adorable!

I wrote and directed this short horror film back in 2023. Can you help us get to 1000 views on YouTube?

You can watch here!

DEAD MEDIA! We’ve got a fiscal sponsorship with the great Minnesota organization Film North. They can accept one-time donations that will go directly toward finishing the film: SCORE, VFX, COLOR GRADING, etc. It’s like a Kickstarter where the rewards are A) a tax deduction and B) helping us make the film.

For full info, please check out the page for the upcoming horror film, DEAD MEDIA!

Or if you have any questions about supporting the film, feel free to reach out to me personally!

MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

I’ve got to spin a lot of plates to keep things moving on the post-production for Dead Media. Right now, I need to get moving on the fourth and final-ish pass on the picture edit. So my goal this week is to incorporate at least half of the pick up shots into Dead Media!

YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? How can I help you literally finish your monsters?

A LITTLE SKETCH--

This week’s sketch is a rough concept image for my upcoming film, THE BEAST WITH FIVE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.

Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you hear and tell some good human stories this week, and best of luck finishing your monsters!