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?

My two goals for last week: send 5 emails related to Dead Media and get all of my wife Sara’s birthday presents wrapped.

Yes and yes!

Another great week of making completely reasonable goals.

I sent many emails about our horror film Dead Media. The film has been getting into more festivals and we’re working hard behind the scenes to get it out into the world. If you saw the film at its Minneapolis premiere or any of its film festival appearances so far, a good review on Letterboxd would help tremendously!

I also got all of Sara’s presents wrapped which is very good because today is her birthday. The biggest challenge there was that I put our wrapping paper in the dreaded “more convenient location that I will for sure remember where it is” and could not find it. I was punished with a nice walk to a local grocery store to buy more. Terrible.

The biggest work of my week was finishing the editing and sound design for our new short horror film. It’s called VICTIM SEVEN.

Like a lot of creative work, it was both very stressful and fun. Stressful because I was running short on time to get it done and fun because I love doing the sound design work. In some ways, it’s the most childlike play part of the filmmaking process. You get to ask yourself questions like, “What would make a sound that is both organic and industrial? What kind of precautions do I need to take before I put a lemon in a plastic bowl and hit it with a hammer?” Pure joy. And a slight bit of danger.

As I work on more films, I learn more about myself and my process. I benefited a ton on this project from lessons I’ve learned in editing, color grading, sound mixing, hitting things with hammers, etc.

There’s also some things I’m learning to accept. This concept started out as something I could do “real fast and easy.” Then I fell in love with doing complicated, weird stuff. Probably time to accept I just like doing complicated weird stuff.

Anyway, I look forward to sharing the complicated weirdness of VICTIM SEVEN with the world in the next couple of weeks. If you want to catch it, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

A NICE THING THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK

Here’s a nice thing that happened this week and continues to happen every week.

I’ve been going to screenings of the television show, Twin Peaks, at a local movie theater.

I watched the show as it aired back in the 90s. I’ve owned it on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and at some point I’ll probably track down the Japanese Laserdisc edition. I’ve watched the entire saga many, many times.

But a theater near me was showing my favorite TV show so I got tickets for a few of my favorite season 1 episodes.

It was fantastic to see this art on the big screen. The show that I first watched on a 27” CRT television on grainy network television was now glowing huge and crisp above me. Angelo Badalamenti’s score hit me in the sternum. It was great.

But the thing that’s really, really special is seeing it with an audience. A laughing, cheering, applauding audience.

A few audience members, like myself, appear to go to the screenings most weeks. And by their audible reactions, it’s become clear to me that there are several younger folks who have never seen the show. They gasp in shock and awe.

A big screen and deep sound is great but the real gift is this: Young people are making an old television show brand new for me.

It’s a thrill to see something I know so well through different eyes. Each week, I wait for a favorite laugh line or terrifying reveal, excited to see how folks will react. And often, people laugh at something that I’ve become so used to that I forgot how funny, weird, or shocking it truly is.

As a middle-aged person who can sometimes be a grump, here’s a plea to other middle-aged grumps: Do not be mad at the youth who are just discovering something you love. They are not taking it from you. They are giving you a gift. They are letting you see it again for the first time.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to go every week, but I’m going to try. I get to take a healthy 40 minute walk to the theater. I get to walk past the cool blue house that still has their 12 foot skeleton in the yard. I get to take a deep breath and disappear into a world that is both wonderful and strange. An old dream that’s new again. A nice thing that gets to happen again and again.

LIGHT PLUGS

SHORT FILMS ON YOUTUBE: This week, we also released another short film! This one is called The Demon’s Commentary. A pompous director and a bitter screenwriter record the DVD commentary track for an old 70s horror film called, The Demon Down The Lane. Things go bad from there. It stars Hal Lublin, Audrey Kearns, Dana DeRuyck, and Heather Grace Hancock. It’s 6 minutes long. I would love to get more views, likes, comments!

The next short film is releasing Thursday, March 26th. It’s a little horror travelogue called Deep Into Norway. I look forward to sharing it!

DEAD MEDIA MAILING LIST: We’ve got a mailing list for Dead Media. I’m only going to send out messages occasionally with concrete info and asks for help—screening dates, sales news, help getting the word out, etc. You can sign up here if you’re interested!

DONATIONS TO DEAD MEDIA: We need all the help we can get for film festival submission fees, advance money to book theaters, etc. Through Film North, you can make a one time tax deductible donation here. Thanks for all the help and support!

MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

Another busy week! I’ve got lots of business work to do for Dead Media, birthday celebrations for Sara, and a screening for the new short film. So this seems like the ideal week to START A NEW PROJECT. I’ve got a new idea for a feature film that’s really speaking to me. I’ve got a ton of it outlined in my head. So my totally easy and reasonable goal for this week is to write a full outline of a new feature film.

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 gesture drawing. A simple and quick effort to capture energy in motion. This is a drawing I made for Sara on her birthday. She’s busy rehearsing for another dance show so I wanted to make something to celebrate that. Hope your weeks include some creative time, some nice times, and some completed monsters.