This is Finish Your Monsters, a (sometimes) 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?

When I last posted, I was promoting the first leg of the roadshow screening tour for our horror film about a haunted DVD, Dead Media.

These were the goals I set:

“Have fun on tour. Remember to take lots of photos. And keep jotting down notes for the next film.”

And I did all of these things. I took so many photos, I had to set a new mini-goal to delete 50 old from my phone ever day to manage the storage issues. (Manage The Storage Issues is now a contender for the title of my autobiography.)

And I absolutely did jot down notes for the next film. Both on tour and when my wife, mother-in-law, and myself took a quick trip to Sweden.

Here’s a picture of my notebook by the water in Stockholm. I highly recommend notebooks that literally fit in a back pocket.

THE NEXT ADVENTURE

I’m sending this blog out now to promote the next leg of the Dead Media: Bonus Features roadshow tour.

Here are all the dates and locations. Tickets available for all of them now right here on our distribution company’s website.

9/18 - Birmingham, Alabama - Sidewalk Film Center (with special appearance from star of the film, Sam Landman, in his hometown!)

9/20 - Atlanta, Georgia - Tara Theaters (with post-film Q&A moderated by my pal, Alex Damon, of Star Wars Explained)

9/22 - Austin, Texas - Violet Crown Theaters (with post-film Q&A moderated by my old pal and the writer of Sinister, The Black Phone, Dr Strange, C. Robert Cargill)

9/23 - Dallas, Texas - Violet Crown Theaters (with Q&A m

9/24 - Houston, Texas - River Oaks Theater (this theater has a full bar and will be serving our Dead Media cocktail!)

9/27 - New York, New York! Two screenings! Low Cinema at 2 pm and Cinema Village at 8 pm (both screenings feature star of the film Anna Sundberg joining me for the Q&A)

9/29 - Portland, Oregon - Living Room Theaters (with Q&A moderated by my friend and horror podcaster, Gretchen Brooks)

9/30 - San Francisco, California - Artists’ Television Access

10/2 - Palm Springs, California - Festival Theaters

and announcing here—a special screening in Los Angeles for Video Story Day—

10/17 - Los Angeles, California - Whammy Analog (more details coming soon but you can grab tickets now!)

We’re doing these roadshow screenings for a couple reasons: to build buzz for the film before its release on streaming (coming soon) and its eventual release on physical media (coming next year)!

But the other reason is just this: COMMUNITY.

For the first leg of the roadshow back in July/August, we screened the film 17 times in 17 different cities. (Technically, three in the Los Angeles metro area, but Burbank and Glendale are their own cities, dammit!)

It’s been amazing to travel across the country and see vastly different theaters and viewing experiences. From Kevin Smith’s 80s throwback cineplex, Smodcastle, to an Alamo Drafthouse in Virginia to PhilaMOCA, a former mausoleum showroom turned into a theater in Philadelphia, to The Last Picture House, a state-of-the-art theater built inside an old car repair shop building, and finally back home to Minneapolis at the gorgeously renovated Heights Theater complete with pre-show organ!

The cities are different, the theaters are different, but the throughline continues to be community. Every theater that’s open to screening indie films like Dead Media has a mission to build community. To emphasize films as stories that can bring people together. To treat movie theater’s as thrilling, exciting yet cozy space where people can come together and make connection.

And I’ve really felt that talking to audiences, theater owners. The folks who open video rental/toy stores inside the theater itself. (If find yourself in Catskill, New York visit Sleepover Trading in a beautiful theater literally called COMMUNITY THEATER.)

I did not expect the most difficult part of a roadshow being this: Feeling sad that I have to leave town and can’t stay and watch more films in these theaters.

One of the best stops was at The Rivoli in LaCrosse, WI. They’ve got great horror programming and gave me a nice care package of Rivoli merch because the screening was on my birthday. But also, my mother-in-law lives in LaCrosse so there are betters odds I can come back to this theater sooner than some of the others.

At about half of our screenings, we also had pop-up physical media stores with local folks selling DVDs, Blu-rays, VHS tapes, etc.

It felt like a good tie-in because Dead Media is about a haunted DVD. But I also got to see up close how much a shared love of physical media means to people. Its a shared love of the tactile, the sense of true ownership, of crafting your identity and your taste through your collection.

This is all a long way to say, I can’t wait to get back out on the road, meet a bunch more people, see a bunch more fantastic theaters, and get heartbroken because I can’t stick around and go to all of them. (I did see Spider-Man: Brand New Day in the same theater a day after Dead Media screened there. So thanks for that joy, Alamo Drafthouse!)

And please—if you do make it out—say hello. I got to meet lots of blog-friends on the road last time. (Like at the Tasveer in Seattle—a women-owned and lead theater in an old Masonic Temple!)

Okay, I have to stop now before listing every theater we visited.

MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK/S--

I’m hoping to get back to regular weekly blogs in October. My goal will be to keep them short little life updates, include a picture, and focus on goals. We’ll see if I can do it. So that’s my goal for the next time I post this blog is…posting this blog. With a shorter, sharper format so I can keep up. Also, just to be difficult with myself, I also want to have started the script for the next film. Hotel rooms at midnight are great for writing horror!

YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEKS AHEAD--

I would LOVE to hear what you're working on 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 picture of my favorite fountain in Stockholm. The United States needs more famous tourist attractions where demons are spitting drinkable water at you