May 14, 2025

Monster Hope

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 week, I committed to the goal(s) of sending a minimum of 5 planning emails to creative partners and completing the second draft of the film edit.

I completed the hell out of the first goal with many emails sent and more lined up to rocket off my computer into the unknown future.

Unfortunately, I did NOT complete the second draft of the edit. I got about 70% through the film. Lots of good changes and I’m excited to keep digging in.

Everything is a battle between time, money, time, also time, and a unit of measurement I made up called chronobucks—which is a combination of money and time. So I continue to do my best to spin plates while twirling fiery batons and mixing metaphors.

If you’re interested in helping us pull the film across the 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.

ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--

Once again, the week has been almost exclusively working on the horror film with brief cut outs for family/friend time and keeping up with my work for the Star Wars podcast I co-host, ForceCenter.

When I was in my 20s and really connecting with fellow Star Wars enthusiasts we used to ask each other how we’re doing and reply with the first sentence of the opening crawl of The Empire Strikes Back: “It is a dark time for the rebellion.”

Star Wars is about many things but finding hope in very dark, very challenging times is, in my opinion, one of the reasons the saga in all its sprawling, complicated forms continues to resonate.

This week, work on the post-production of the film has felt like “a dark time for the rebellion.”

I want to be very clear: I’m very happy with how the film is turning out. I’m extremely proud of it and incredibly grateful to everyone who’s been supportive of the film, who helped finance the film, and everyone who has contributed to it creatively.

But pulling all the pieces together is extremely stressful. Friends and family kindly ask how it’s going and I probably confuse people by saying, “It’s going great! I’m very lucky!” with a rigor mortis grin and panic in my eyes.

But the truth is sometimes when you love a project so much, and you’ve given so much of yourself to it, the fear can overtake the joy and the hope.

This week of post-production work has featured some great forward movement and some difficult setbacks.

So I’ve been thinking about the idea of hope in a dark time that tracks through Star Wars—from when I saw The Empire Strikes Back on my 6th birthday to the episodes of Andor I watched last night.

As a grumpy cynical young person, I rolled my eyes at “hope.” I’d tell people about my problems and they’d say, “Well, just have some hope!” Like it was a miracle cure. Emotional snake oil for rubes.

But as I’ve evolved, so has my understanding of hope. I don’t think it’s a solution. I think it’s the fuel needed to keep working toward solutions.

Hope is not a response to an analysis of the situation. It’s an active choice to believe extremely difficult to accomplish things are possible.

So I’ve been making an effort to focus on some of the great things this week.

Several of the actors in the film who play monsters have come over to record some additional monster noises. I had the rough cut of the film set-up on my laptop so they could match their on-set growling.

In my zeal and focus, I forgot this was a chance to just show people how all their hard work is turning out. It was a great gift to see the film fresh through their eyes.

After months of editing, I know every shot of this film very well. I know the moments I love and I know the moments I’m still concerned about. And it’s easy to focus my emotional energy only on the moments I’m concerned about.

So to show the actors how all their hard work is turning out and focus on the positive, the joy, the hope was great.

Plus, it’s just really fun to ask great actors to make horrible monster noises on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Whatever monsters you’re fighting this week, I wish you lots of hope.

LIGHT PLUGS—

David Lynch and Greystone!

My wonderful wife, Sara, works at Greystone Mansion and Gardens where David Lynch attended AFI and filmed Eraserhead. For preservation month, she’s giving a Lynch specific tour of the mansion and the exterior of the stables.

Tickets and full info here!

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. So I need to multitask my goals, but this week I’m finishing the next pass of the edit, dammit. So my goal for this week is to finish the next pass on the edit and send a BIG TEN EMAILS for post-production planning.

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 the Grim Reaper considering a coffee mug of himself. Every artist should do one of these. Make them as common as a still life of fruit. Anyway, thanks for reading!