June 26, 2025

Skyway To The Future

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 getting the pick-up shots done for Dead Media and doing them well!

I completed this goal along with the help of lots of great actors and crew.

I missed last week’s blogletter because I was running a bit behind on prep, but I got it all done—redressing my Dad’s house, organizing all the props and costumes, buying lots of candy bars for the craft services table.

Most of the pick-up shots were isolated close-ups—things to better tell the emotional story. Plus, a few minor shots to increase tension or make physical action clearer. We did one 12 hour day and one 8 hour day and it was all over in an exhausting, satisfying blur.

One of my favorite parts was stepping in front of the camera to do some stunt double work for the role played by James Urbaniak. There were some needed shots of his character hitting the ground. So I spent a pleasant Friday morning throwing myself on a concrete floor.

In my days doing theater and comedy, I did a lot of physical stuff like that. There are tricks to pratfalls to catch yourself a bit, land on the parts of your body that can take it, etc. But it does still leave you a little sore.

After doing the stunt double work, I was hit with a profound sense memory of being extremely happy and content to be sore.

I associated that soreness with doing a show—working hard, doing your best, giving it your all for an audience. It also made me feel connected to my younger days when there was nothing like falling down to make me feel like I’m standing tall.

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--

For this week’s adventure, I want to discuss connecting to the past in a positive way.

I needed some shot lists physically printed out for the film shoot. So I decided to go print them out at a FedEx Office.

But not just any FedEx Office. One that looms large in my past. The one in Downtown Minneapolis in the IDS Center.

If you’re not familiar with the IDS Center, it’s one of the most distinctive skyscrapers in Minneapolis. 50ish stories of dark blue, reflective glass. It looks like someone made a lake stand up. Which feels very appropriate in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes. (In reality, it’s over 11,000 but in humble Midwestern style, the state rounded down.)

When I was a kid, my parents had a pack of playing cards with the IDS on them. It was a symbol of the big city. All that art and excitement promised by Minneapolis.

When I graduated college with a very not practical visual arts degree, I got a job at Kinko’s to support me while I did comedy and theater stuff. And I was thrilled to work in the IDS. I felt like I was in the heart of the action.

At the time, Kinko’s was a 24 hour, high-stress, big business copy center. We made copies of tax forms for little old ladies, but mostly our business was making 800 copies of powerpoint presentations and 400 page technical manuals for stressed out executives whose jobs were on the line and happy to pass the stress on to the workers.

It was a formative work experience. I pushed myself to learn to operate complicated machines and calculate printing and boxing times. Things I thought I wasn’t good at, but had to be if I wanted to make more money. I became an Assistant Manager in one year. After hours, I taught myself to use Photoshop on the rental computers so I could make postcards for comedy shows.

One night, a guy came in with the final plans for the Hiawatha Lightrail. He told me he was late to the final approval meeting and if I couldn’t make 27 copies of his massive, architectural drawings with complicated folding pages in the next hour THERE WOULD BE NO LIGHTRAIL IN MINNEAPOLIS. I’m sure he was exaggerating, but I have never been on the lightrail without musing about my alleged contribution.

Kinko’s was open 24 hours. We closed on Christmas Day and that was about it. But I was working there on 9/11 and ordered by upper management to close the store just in case the IDS was a target. I was there when a person jumped to their death and landed in the building’s enclosed shopping mall, the Crystal Court. I helped Sinbad log on to the internet and set up Mark McKinney from Kids in the Hall for computer rental so he could play World of Warcraft.

Eventually, I quit to put more focus on theater, but I always loved the place.

So I went to the now FedEx Office to make copies for the film shoot. It smelled the same. The architecture was the same. But everything else was different—the machines, the countertops, the carpet. It was Theseus’ Copy Shop.

After I got my copies made, I wound my way through the skyways to pick up a few props and supplies.

I realize most human beings know the term SKYWAY. A little tube that connects one building to the next. But Downtown Minneapolis is its own thing. There’s an intricate network of skyways connecting the second floors of just about every building for a square mile. They connect hotels and department stores and convention centers and concert halls and sports arenas.

The skyway system meant every building’s second floor was optimized for foot traffic. They were packed with restaurants, convenience stores, florists, candy shops, travel agents, music stores, art dealers, actually accessible public bathrooms.

In a state where the winter’s chill competes with the summer’s humidity to attack the human body, the skyway system was a paradise.

I spent hour and hours in those skyways, full of pride about knowing the shortest route from Orange Julius to Baxter’s Books to Sam Goody to the bathroom tucked behind the men’s socks department in Dayton’s.

I hadn’t worked my way through the heart of the Skyway system in about 10 years. I knew it would be devastated. Most downtown metros are struggling with jacked up real estate prices and fewer people working in offices.

But it was devastating to see how it was devastated. What was once a vibrant community catering to many different needs and wants was now mostly banks with the occasional fast food sandwich shop.

It felt like a reflection of the financial imbalance our society is experiencing. The only vital services left are the food needed to literally survive and the soulless, corporate banking services we’re forced to use to have a credit card to buy the food in the first place.

One of the only places I passed that had a spark of life was a new to me donut shop called Cardigan’s. It was bright, it was colorful, it was full of donuts. An oasis in a sky desert.

As I walked around I thought about how much I took the thriving, bustling skyway community of the past for granted.

I stopped at the railing of the Crystal Court in the IDS where I sometimes used to stand during my Kinko’s lunch break. I braced myself for a massive wave of ennui. Of regret and longing for the past.

But the wave did not arrive. Instead, I felt great.

At first I was confused—why weren’t these depressing skyways depressing me?

I think it’s because I was consumed not just with memories of the past, but memories of how I felt in the past.

All the years I spent zipping around those skyways, I was daydreaming about the future. About the movie party I was going to with friends that weekend. About the next comedy show I was doing. About the woman I liked who said she was going to my next show and hoping she’d hang out afterward.

It’s not that all those things worked out. There were shows, dates, and even movie parties that I will generously describe as “learning experiences.”

But I realized my skyways years were full of thinking about the future with hope and enthusiasm.

Hope and enthusiasm can be hard to hold on to as you grow older because you gain more and more expertise on all the myriad ways things can go wrong.

And without belaboring it, the current state of the world with the regressive push toward fascism, only makes it harder to concentrate on a sun-filled future.

But again, those skyway years, weren’t really about optimism. I didn’t think everything was going to work out. I was just excited to get to the next thing and TRY.

I’m thrilled to be working on this film. It’s exactly what I want to be doing with my life. I have a fantastic relationship with my wife. I have friends I like spending time with me. I have a part time day job talking about Star Wars. Skyway-Years-Me would be over the moon.

But I find myself spending more time worrying about the future than being excited to meet the challenge.

My trip through skyways past made me remember how energizing it is it to be anxious for the future, rather than defensive toward it.

It was a great energy to take into the pick up shoots.

And after I wrapped the pick-up shoots, I went on my friends’ annual bar crawl. To my delight, I discovered the gang had added a new tradition to the bar crawl in recent years: A quick side trip into the skyways to stop at a donut shop. Cardigan’s.

The donut was delicious. The future might be, too.

LIGHT PLUGS—

Imposter!

This is a short film I have nothing to do with, but it looks great! My friend, Anna Sundberg, (who stars in Dead Media) also stars in this short, thought-provoking thriller.

I also had a chance to meet the filmmaking team at Lucky Cut Productions and they’re a great crew with a great mission.

They’re raising funds for IMPOSTER.

You can check out their promo video and their crowdfunding campaign 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. 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 totally normal picture of a donut with a weird hole staring at a sunny future. And the sun’s mouth is made of fire. Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you have some excitement thinking about the future, and best of luck finishing your monsters!