A Note on my Work

On Sunday, August 9th, I did something I've always wanted to do - screen a few of my short films for my friends in Austin. I've had a chance to show these movies on the big screen in New York over the years, but never in my hometown. I was honored to have a small gathering of dear friends join me at the Violet Crown Cinema for the screening, which also served as my belated 31st birthday party.

In preparation for the event, I wrote down a few thoughts about the films themselves, hoping to provide some insight into what I've been trying to accomplish with my film work. I thought I'd share those thoughts here on this blog.

Thank you all so much for being here, and I hope this isn’t too self-aggrandizing. This is something I had wanted to do last year for my 30th birthday, but that wasn’t possible due to COVID-19.

I thought I’d offer a little context for what you’re about to see. These are three short films I made, preceded by sort of a throwback joke trailer I made in high school. The first film, You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory, was my senior thesis film at NYU, which meant it was a script workshopped for a semester in our Advanced Production class. That semester ended with students pitching their films for an allotment from the school, as not everyone gets to make a thesis (at least not with the resources and equipment NYU has available). I was lucky enough to get the allotment, and as we were still students, I didn’t have to pay my cast and crew. Even still, the shoot was costly, and so many of you contributed in some way to make it possible. That's one of the primary reasons I wanted to do this, to thank you and also show you that we did actually make something. I don’t know if it’s good, but we didn’t go on vacation - your money was definitely spent on a movie.

The last two films, Jack and Lucas Go to a Wedding and Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, are independent projects I wrote and directed after college. The main difference on these shoots was that most of our crew members were working professionally and we weren’t operating with the support of a university, so everyone had to be paid and all camera gear and equipment had to be rented. I did fundraising campaigns for both films, and again, so many of the people in this room helped out, for which I am forever grateful.

Of these two post-grad films, the first is a movie I made with my old friend Lucas Loredo, which we shot entirely in a hotel room. The second was a collaboration with the lead from my thesis, an excellent actor named Mike Wesolowski – so you’ll see him in two different movies.

Looking at these films now, I see a lot of things that I didn’t necessarily see at the time. The primary one being judgment – which is not to say the movies themselves are judgmental of the lead character, but rather the character is often very judgmental and critical of himself.

I can’t say that any of these films are autobiographical – despite the fact that the character I play in one of them is named Jack – but they do to a certain extent reflect versions of things I've felt over the years in an exaggerated way. But I see myself toeing the line here between trying to have an empathetic protagonist while also presenting a character with some pretty extreme qualities. Sometimes the challenge was - how far can I take it before the audience says, "This guy is out of his mind!" A film of mine I was going to include in tonight’s line-up but ultimately didn’t, Jake the Cinephile, was described by one of my professors as an empathy dare – as in, I dare you to empathize with this character. He’s so off-the-wall. And I don’t think he meant that in a positive way. With that particular short, though, I’m getting the chance to sort of get a do-over, as I’ve developed it into a feature film which we’ll be shooting at some point this decade (production isn't easy these days).

A question I got once when someone watched one of the films was, is this really how you see yourself? And the answer is no. But that comment stuck with me, and a progression I’ve noticed in the projects I’ve been developing since making these shorts is a kindness and – I hope - a more multi-dimensional quality to my lead characters that acknowledges their positive, engaging attributes alongside their less-desirable ones.

That being said, I’ll always be attracted to losers, for lack of a better term. They’re just more interesting than winners. And I am proud of the movies you’re about to see. Theoretically, they should get better with each one, but I can’t promise there won’t be some regression.

So thank you for letting me make films where I was able to refine my style and articulate what I was feeling at the time and learn a lot about how I want to make movies - which ultimately you can only do by making them.

It feels weird to say this at a screening of my own work, but if you have cell phones, it’d be pretty cool if you silenced them. My attitude toward talking during movies is sort of well-known at this point, too… but again, I feel weird saying this at my own screening. Thank you all so much.