Scaring Myself

A long post about my 2022 fears and faves

Something New

I talked recently about some breakthroughs I had with my writing, working on material that was more personal, more emotionally honest. At the end of 2020, I wrote a script called Teenager of the Year, which is the show I want to make more than anything else. It’s a half-hour dramedy about teenagers that, I hope, takes their lives, and my generation, seriously. There’s a light sci-fi element to it. I love the kids in it so much.

I even made a playlist for the pilot!

The show came to me fully formed (though Acker provided great feedback and sounding board). I knew what I wanted this show to feel like. I knew how the shots were laid out, what the performances sounded like. I knew, as I was writing it, that I wanted to create this show, wholly, from all of my being.

Which meant directing it.

I’ve never directed. Because of The Thrilling Adventure Hour and other projects, I’m comfortable working with actors. But I’ve never been on set. I don’t know anything about cameras or lighting or any of that stuff. I just know what I want my scripts to look, and more importantly, feel like.

The idea of directing something was terrifying. In the best way.

The Short Version

I’ve been making a concerted effort to get into horror, something I’ve wanted for the entirety of my career, so a horror short seemed a good place to start. I feel confident in the genre and it is so driven by tone and visuals. I had an idea, based upon a real thing that happened to me last year, that I thought could make for a fun, scary, do-able short film.

I was really encouraged by the responses from the few friends I told. Many were surprised I hadn’t directed before. Even more told me, “you’re going to be so good at this.”

I got lots of excellent advice from folks who’d done it before, and I’ll write about that later. But the most valuable was from my friend Brian Udovich, a lovely person and a terrific producer. I told Brian my idea for a short that I thought was manageable: three characters, one location, horror but no creatures.

Brian said he loved the story, but, since I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I didn’t have any money to make it, why didn’t I make it easy on myself? “What’s the Twilight Zone version?” he asked. How could I tell this story with just one actor? How could I limit even the one location I had in mind? Suggest more than tell? “Think about an actor you can call easily and a place you can return to for reshoots.”

This was an exciting suggestion. I felt the fear slipping away. I could bring in an actor friend whom I knew and liked and only worry about wasting his time and goodwill and not those of 3-4 actors. I could call up my friend Brandon, a family member of a good friend, recently moved from Omaha, young and eager to just make stuff. And he works at an equipment rental place, so he could get access to everything we needed for a weekend shoot.

We’re Doing This

So much of what I’ve done in the past—Thrilling Adventure Hour, Dead Pilots Society, Writers Panel, various stage variety shows—have had that “let’s throw up a sheet in the barn and put on a show!” quality. I didn’t want that for this shoot.

I was wrong.

It’s exactly that quality that makes making the thing exciting. It’s why I could make a few phone calls and get friends enthusiastic about this thing that, really, promised no return beyond just the doing of it. Brandon was my first call, and he was on board straightaway. He’d put together a little crew of eager and friendly folks he knew.

Some of the images I sent to Brandon to convey the feel of the short, as well as the kinds of shots I favor.

My next call was to my friend Nick Wechsler. Nick and I hadn’t worked together outside of some Thrilling and Dead Pilots Society performances I’d roped him into, but we’d become good friends, and, what’s more, I knew that not only is he thoughtful about his work and incredibly talented, but he’s one of those guys who just loves the process.

My ridiculously kind friend Meredith Munn offered to take some bts photos! She’s a pro and, like Nick and everyone I worked with on this, was so much more experienced than I was and yet jumped in fully because it was fun or cool or, I don’t know, maybe they just had the weekend open and wanted free tacos.

I realized, as I was writing the script (which came to about five manageable pages), that the space I envisioned was my friends Rider and Alex’s house. So, my third call was to them. They, too, were incredibly supportive. Both had made a number of short films (which are really awesome), so not only did they have great advice, but they offered their home for a weekend they were out of town.

That weekend was several months away, but Brandon, Nick, and I were all so excited that we got together every few weeks to talk about the script and the shoot. I’ll write about the myriad questions both had for me over those weeks, but these conversations went deeper and more detailed than any I’d ever received. Needing to answer questions about the look and feel of the short, about the motivation of the character and what was happening on “the B-side” of the story, made the script richer, stronger, and suggested a world beyond the five minutes we were shooting.

The questions that these guys asked are ones I’ll be applying to every script I write. And it’s all just a matter of digging deeper. Not letting myself off the hook. Fortifying the world and motivating the characters.

Photo by Meredith. My friend Kristina Rodgers, a stylist and prop/product/wardrobe skillionaire, was the only person who had a label maker that made the kinds of labels I wanted for my title card shot! She jumped in. People like to help!

The weekend shoot was stressful (I was very mindful about not wasting everyone’s time), boring (lotta downtime while lights are being set!), awkward (I hate saying “action!”), exciting (I got to say “that’s the one!”), and just a lot of fun.

My wife makes fun of me because I missed opportunities to say both “we’re losing daylight!” (which we decidedly were) or “that’s a wrap!” (it all happened so uneventfully!).

I learned so much in those two days and even more once the dailies and rough cut came in. We went back to Rider and Alex’s and did some reshoots in November for a shot I knew wouldn’t work, but which I let others talk me into because I didn’t trust myself. (I just got the “fine cut” back and the new shot—the climax of the story—looks great!).

I’m excited to dig in on the next steps. Refining the edit, and the sound and score, both important to me and, I think, to conveying horror.

Nick with our stunt chicken. He learned to spatchcock it! Hope that’s on his resume.

I think it all works? I know Nick is great. I know it looks terrific. If the story doesn’t come across—my biggest concern—then that’s on me.

But what I took from this experience is that I really loved doing it. And I think I have some capacity for it. I’m decisive and a good communicator, which seem to be the two main requisites for the job.

Mostly, I can’t wait to do it again.

I have three more shorts I’d like to direct, versions of larger stories I’d love to tell in film and TV. One of those is Teenager of the Year, the pilot that I mentioned earlier, which would be a terrific short. I’d like to work with actual budgets. I want to get a little more ambitious, adding more actors and locations in the next one, adding visual effects thereafter.

I don’t know how I’m going to raise that money or get production companies involved or anything like that. I’m used to a grassroots approach, but I know there must be ways of doing this? I’d love to know your thoughts and advice. Meantime…

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Stuff I Loved in 2022

Good Reads

Every year, I try to read 32 books. This year, because of some stuff I was working on, I read a lot of YA fiction, which I can devour in a couple of days, so I upped my reading goal to 60 books. (Which I’ll just achieve, if I finish one book next week!)

By far, these were the best books I read in 2022:

• Daphne by Josh Malerman is a smart, irresistable deconstruction and reconstruction of the slasher genre that elegantly captures both small town trauma and the truth of being a teenager.

• Speaking of teenagers, Frankly in Love by by David Yoon is sweet, warm, funny, and so real about teenaged life, family life (I love how confused the parents are), being the child of small business owners (this hit home), and lots more. Probably my favorite of the year. (YA)

• Mike Nichols: A Life by Mark Harris is as good as anything I’ve read in the past couple of years, fiction or non. Harris had incredible access to Nichols’ papers, work, and his friends, family, and colleagues. Nichols crossed paths with everybody over the course of his life and career, and there are amazing stories about everyone in Hollywood and Broadway. Of course, this was also inspiring to read this summer as I embarked on my own first-time directing.

A few other YA books that I really enjoyed and recommend:

Really loved Mary HK Choi’s Permanent Record and will now read everything she’s written. Sarvenaz Tash’s The Geek’s Guide to Unrequited Love and The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks are both funny, sweet, and, in the best way, painful about being young and not understanding feelings.

And I was rapt exploring the worlds and supernatural oddities in Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters, Wilder Girls by Rory Power, and Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. All of these foregrounded real characters with real emotions, even when presenting new or unsual worlds and unnatural situations.

I read most of the YA stuff at the beginning of the year, and when I tried to transition back to adult books, I was disappointed! Where were all of the naked emotions? Why wasn’t anyone falling hopelessly in love? There were a few, however, that have stayed with me, that I’ll recommend:

Alejandro Zambra’s Bonsai and Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall are both short books that hit hard, for different reasons. Bonsai is about being young and dumb and in love and the connections we make. Ghost Wall is harrowing in its portrayal of how are parents can fuck us up.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is the best book about a creative partnership that I’ve read since Kavalier & Clay twenty years ago.

Must See

The problem with listing the best TV and movies in 2022 is that I haven’t seen most of it. I feel like I scratched the surface of TV this year, and I barely saw any new movies (outside of the horror movies I talked about last week). I did, however, watch a number of shows that I want to recommend. Some will be on most people’s lists for the year. Maybe you’ll also find some new stuff to watch in your (I hope) holiday down-time.

The Bear, Saul, Rez Dogs, Good Fight/Evil, Hacks, High School

• The Bear is far and away the best show I watched this year: funny, emotionally brutal, addicting, gorgeous looking, compelling.

• Better Call Saul had a heart-wrenching final season that not only stuck the landing but surpassed expectations. (Hear my conversation with the writers here). And the final season of Atlanta proved it to be, like Saul, one of the all-time great shows, every episode a gem.

• I didn’t laugh and cry so much at anything as at the second season of Reservation Dogs, the first dryly delightful of season Somebody Somewhere, and the first (hopfully not only!) season of the heartfelt High School (please watch it; it’s on Amazon).

• The second season of Hacks and the third season of Barry had everything previous seasons did but got to play more, got to live in the characters and delve deeper.

• Finally, I am a sucker for the blunt parody and politics of Evil and The Good Fight. I love Robert and Michelle King’s humor and the way they just go after the absurdities of contemporary life. It always seems a little dated (because of TV schedules), and sometimes they swing too far and too hard, but no one casts better, and the shows are always a blast to watch. The Kings’ shows feel like classic television in the best sense, while still feeling very of-the-moment. No one makes TV like this any more, and I’m glad these shows exist.

Atlanta, Somebody Somewhere, Barry

Oh! I also completely fell for Andor! I really resisted at first, finding it to be a bit “Star Wars for Star Trek fans,” but after the first couple of episodes, I was invested in the story and got a sense of the fun of the show. Diego Luna is a treasure, but the whole cast is populated by amazing character actors (including Richie and that kid from The End of the F***ing World).

Okay, I guess I did watch some TV this year. What’d I miss? What were your favorites?

I’m going to spend the next two weeks watching movies and eating good food and driving across the city because it’s totally dead out there at this time of year.

I hope your holidays are pleasant and restful. Looking forward to continuing our conversation next year.