I’m a sucker for Cinderella Stories and if you read this bullshit on a regular basis, then you know I have a taste for the over dramatics sometimes but this is a story I want to tell.
Back in the summer of 2003, Mandi and I took some time apart. I had reached an all time low with where I was in life. I had decided to pass on going back to LA in fear of yet again having to start over and well, I had fallen for a girl that wasn’t ready for LA. I was working at a shit restaurant with no prospects and I had become rather depressed. I began to mope and stayed rather disgruntled all the time. Subconsciously, I had blamed Mandi for keeping me in North Carolina and making me make that choice. We pushed each other away and there was no going back.
I then had another opportunity to move back to LA but chose to stay. The thought of borrowing more money from my parents for something, they thought was a bad idea at my age, weighted heavily on my shoulders.
I had secured a real job where I worked 8-5 and was bored to death. I missed Mandi. Within months, my position had been phased out and I found myself, desperate and almost suicidal. I knew I had to get out of Hickory fast. I had to get inspired again. I had to find what I had lost or I knew I would be dead. Scratch that… Everything I was would be dead. Scott and Stephanie offered me a place on their couch. I jumped on it. POOF! I was gone. Scott and Steph lived in Asheville. I had never been real fond, but at that point in time I would be OK with a cave in Afghanistan watching the boob tube with Osama. Three weeks in, I was still miserable,. I had been given a second chance at The Texas Roadhouse up there but where as the one in Hickory really helped one forget the hole I was in, the Asheville one did not. The people were different. The culture was different and I just didn’t fit in. Night after night I would take a couple of shots of Cuervo and sit on the bed with a pad and pencil and DO NOTHING, but look. Not one word would be put on paper.
Stephanie and Scott were getting married in New Jersey that October and of course asked me for my services. I hated doing weddings but of course, I have to earn my rent so I agreed. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, not only could I shoot their wedding but I could do sort of a road trip documentary. The boys and I were getting to the age where we were all going to have to grow up and this was sort of our last hooray so to speak. We left for New Jersey and I began filming. A sudden twist in the itinerary would change everything. The day after the wedding we decided not to go home. We went to New York, WTC and back down to DC and this was right after the Iraq War began so we captured a lot of cool footage. I could not wait to get home and start cutting. Everything opened up and I was inspired again. I found myself on off time sitting on a bench in downtown Asheville writing scripts and stories. I sat in our local quiet bar up there and churned out scene after scene of a feature I had planned one day to shoot.
Immediately following, I was hired on as a Production Manager at an advertising agency. The job sent me to shoot B Roll for Kenny Chesney’s ’I Go Back,’ video. I found myself in Chicago sinking a car and all over doing what I loved to do. I was laid off shortly after leaving Asheville and returning to Hickory. Mandi and I’s paths collided again and we were back together. We ventured to Florida where my skills and creativity would blossom. I was promised a job at Fox down there and through a bunch of BS lost it, so I was down there in holed up in our apartment for a month looking for a job and as I waited and waited after interview upon interview, I was honing my craft…. Reading books, learning to do the things I hadn’t had time to learn. Then finally I scored a job at a small time television company that produced a late night show. It was grueling. I was a one man crew with too much to do. I would have to shoot, update, cut, write and sometimes direct the shows on top of all the marketing promos, (flyers, banners, DVD’s etc.) Mike, my boss, burnt me out, but the job ended up being the boot camp of my creativity. My analogy to this experience is, I was like Christian Bale in Batman Begins. I traveled far and found a teacher that would work the shit out of me but when it was all over, I had become Batman. We returned to North Carolina and every wedding, commercial, or just stupid ass video were 500% better than they ever were and in between all that I had taught my self about building websites. I was a creative tick ready to pop.
The balls and the tools finally came for ’Meter’. Mark came to me through Freddy and within a sit down with him, I knew it was go time. This film was just a little six page script I had written after having a conversation with a very disgruntled man at Sergeant Peppers. The stuff he said overwhelmed me and when I got home I wrote it all down and thought, that would be a hell of a small short film that wouldn’t cost any money what so ever. I had just planned on grabbing a couple of my friends and shooting it in our driveway of the place we lived, but it fell through. Then I spent almost a year trying to find a lead, never being quite satisfied. The more I thought about the movie, the more I thought shooting it with a half ass actor and just shooting it half assed for kicks would be yet another waste of time.
Then that fateful night nearly two years later, I met Mark. Within a month we were rehearsing. Within two months we were shooting. Post production came where it was apparent that this film had become much bigger than I had ever planned. After the big premiere, my creative tick had mutated into a Godzilla type monster. I left the theatre after the premiere thinking, I hadn’t done a real movie in over eight years and I did this one without batting an eye. Not to say it was easy because it was tough as nails to get rolling on and then in post, the sound was a little out of my league, BUT technically and creatively, I nailed out with little sacrifice of my vision. I knew I had made it and after that moment, I could actually say I was a filmmaker.
Three months later, Mark and I found ourselves at the first film festival we had submitted to and had won second in the short drama category and sixth overall with our small film. The films that had placed higher had anywhere from 20,000 dollar budgets to even the ones placing below us of 5000. Mandi, Mark and I walked out of the downtown theatre satisfied and excited about the film festivals to come. I stopped on the sidewalk on Walnut Avenue and realized where I was. Across the street sat the bench I used to get away from everything and do some writing on. I then looked to my left to see the old quiet bar where I hashed out my feature. I had to smile. The place where I had become inspired again years before was the host of the place I had finally, after years of work, been recognized at.
I was done with that chapter of my life.
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