While my love of cinema never waned, I grew to realize that my dream of being a filmmaker would probably go unrealized.  I settled for being a life long fan and focused on other aspects of my life.  Over a period of several years, I became a martial arts instructor, a casino security officer, a correctional officer, a husband and father.  Throughout, however, I still maintained my love of movies and my fascination with the filmmaking process. 

Much of my childhood had been spent living in the rural countryside of Southern Illinois.  My playground was a world of forests, bluffs and swamps.  At the age of 18 I moved away, coming back to visit my parents as often as I could.  For a brief time, I returned to Southern Illinois, where my son was born.  But, I found the old adage "You can never go home" to be true, and most of my adult life was spent elsewhere. 

Southern Illinois began to take on a mythic quality in my mind.  It was a magical land, full of strangeness and unusual history.  It had a primordial quality that I found difficult to describe properly.  I became enamored with my former home and researched its history, stories and legends.  I found that the area was even more special than I knew.  My research led me to a book called MURDER IN LITTLE EGYPT, a true crime story by Darcy O'brien.  In the opening chapter, O'brien gave an overview of Southern Illinois' violent history and perfectly put into words what I had been trying to say about the area for years.  I also discovered Gary DeNeal's excellent book on the life of Prohibition gangster Charlie Birger, A KNIGHT OF ANOTHER SORT:  PROHIBITION DAYS AND CHARLIE BIRGER.  It was also during this period that I discovered the music of a Southern Illinois band called THE WOODBOX GANG.  Their songs fairly dripped Southern Illinois, possessing a calamitous quality that explored the dark side of rural life. 

When I was in my 30s, I guess I experienced my "mid-life crisis."  I realized that I wasn't happy with my career choices and that life is too short to not pursue one's dreams.  Technology had progressed to a point where filmmaking was something that could be accomplished by anyone with a video camera and a computer.  Way behind on the technology curve, I decided to return to school.  I pursued a degree in Visual Effects and Motion Graphics at the Art Institute of Las Vegas.  Despite the fact that I was twice as old as most of my classmates, I found myself surrounded by like minded individuals who inspired me and led me toward the realization of my dream of making movies. 

By the time my wife and I moved to Bellingham, WA, I had already worked on several film projects, providing effects and fight choreography to an independent feature film, several shorts, countless school projects and video content for the web.  I had worked as a video editor for a Las Vegas television station.  I was thrilled when I moved, as I found that Bellingham had a thriving independent film community.  Before long, I was working on projects in our new home in the Pacific North West. 

While I was still in Las Vegas, I become obsessed with the idea of making a movie based on the life of Charlie Birger.  I began writing a feature length script, but found that I was missing an important element and was unable to capture it.  That's when I decided to make a short based on my favorite scene from the script:  Charlie's last night.  I had written in a supernatural element which did not fit in with the rest of the feature length script, but served as an excellent piece by itself.  It reminded me of the stories I had read as a child in the pages of CREEPY.  That proved to be an epiphany. 

I realized that I could combine my obsessions.  Using Southern Illinois as a common background, I could film the stories that I had always wanted to shoot.  This meant that I would have to secure the rights to the stories that I wanted.  This led to another round of research.  By the time I was done, I had a fully formed plan.  I would create a semi-fictional version of Southern Illinois, which would serve as a backdrop for select CREEPY stories; sort of my version of Castle Rock or Twin Peaks: a strange place where stranger things happened.  Before beginning the process of obtaining story rights, however, I wanted to make a show piece to serve as a calling card.  This became BUT NEVER A GOOD ONE. 

While it may sound overly dramatic, this project truly IS my life's ambition.  It's the culmination of things I have been dreaming about for decades.  I only hope that I can do it justice.  And I hope that making it will be an experience worth sharing. 
 


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