For the last two years, the Independent Filmmaker’s Coalition of Kansas City Sponsors the “Fantasy Filmmaker Draft”. This event is almost exactly as it sounds. It’s part movie challenge, part fantasy football. Five producers are chosen and those producers “Draft” a director and a writer. Each week the screenwriter writes a short and then the next week the next screenwriter writes the next part.

Okay, it is a little confusing, but if you’ve ever had a fantasy football team you get it.

Long story short, this isn’t a competition challenge but it is my favorite every year. The reason being, it forces me to direct someone else’s writing. I also get the chance to work with people I have never worked with.

In 2008, the first year of the challenge, I was drafted first overall as a director. I was given a script by Peter Ledonis. The challenge here for me was that the script started with a two page monologue with no scene description in it. This monologue was going to translate into about 3 minutes of screen time that I had to come up with coverage for! It was a fun challenge and I enjoyed working with Maia Ades (producer), she was a real pleasure to work with as were all of the actors.

The rest of the films are on you tube, go check ‘em out!

FACADE (2008)




In 2009 I was also selected first overall as a director and was given a script by the late Bryce Yarbourogh. The script was 8 pages and I beleive it had ten different scenes, with no transistion scenes. The real kicker was only two scenes flowed into the next scene, meaning, the structure of the script had time cuts from scene to scene!

Oddly, this was one of the biggest challenges I have ever had and I hope we did you justice Bryce, you were a good man who lived stories that you wrote!

This was produced by the talented Jerry J. White III, who stood by me when I came up with concept. Most important thing I learned on this film is that when you decide on the vision for a film you have to commit to it. This is the best I think that I have ever established “tone” in a short.

THE SQUEEZE (2009)