2012 - A Re-Cap

Yep, it's that time of the year again where I look back on the previous 12 months for a sort of personal scorecard. So for those of you still reading, may I present the 2012 Re-Cap.

Every year I start out January saying to myself, That's it. The year ____ is going to be MY year. Well 2012 was a pretty damned good year … Was it my year? Pretty close, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 2013 is gonna fit the bill for sure … we'll see. In the meantime ...

… 2012 kicked off with the release of my directorial debut, CHOP, on DVD and Netflix instant in North America after a relatively successful 2011 festival run. Bloody Disgusting Selects, my distributor, really did a great job getting it out there and the overall response was, quite honestly, better than I thought it would be for such a weird little movie that wasn't really a horror film or a comedy exactly. Reviews were solid, the Netflix ratings and reviews were great, and it seems that folks enjoyed the movie overall. I ended up landing Swedish, French, German, and British distribution (although it hasn't been released in some of those countries just yet).

One of the bigger surprises of the year for me was something that I simply did on a whim the first few weeks of January … After a long period of craziness, it became apparent that the film of DEADGIRL 2 was never going to be made. I had written a script, though, and thought that it was pretty decent, so I decided to give it away for free on this very blog. I thought that maybe a hundred or so people would be interested, but I was terribly wrong. Somehow the internet caught wind of this and all of a sudden my keepandshare account was crashed with the demand. The script still gets downloaded every single day and has been read over 5000 times in less than a year … that's more exposure than some of my completed projects ends up getting. Crazy. Too bad the movie is dead, but the screenplay seems to have taken on a life of its own!

Things were relatively quiet for a few weeks - I was dealing with some writing and the release of CHOP in America and Germany … And then March came along. I had written a movie for the Lifetime Network that I finished in January or so. I was told that it wasn't going to shoot until 2013, so I took my pay and said thank you, Lifetime! Then I got a call from them telling me we've found a director and you need to come in and meet her tomorrow. It was Courteney Cox. And the movie - entitled TALHOTBLOND - was to be her directorial debut.

The next few weeks were a blur of meetings and re-writes and - BAM - the film was in production. I've gotta say, Courteney was really amazing and cool and great to work with and her involvement really brought on some great talent both in front of and behind the scenes. The movie aired to some critical and ratings success in May and, by God, I think that it turned out really great. I had never seen a Lifetime movie before writing this one, but they've got a bad rap as soapy TV movies. It's my belief that TALHOTBLOND transcended expectations. I feel that THB fits right in with my oeuvre - it's a skeevy, uncomfortable drama with deception and murder … the kind of things I like to make. As of this writing, I'm waiting on notes for my next Lifetime movie, A Daughter's Revenge, which will be shot sometime in 2013.

While on the set of TALHOTBLOND, I heard news that the movie I wrote for SyFY Channel, HEEBIE JEEBIES, had just wrapped in Shreveport, Louisiana … A really wild week, knowing that two television movies I had written were shooting at the same time in two different cities. From what I hear, HEEBIE JEEBIES airs on SyFy in February 2013 … But I honestly have no idea. I haven't seen a photo or a trailer or an inch of footage. I'll be watching it for the first time when it airs just like everybody else … I'm curious to see how it turned out!

A few weeks of downtime doing other things (I cranked out a new spec script about a serial killer at a retirement community called ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE which is sitting on the shelf a few feet away collecting dust) and then things went nutzo for the entire month of May. First I went out to Joshua Tree to act in a grindhouse-y revenge thriller called AMERICAN MUSCLE. Then I came back into town and directed my second video for the band FALLING STILL for their song If U Stay. Less than a week after that, I was back in the clown makeup for the 4th installment of the inexplicably popular series, KILLJOY GOES TO HELL. May was a great month, but it also flew by in a blur …

My next gig was acting in a movie called PARANORMAL EVENT. I played the crazy techie guy who was part of the elite ghost-hunting team … Form what I understand, this one is gonna be hitting VOD and Netflix, etc. in February.

And then, as if having two movies that I wrote shoot in one year wasn't enough, CHEAP THRILLS went into production. I'm excited about this one because of the indie pedigree that it's got and also because it was a spec script that I sold as opposed to a job for hire … and also because I saw it a few weeks ago and it's fucking great. Really dark and humorous and disturbing and everything that I could have hoped that it would be. I can't wait for this movie to get out there in the world. And I think that if you're her reading this then you're going to like it, too. Stay tuned for some announcements about this one in the coming months.

Then KILLJOY GOES TO HELL and AMERICAN MANIACS both came out on DVD.

Things kind of chilled out for a bit as I made some moves, took some meetings, tried to land some gigs … I ended up leaving my agency of 4 years and took on a new manager, got hired and wrote the first draft of my new Lifetime movie, acted in a short film that came out on Halloween, took care of business.

But I did manage to squeeze in another acting gig in a move called BLOOD SHED that comes out in June from what I understand. Then I directed another music video for FALLING STILL (that's still in post-production, but should be available to watch soon).

A few other odds and ends - STAY AT HOME DAD got released on youtube and CHOP came out in Sweden. I spent the holidays with the family … and here we are.

So, let's re-cap … Three screenplays shot. Wrote a spec and another Lifetime script. Acted in 4 features and a short film. Directed 2 music videos. Had 3 movies get releases. Not too shabby. But I can do better, I know.

But that's enough of looking at the past. It's a new year in a week. A lot of the work that I did last year will be coming into the public eye in 2013 … and I've already got some really cool stuff lined up for next year that I'm not going to talk about until more movement happens.

And, crap, I've still got to do my annual Best of/Worst of list, too!

Thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year!

- T