Practice / Directing
Directing
I direct performance-driven narrative work, usually with some friction between what people say, what they want, and the social rules they are trying to keep intact.
Working with actors.
I rarely ask an actor to play funny, play evil, or play emotional. I am more interested in what the character thinks is reasonable.
Entitlement, hurt pride, self-protection, humiliation, longing, authority, and the need to preserve status usually generate more useful behavior than a tonal instruction.
Blocking, physical contact, emotional intensity, and improvisation work better when expectations are explicit and actors know they can ask questions before the camera rolls.
The full directing statement ↗Selected directing.
Feature / Series / Short / 16mmAtomic Fondue
At the height of the Cold War in 1973, when the President and Soviet premier disappear, a planeload of resourceful Air Force wives must avert World War III while contending with infidelities, spies, martinis, and fondue.
The Tenth Circle
In the absurdly bureaucratic Tenth Circle of Hell, a carefree slacker and a tightly wound perfectionist clash and connect as they confront the flaws that landed them there.
Hot Minute
When a broke rideshare driver is forced to drive two fraternity brothers’ getaway car, she turns their half-baked crime spree into an unlikely business opportunity and her best shot at escaping a dying North Carolina mill town.
god's favorite angels
After years of addiction and estrangement, a woman returns to her college town for a friend’s wedding, only to find her group chat of misfit friends dragging her into the same reckless patterns she is desperate to escape.
Trash People
In Los Angeles, a young woman overwhelmed by the debris of modern living is pulled into an unexpected game of cat-and-mouse after she catches a stylish stranger sorting through her garbage.
Freytag’s Pyramid of Climactic Light
A hand-processed 16mm work that uses images associated with NC-17 cinema and violent PG-13 soundtracks to interrogate censorship, ideology, and the politics of looking.