Employment

Background:

In 2012, Kickstarter was all the rage, and this is my only successful Kickstarter project. My other attempted Kickstarter, Houseboat On Terror Lake, didn’t even come close to making its goal and we pulled the plug early.

This one, though, had a realistic goal of $2k, most of which was needed in order to film where I wanted to film – the Tennessee State Prison. It’s a beautiful old prison on the western side of Nashville, and it’s been used for a lot of movie shoots including The Green Mile.

I heard about it, got in touch with the Tennessee Film Commission, and took a tour of the creepy place. Certain areas are off-limits because it’s literally falling apart, but even the small portions you could go in were pretty unnerving – such as a few cell blocks and the actual electric chair.

After raising the money, I made this short film, which is way too long and hasn’t aged well, but I’m proud of having actually finished it back when I was just 22. My brother did the very cool music, and if nothing else I can say we successfully showed off the uniqueness of our shooting location.

While filming this, we had some extra time on location, so we made two more shorts, both of them mostly improv (as if you couldn’t tell). They very successfully capture the dynamic of that group of filmmakers in Nashville, and they’re fun to look back on.