Don’t Build a New Ship, Improve the Old One

I have become tired with a certain fantasy surrounding filmmaking.

The delusion that you need to always start from scratch. The false notion that you can’t go home again. That summer camp ended and now you gotta grow up.

Nah, fuck that.

Sure, every movie is a fresh start. A new challenge. A new set of obstacles. A new cast. A new set of horrific pains awaiting you. And new glory to find.

But not every film needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Here I am on my fourth film (with the fifth in production, though I can’t talk about that yet …) and I am sitting in my office in Nashville, thinking of the dirty dogs that have followed me into the battlefield so many times. And who, film gods willing, will follow me into many more.

I understand the desire to always experiment. To find new people, try new things, make new memories. But also, that girl next door who you sat on the hood of your car with while listening to Matchbox 20 and drinking Milwaukee’s Best?

She’s pretty damn rad. And you already know you have chemistry.

I’ll stop with the metaphors. For now.

Today my third feature narrative, Dolly, is released widely by IFC and Shudder. It’s a film that came from a place of wanting to go hard in the paint, explore my own influences, and do everything in my power to ground a slasher in the realism of a human experience – specifically the anxieties associated with parenting and “family.”

On this day our film is released (in cinemas only for a long time … which is so damn rare for an indie), I can’t help but look back and be so eternally grateful for the people who have stuck by me as I have made these films and be fascinated by how dangerously close we came to just be ships passing in the night …

Shit, another metaphor…

Dolly is not just a personal statement about craft and story, but also a love letter to Tobe Hooper, the New French Extremity, grindhouse storytelling and the greater belief in the DIY tradition. It stemmed from a place of professional frustration and through co-writing it with my friend Brandon Weavil (the best horror screenwriter I’ve ever read … who sent my producing partner Noah Lang a cold query back in 2019), I managed to exorcise that frustration and upon making it, feel as if I can finally put that all in my rear view.

And so much of it is due to the found family my company Witchcraft Motion Picture Company has built across the years and across the country (and even in Newfoundland). Because filmmaking is not a solo act. I am not a novelist alone in a room. As a filmmaker, I am constantly asking people to believe in something before they can see it and the goddamn lunatics who manage to survive this game find a way to see it from the page all the way to the screen. The job is not just taste. It’s leadership. It’s stewardship. It’s holding a line on the horizon while everyone else tries to keep the rudder from snapping.

And belief moves faster when it’s already been earned.

The people who have marched with you before understand your tempo, your mannerisms, your eccentricities … And perhaps most importantly, they understand your weaknesses. They know when you’re chasing something essential and when you’re chasing your own insecurity. They know how you think under pressure. That kind of fluency does not happen on day one.

Trust is forged in bad weather.

On paper, we did not have the time or the money to pull off what ended up on screen. That gap between ambition and resources is where most movies either falter and die or become something greater than their parts. In that gap, you find out who shows up for you and who you know will pick up your call whether it be a month later or a decade later.

I’ve worked alongside the same partners for years. We’ve been through financing collapsing, shifting schedules, sabotage, bad apples, exhaustion, and the kind of stress that makes you question whether you should have chosen a different path entirely. That shared history is not sentimental. It is functional. It allows us to move quickly, because we don’t waste time decoding each other.

Friction is part of that.

The right collaborators push back. They challenge strategy. They force you to articulate why something matters, why it’s worth the day, the cheddar, the energy and the lack of sleep. If I can’t defend a choice, it probably isn’t the right one.

That resistance is not mutiny. It’s true friendship and loyalty. It’s your better half protecting you from yourself.

It’s the wind in your sails.

Goddammit, more metaphors …

Anyway, tribe is not applause. It’s honest resistance without ego, wherein culture becomes the real asset.

Sure, we made an intense film on an intense schedule with intense ambitions, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that misery creates better art. What you want are collaborators who feel supported enough to take risks, because if the group supports one another, you can make 1+1 equal 100.

Independent film is essential and brutally hard to sustain. It’s not a lottery ticket. You can’t just hope to get lucky. Sustainability requires continuity and trust amongst warriors. It requires people who understand not just the movie you’re making, but also the life you’re trying to build around it. The culture you wish to cultivate not only in your art, but in your interpersonal lives.

I’m 45 and am only now learning that careers are marathons disguised as sprints. You are awake long before call time, running the day in your head, preparing to shoot the call sheet, and hoping the rain holds off until trucks are pulling away at wrap. And then in the car ride to your hotel you’re turning over the next day and the next day and the next.

And part of you is already thinking of the next film and the one after that. Because we are complete savages who know only one speed …

Go.

The people I have brought into my life – or, more accurately, those who have brought me into theirs – are the ones who carry me so I don’t only care about results. Caring only about results to justify your lot in life and your sense of self worth is a fast way to despair and despair is perhaps the greatest enemy of a realized creative life there is.

Joy has to come from building. But that doesn’t always mean from scratch.

So don’t build a new ship every time.

Repair the old one.

Find your weaknesses and patch them. Talk to the department head you love dearly whom you know was frustrated by your reaction on set. Work to understand one another. Value the word of your people, because word is bond.

The people who have been in the swamp with you did it once. They’ll do it again. Of course keep working to pay them better (hey Hollywood, call a fella?) and improve the catering (no quinoa, for fuck’s sake).

Continuity compounds. Trust compounds. Courage compounds.

And one day, you look up and realize you’re not just launching another film.

You’re relaunching a vessel that survives with people who love you, even when you have trouble loving yourself.

So with that, I hope you’ll see what we did together, exclusively in theaters – which feels really fucking good to write. I’ve been heartbroken before, but I can only sit here filled with gratitude for what comes next.

With endless love, devotion, admiration, and respect to everyone below and so many, many more:

Fabianne Therese, Russ Tiller, Michalina Scorzelli, Kate Cobb, Ethan Suplee, Seann William Scott, Max the Impaler, Ross O’Connor, Noah Lang, Joseph C. Grano, Isaiah Smallman, Bryce McGuire, Betty Tong, Esteban Sanchez, Steven Schneider, Matt Patterson, Barry Large, Jared Houghton, Cameron Doody, Travis Truett, Lawrence Dossche, John Neumann, Anthony Gentile, John Gentile, Michalina Scorzelli, Brandon Weavil, Sinan Germirli, Bobby Campbell, Mike Chapman, Fatima Hayward, Antonio D’Intino, Justin Oakey, Jimmy White, Jeff Smith, Blake Hoss, Katie Garrett, Corey Pierno, Justin Derry, Kyra Boselli, Nick Bohun, Haven Howell, Ashley K. Thomas, Dan Martin, Gabriella Bordó, Audrey Stathakis, Katie Garrett, Carolita Claus, Samuel Ibach, E. Luke Chandler, Jake Kendrick, Jeffrey Naysim, Gracie Renegar, Emily Harris, Tabitha Higgins, Jason Matthews, Trinity Henry, Michelle Adams, Kyle Weishaar, Jennifer Handorf, Roz Gomersall, Jamie Rochford, Elliot Lidgey, Beth Leigh, Jake Gilbert, Harold Hoss, Danny Flanagan, Summer Sierra, Nicole Sabot, Dave Ogle, John Blazzi, David Ryzner, Ryan Chu, Chad Deslatte, Landon Dixon, Glenn Stegall, Vaughn Stegall, Thatcher Moses, Alex Solorzano, Erin Davis, Nora Beckett, Jade Moreno, Locke Webster, Murrie Rosenfeld, Kaili Corcoran, Layla Stover, Coby Wester, Layla Stover, Kevin O’Connor, Greg Marshall, Thomas Emmet Ashton, Sean Dunckley, Twain Richardson, Dan Dragicevich, Michael Del Plato, Wade Rudolph, Christopher Fox, Brian Rund, Jay Pelizzi, Tim Hendrix, Ethan Feldbau, Adam Miller, Mike Chapman, Simon Crowe, Fatima Hayward, Matthew Joynes, Alexandra Osben, Abbey Wong, Robert Wales, John Woodson, Jeremiah Drueke, Ian Macdonald, Mary-Martha McDaniel, Jimmy White, Brad Shumpert, Audrey Hooper, Andrew Black, James Benjamin, Kenny Hill, Grant Shelton, Jonathan Lehman, Tim McAvoy, Seth Buller, Doyle Layne, Carston Taylor, Matthew Dietz, Chris Temple, Robert Werk, Jason Bowers, Jimmy White, Anthony Johnson and Danny Griffith.