Screenwriter, specializing in horror, with a nose for dialogue, deep character development, and emotionally resonant action reflecting core themes.
I believe in the power of genre storytelling to explore the human condition. Horror, in particular, offers a unique lens through which we can examine our deepest fears, desires, and the darkness that exists within us all. My approach centers on creating characters that feel real and lived-in, with dialogue that crackles with authenticity and subtext that serves the larger thematic purpose of the story.
Every story worth telling has an emotional core that transcends its surface elements. Whether it's a supernatural thriller or an intimate character study, I focus on finding that universal truth that connects with audiences on a visceral level. My writing process is built around understanding what characters truly need versus what they think they want. This tension drives compelling narrative and creates opportunities for meaningful character growth.
As a producer, I believe in shepherding projects from conception through completion with the same attention to story integrity. The best films emerge when creative vision aligns with practical execution, and every decision, from casting to post-production, should serve the story's emotional journey.
I'm also a massive fan of collaboration. After all, film is the most collaborative art form there is, requiring sometimes hundreds and even thousands of people to work together toward a common purpose, with thousands of moving parts on any given day of pre-production, production, or post-production. Finding your team is one of the keys to success in this industry.
Jackpot Summer (Upcoming Feature) - Writer/Producer
Currently in development, this project represents years of refinement and collaboration with talented filmmakers who share the vision.
It Visits Me (Finished Short and Feature) - Writer/Producer
This short film is being developed into an independent feature film.
A distressed young woman takes refuge with her religiously-minded sister, who warns her she could be visited by an angel in the night.
LUCID (Finished Short Film and Feature) - Writer/Producer
The short film is complete, while the feature screenplay has gone through multiple drafts. Currently developing the business plan and seeking investment partners for this horror project that explores the thin line between dreams and reality.
With a unique power to lucid dream, a widower must find his dead wife before she is consumed by a nightmarish entity.
Copy (Finished Short) - Writer/Producer
A woman uneasy about her pregnancy learns the copier isn't just for paper.
Arbitrage (Feature Script) - Writer
A character-driven thriller that attracted a stellar cast for its table read. While not horror, it showcases range in storytelling with complex characters navigating moral ambiguity.
Black Mold (Limited Series) - Creator/Writer
It only takes one person to say yes. The right eyes.
It's a common refrain among writers who try to pump themselves up for the hard slog and endless rewrites, cold queries, pitch preparation, and submissions.
It's not true. But it also... kind of is true.
To get a film or TV show made inevitably takes dozens of people to say yes along various parts of the journey. But it's not like your script is being read in commitee, passing the script around a conference table like a family at Thanksgiving passing around the mashed potatoes and turkey.
One person reads it. Their eyes light up. They get it. It hits them exactly where you wanted it to, right in the feels. They are energized. And at that moment, they may have transformed from just a person you hoped would read it into a Champion for you and your script.
The rest of the journey will be a hard, rocky path, filled with lots of people to convince, all of whom want to say yes but desperately need to say no to all but the very, very best (whatever that means to them on that particular day and time). It's those people who you have to convince. But you won't be alone at this point. You'll have your Champion. And they may not have the fastest horse or sharpest sword but if they feel it in their bones, they WILL fight for you.
So yes. It takes many to say Yes. But it only takes one Yes to begin that journey.
Last week I spent about four days taking my show, called Black Mold, which only consisted of a pilot and a rough treatment of an overarching story, and transforming it into a cohesive show bible. It was an exhilarating, exhausting process, one I don't recommend unless pressed for time the way I was. But there's something to be said for deadlines.
I was under the gun. I had seen a posting on the Filmhub Market in which an international production company was looking for original shows to develop. And, yes, it was pay-to-play. But it was really inexpensive! And so I figured, why not build the show out? Force myself to do what I hadn't been able to do.
The end result is a 26-page bible that has a rough but ready overview of the show from balls to bones, including a season-wide arc, character bios, backstory, even a dictionary. And I even packaged it in an attractive package that I thought added a bit of panache and style to what is otherwise a process text.
Black Mold didn't get accepted. But now I have a show bible that I can continue to develop and build upon. It was all because I had four days to do what I'd not spent a year doing before. Sometimes the best thing in your arsenal is a deadline imposed by someone else.
In the book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell talks about how the outer goal is often a reflection of the inner emotional need of a character in a story. In the case of a sports movie like Cool Runnings, it might be the need for national respect, to prove a nation of outsiders can belong despite the odds. In a heist movie like Heat, the need for money is to secure happiness--"one last job" for the criminal, one last crime to stop for the tired lawman, but for both these actions represent these respective man's need to prove oneself--the obsession with abiding by a professional code. In a dystopian young adult action adventure film like The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen's goal is to survive the games, but her inner need is to protect her sister and overcome a fascist dictatorship of elites who are oppressing them. In all these examples, the inner need of the characters is reflective of or a contrast to their outward objectives.
The key to a good character arc is a character with clear objectives at the beginning of the story. Characters have wants, needs and desires. Wants are something that the character wants for themselves, like 'I want to buy that dress'. Needs are something the character needs to do or have to make the story happen. In order for a character to be interesting, he or she has to have an internal or inner need that they're trying to satisfy or resolve. Wants are an external manifestation of that inner conflict.
Think of this beginning as a state of disunity or incompleteness--something in their life is missing or out of balance. The audience is able to identify with those external wants because they are universal. Think of Ralphie wanting that Red Rider BB gun in A Christmas Story.
Along with that external want is the inner need that they're trying to fulfill--again, something is missing in their life that is preventing them from wholeness or unity. For example, if your character wants to save the world, their inner need is to be a hero. Think Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, in which her inner need is to overcome the trauma of her father's death in the line of duty. Her whole external world (as an FBI trainee out of her element) and her objective (somehow catch the serial killer Buffalo Bill before he kills again) is connected to this inner state of disunity and the need to understand and move beyond the legacy of her father's death.
A character arc is something that happens over the course of a story and affects the character's personality, beliefs or circumstances. If you want your screenplay to have a satisfying ending, your characters must have clear objectives throughout the entire story. When you're writing characters, it can be easy to focus on what they want, but it's arguably more important to think about what they need on the inside, and to portray how the two things (inner need / outer goal) complement or are in opposition to each other.
The inner need is, in my opinion, the more important of the two, because it speaks to the emotional core truth of the character (and why we should care about them). But the outer need is often a reflection of that emotional need. Knowing what your character wants and what they're trying to achieve forces you to really think about what is motivating the character. Every character wants something. It could be a physical object, like a ring. It could be a person, like a lover. Or it could be a place, like the right to stand in the middle of the town square. Now what do those things represent? A ring could represent the quest for absolute power and corruption and evil (Lord of the Rings) and thus the protagonist's need to destroy it, lest it destroy him and the rest of the world. A quest for a romantic partner may actually be about coping with loss and the need for your family to be whole again (Sleepless in Seattle). The quest for the right to protest reflects the larger inner need for justice and equality in a society.
When you find that perfect synthesis between inner need and outer want, you'll find every scene will become oriented around resolving that question.