During my undergrad at UCCS, I was lucky enough to have access to several genre studies courses offered in the film program. I took nearly every single one! All taught by the ever awesome Sean Forrest (Ackla Tev, Kingpin, Film 2000). The last of these courses was Gangster Film taken in my final semester in the Spring of 2018. As a special final assignment, students were allowed to write a short traditional gangster film that adhered to the many tropes and genre staples we learned during our stay in the class. Naturally, I was all over that assignment, and I penned a fitting piece called, Bury the Blade. And I decided I wanted to actually make the film I wrote for the class, so I penned it with that in mind.

The trouble was, which became apparent pretty quickly as I started mapping out the preproduction trajectory for the Bury, that I am not really a fan of the traditional gangster film. Now give me a good Guy Ritchie gangster tale and I am all about it. Which got me thinking, why not make one of those. Or rather, an homage to his British crime films that are such favorites of mine. So I penned a new script called Takers, and Bury the Blade got, well, buried. Unfortunately, Takers would soon follow suite, getting backburnered for other projects as I was never fully happy with the story and its resolution. The basics were there, but it was so truncated and felt somehow lacking in ways I couldn’t put my finger on.

It wasn’t until 2023, when I had the good fortune of working with Christopher Lalone (Varmint, Scorched) that I learned he was the younger brother of my good friend and frequent collaborator, Cliff Cage (Pound, Red Ever Grows Red Ever Tires, The Wastelander) and when my buddy, Bobby Hadden (Ackla Tev, The Flu, Night of the Missing Bleach) approached me saying he wanted to work on one of my films with his cousin I had recently collaborated with, Andre Jones, Jr. (days without the words, Black is Beautiful : Beautiful is Black, Alone), that I would finally return to the script. Having also seen numerous local indie shorts starring Cassandra Crimmins (Rusty Nail, The Apprentice, Never Forget) and Brittany Marie (Run, The Apprentice, Never Forget) I also really wanted to find a project to work with both of them on. Takers seemed the perfect vehicle for this!

But it needed a bit of rewrite first. I had to expand the tale, add more characters to more completely weave the story together into an appropriate homage to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (the main inspiration for the short). It finally worked! It hit the way I wanted and allowed for all the collaborations I was looking to make happen in one film. Also in talking with Gerrie Walker (âme, The Pool) when she helped out as an extra on âme (2024) she mentioned how few acting opportunities there were for women of a certain age locally. So as I was rewriting the script I swapped the genders of two of the characters to further provide some roles for some other women to have a chance to play in the project outside of the leads (Cowboy and Jamie). So King became Queen for Gerrie, and I swapped Clutter to a woman so the part was perfect for Kristina Aponte (E is for Expiation, Casting JonBenet, One of Us) who I had also just worked with on our Stephen King adaptation over summer of ’24. I also added a character to bring Blake Jackson (âme) back again for more ’24 bookendy goodness.

Everyone I showed the script to, especially those it was aimed and restructured specifically for, were all eager to take the film from page to screen, so I dove into making Takers the film we would tackle once we wrapped the King project, E is for Expiation (2024). As has been my go-to casting choice of late, I reached out to stunningly talented Quinton Blanche (âme, Varmint, Seraphim) to see if he would be interested in another outing with Whatsabudget Films. I was also reaching out to a new regular collaborator who had proved invaluable on E, AD and Producer extraordinaire, Megan MacGrath (Cremains Unknown, E is for Expiation, Matchbot). Both were on board, and I was booking it towards having the crucial pieces in place. I had worked with Megan on a film from Mat Nelson (that you all need to keep an eye out for) where I was introduced to Blaise Bowers (Real Michigan, Whoopie, Riddle Me This) and he expressed an interest in playing more villains. When I knew I wanted to have the guns/gunbelt the plot revolves around to have belonged to Billy the Kid, and to have flashbacks to Billy in action using the guns, Blaise was the first person to come to mind.

When I wrote the first draft of the film in 2018, I was wanting to have Allen Sims (World On My Shoulders, Changes, and more) a local actor, rapper and entrepreneur to play the head of one of the film’s crime families. So when I returned to the project, I reached out to Allen also, to see if he might be interested in the part that kicks off the whole film. Not only was he interested, he was eager to play some piano pieces for the film. Unbeknownst to me, Allen was no longer living in the Springs, and had relocated to GA. A fact I learned after he had come back to CO to film his portion of the short. Being that I love piano, having him play some pieces was an idea I was in love with, so we arranged to capture those while he was still in town, and to use them for the initial teasers of the film. And since I was returning to original inspirations, I asked Sean to make a cameo in the film too!

After the summer of King, I also brought some more of the Kingly collaborators on board, like Sean Verdu (Avenue Q, Dead to Me, E is for Expiation), Josh Lindquist (Seraphim, Post Game, Containment Breach), Dan Siegrist (The Dollcatcher, Peccadillo, Cookies for Christmas), and our phenomenal FX makeup artist Kacee Smith (âme, Scorched, E is for Expiation) who helped me give Josh a memorable exit from this film with a somewhat last minute change to the script inspired by a dinner from Teriyaki Madness days before we shot with him. I reached out to both he and Kacee to make sure they were comfortable and willing to try this adjustment and indeed they were. Kacee was more than capable for creating the unexpected effect with such short notice, and absolutely killed it for the film. Definitely keep an eye out for her work! I was also stoked to get to work with my friend Ian Brander (Matchbot, Real Michigan, Stifle) for the first time as an actor (wanting to get more insights to aid him as a director by acting in a film). Dan also worked us a special sound mix for the film, which delayed its intended December 2024 release, but it was well worth the wait!

We still managed to premiere the “short” (clocking in at just over thirty minutes) in December at Peak Film Forum, with an untweaked sound mix playing to the crowd. The film was well received, and even got us some attention from the local press, having had an arts and entertainment reporter from the Indy in attendance who really loved it! And while it didn’t get to join our 2024 lineup officially on the YouTube channel, having it hit at the top of 2025 seems like a great way to kick off the new year! So without further ado, the Takers (2024) have arrived!

*Disclaimer* – I have always been a sucker for a good holiday tradition, or a holiday special!

To that end, last year after penning a poem for my family around Christmas, I immediately knew I wanted to make that into a short film for them as well. And that I wanted it to be a gift for this year. Being that I am the world’s worst at holding back presents, or keeping the proverbial lid on the gift-wrapped box as it has never been where my strengths lie, I had to work to play it cool. Immediately spoiling the surprise by handing over the gift in a fit of immediate gratification and sucking at secret keeping is much more my style. So I also knew that I would have to work on the piece in pieces, not dashing towards the finish line in typical Rob filmmaking fashion. So there would be no gift to speak of until it was time to unveil the surprise to my family.

Visions of sugar plums danced in my head from the jump. Meaning, I knew how the short would flow and play out, largely consisting of footage gathered from my parent’s house, focusing on their decorations, family photos, etc. And I knew that I would want to maintain the surprise element for as long as physically and emotionally possible. So I had to work in stealth mode while my parents were not around the house. I also had to allow myself to put the project out of mind as the year moved along and I had other films to make and things to work on. This would aid me in not being distracted from film to film, or getting overly anxious about the gift I was holding on to.

Which led to me actively forgetting the project for a spell, and not realizing it was missing from the “body count” (as I sometimes affectionately refer to the total film count of Whatsabudget’s body of work). And as artists of little means who live simple lives, being unable to travel home to be with our families nor to have gifts to send back to them as the year tends to find us as it winds through the holiday season, I was once again a bit sad and burdened by the annual weight and reminder of this shortcoming when I remembered the film! So I even got to surprise my damn self with it!

When it came back to mind, I immediately remembered leaving it unfinished and in need of several more pickup shots to complete the short like I had originally envisioned it. And seemingly, without missing much of a beat, I was back up on that bicycle like I had never stepped off of it. I would say I began scouting around town for more festive light displays to capture some footage of to help further imbue the piece proper with the seasonal flair and tone, but the displays more came to me. I was house/cat sitting once again as the season approached and found myself passing several wonderful and whimsical displays daily! The inspiration calling to me. Reminding me of the gift I had yet to complete.

So after a few cold nights, a couple of awkward encounters, and a bit of fun with Final Cut (who was working fine when I first started the edit at the top of ’24, but which has become somewhat unstable and glitchy in areas since thanks to playing OS update catch up on my MAC), I got the gift/film cut together and ready to deliver! Just in time for the holiday too!

So it is with so much love, and in that seasonal spirit of giving, that I present to all of our loved ones who have taught us the importance of spending time with and showing the people who mean the world to you just that, this new poetry short, the season doesn’t hit the same (2024). Love to you all!

At the top of the year, while âme (2024) was underway and getting going, via someone I had worked with on a documentary project at UCCS with, I was connected to another local filmmaker looking to get started on making his first short film. A horror fan and fellow lover of the genre, Kellen McNab. He was anxious and driven, with a couple of scripts he could choose from to dive into these waters. I told him I would try to help him out in any way I could with his short film, and he even joined us for a crucial night of shooting on our short, so we could get a sense of working with one another. I’ll let Kellen take it from here:

“Firstly, I want to thank Rob Bowen as without his support this film would probably be no more than one of many word docs filling up my hard drive. I have been working on my filmmaking for about 7 years, but the timing never seemed to line up right when it came to motivation, time and resources to commit to a short film. When I started 2024, I had one thing one my mind, “This is the year.” Due to some recent life changes, I had a level of stability and free time that I hadn’t in a long time. I began reaching out to friends in an effort to put together a group of fellow filmmakers to help aid in the production. This is when I was introduced to Rob through a mutual friend.

Once I had Rob on board, a story began to form in my mind. As a lover of late night walks as well as the films of Sam Raimi, the forbidden book found a new setting to stalk its good judgment starved prey. I wrote the first draft quickly and would learn through the process how difficult it is to tell the story visually which seems so clear in your mind. This realization led to almost constant additions, rewrites and reshoots. Ultimately, the film that you see only vaguely reflects the initial vision I had and this is certainly good thing.

Aside from the onset support and tutelage, Rob was also instrumental in securing me the massively talented cast who ultimately forced me to attempt to grow my professionalism to match their own. The first to come on board was Abdhulaq Alrudaini who would portray our unlucky protagonist Kevin. Abdulhaq’s passion for the craft was infectious and motivated me even further to create a story worth telling. Abdulhaq then introduced me to the incredibly talented Levi Ladd who would play Kevin’s lifelong friend James. Rounding out the cast is AJ Buckley as the ex- girlfriend (who was another amazing find by Rob), and my own brother Conan McNab who helped me out by transforming himself into occult book collector Ron. I was also helped by my good friends, Sean Svette and Dennis Jiron who jointly and creepily played the entity, and my wife Michele who was a constant source of support and creative consultation.

This film, which I hope to be the first of many, is representative of a lifetime of daydreams and passion. To have finished it and with the help of such a talented and supportive group of friends and collaborators is an experience that I will never forget. I have learned so much through the hard work, the successes and the failures, and I will bring all of that knowledge to my future endeavors. I hope to work with every single one of these people again in the future as they serve so well to make up for my shortcomings and then some. Enjoy the film!

~ Kellen McNab”

Now, hard times come and go. The same goes for hard drives. And when I lost the drive in my previous laptop, last year, what I failed to realize I had lost, were the remaining submission scripts we had received and agreed upon for the first series of Nightmares from the Beyond. Something of a nightmare in and of itself. Especially since Alex was the one who originally oversaw and got in the submissions. So I was seeing the project start to shift towards a state of limbo after only the second chapter. Given my love of horror, I was not anxious to see that slow slouch begin. So when Kellen approached me looking for a place to release his new horror short, I mentioned the series to see if he might want to have Disclaimer act as the third chapter. Giving us something of a reset to close out the first series with, and allow us to ultimately move it forward seeking new stories to tell and bring to life.

Naturally, I recommended he start his own channel first, but when he felt like that might be putting the proverbial cart ahead of the horse with his current creative output, then I turned to the Beyond. So it is with this latest collaboration that we close out the troubled first chapter of the series plagued by delays, relocations, and actual plagues or rather pandemics. Thanks again to Kellen, and all the fantastic folks who comprised the team of this dark little tale!

Collaboration is always the key to this whole filmmaking game. And as such, we are always looking for that next opportunity. So when two of your favorite local filmmakers approach you looking to team up and tackle a new project, you always say “abso-fucking-lutely!” As was the case as 2023 was coming to a close, when Skye Armenta (Zapper, thorns, Nature’s Bastards) and Nick Gatsby (thorns, Zapper, Diabetes) of Gatsmenta Films reached out about finding another film we could work on together to start the new year. So I said, “abso-fucking-lutely!”

Skye even referenced our project collab that had started the previous year as she mentioned wanting to start the new year with that same indie film energy. With Nature’s Bastards having been such a meaningful film for me in 2023, getting the chance to bring some of that core team back together at the top of the new year held a lot of promise as an idea. And as we started moving into production, Nature’s Bastards (2023) started winning some awards at a couple of film festivals imbuing the idea with even more promise! But before we set forth to tried and recapture some of that magic, whilst weaving all new cinematic spells in the present, we had to come to land on a script.

âme was a script I had penned back in October of ’23, when horror was in the air already, and I was coming off of Avoid as Able. While horror is a favorite genre of mine, doing a horror-comedy for our Halloween ’23 release wasn’t enough to really scratch that itch and get the horror bug out of my system. So I sat down and wrote âme which also marked a bit of a classic return to form for Whatsabudget and the shorts I tended to fill our oeuvre with in years past. It was dark. It was bloody. And it was full of rage and touches of heart. Having just worked with Heidi Rowan (Just Business, The Ascendants) on a couple of projects in ’23, I reached out to her about stepping into one of the supporting roles.

Quinton Blanche (The Stranger, Varmint, E is for Expiation) was another talented actor who bailed out my bacon on an industrial video project we worked on last year for UCCS, and whose talent spoke volumes beyond the small parts he had in the piece. So I naturally wanted to bring him on board to fill out the cast with even more awesome than it was already loaded with. That left one final supporting role in the cast, and with the nature of the film, and coming off of our release of destitute III (2023), Ariel Crawford (Coffee & Cigarettes, By the Blood, Vinnie’s Vantastic Rock and Roll Adventure) was a natural choice.

There was also a need for an FX make-up artist, given the script and story. And since I had recently been contacted by a one-time coworker from UCCS, saying that his teenage daughter had been developing her skills and was looking to gain some experience and time on any local indie film sets she could get onto, it was kismet. So I reached out to Mike and asked if Kacee might want to tackle the FX make-up needs of the film. She was thrilled to take on the challenge, and she rose to meet it with skill. Her parents were kind enough to trek her down from the Denver area for two of our three shoots to have her on set as needed, so the support shown was immense, and immensely appreciated.

Beyond the speaking roles, I knew the film needed a slew of extras to populate the virtual “subscriber pool” that I wanted to visually represent via a sort of liminal space shared within the film. And while I was able to pull together a couple of our local film fam, Bobby Hadden (Night of the Missing Bleach, The Flu, Ackla Tev) and Jon Sargent (Avoid as Able, Puppet Fire, Reclaiming Icarus), many of the crew I was relying on filling in the pool, weren’t available when we were finally able to get the shoot on the calendar. Luckily, we had Q on board, as he was adept at pulling people’s proverbial bacon from the flame (especially it seems, mine). He came through for us once again and got a handful of talented people to help out!

With some of our regular players/friends filling out the crew behind the scenes here and there as able, âme (2024) came together finally in the latter part of February. And while it was still our first new short film for the new year, we were getting it rolling a little later than anticipated, but after only three shooting days, we were wrapped and heading into post with the project. And all applause to the rest of the roster of players and participants that helped us pull it all off: Vina Valdez, Blake Jackson, Gerrie Walker, Isaac C. Elliott, Kevin Mulligan, Travis Eckland, Phil Sweren, Jack Alejandro Young, Caitlin McKoy, and Kellen McNab.

To cap off the film’s edit and put the proper finishing touches on the piece, I also needed to include an original song in the film. So I reached out to my older brother, knowing that his band’s album that he sent me years ago had a song called Dead by Dawn that was a fine fit for the short. Beyond the fact that it worked as a nod to the Evil Dead franchise, it further fit the narrative with perfect pitch. And they were more than willing to allow us to use the track for the film. So double trouble. All together, the film was shaping up to meet and match the bar of expectations set by my previous collaborations with Skye and Nick., and we hope you all enjoy what we’ve cooked up.

December 2022 ended with the second entry in the Pawn’s introductory film trilogy of poetry shorts, and this year shall conclude the trilogy with the final entry’s release. destitute III (2023), was actually finished earlier this year over the summer so as to have it ready in time for a film festival deadline that it was being eyed for. However, given the symmetry of wrapping it up a year after the last, and to have it be our final film of the year long release plan of dropping a new short every two months, was too hard to resist. So we held on to the film, keeping it from full public release until these last days of December.

Given the personal nature of the character and pieces they are associated with, I once again felt like the reading of the poem should fall to me. So this would be another easy film to put together and pull off, as there was not a lot of planning and scheduling to deal with or coordinate. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to get Ariel (Ackla Tev, By the Blood, Vinnie’s Vantastic Rock and Roll Adventure) to return for this final chapter too, after she stepped into the roles of the Fates in part two. With a Chaos Demon being the only other character to appear in this short, she was more than happy to hop on board and take the reigns of the Demon. She even came up with the look and costume for the character as well, based on some conversations we had leading up to the shoot.

I knew that I wanted the Demon to wear a mask, and which one that would be, however, Ariel was responsible for incorporating it with the rest of the look she was crafting, and even came up with the idea of the double-sided demon. I was immediately sold on the idea, and it added such dimension to the part and meaning overall. She also wanted to steer the look towards the Boogieman from the animated 80’s series The Real Ghostbusters, as the main source of inspiration and pitched that as the general idea. I wanted her to have full creative control, so I told her to run with it. And run with it, she did. It’s always exciting to reunite and collaborate with my old friend from the days of sharing trenches in the service industry, but as this was a culminating chapter of the trilogy, the excitement was amplified even more.

One of the other really exciting elements of this short was creating the practical hellscape the Pawn is seen in throughout the film, and that is referenced in the poem throughout as well via the lines “through a hell of his own making.” Working closely with my partner in all things, Angie (Life’s a Tarantino Flick, thorns, Level 6) and borrowing from her vast array of art supplies, we managed a simple, layered diorama from watercolor paper, markers and pastels. That added a rich, new layer to this short that the others lacked, and that was a lot of fun to envision, cut/craft, and manipulate during preproduction and filming. Expanding the reaches of the Pawn to a new, third plane of existence for the third film in the trilogy: the game or chess board (his world), the real world (our plane), and the hell of his own making. Here in this final chapter, the Pawn is having to navigate all three.

As with the previous films, taking the Pawn out into the world and planning the settings he would be placed in this round, was more crucial than ever before, and so I was even more intentional than in the previous films. It had to really cement the tethers between the character and its inspiration, and it had to place the Pawn in environments that helped conclude and wrap up this journey the Pawn has been on since appearing in the first short. It was clearly stated in that first piece, that “this is not a hero’s tale,” and that point had to play out the way it needed and was intended in this final entry of the trilogy. But those environments were key, and so the staging was a lot of fun to work out for this film. Like when the Pawn is watching the scenes of his own journey play back before him, set against a canvas and adjacent to my high school yearbook from the year I graduated. Threading the connective tissue between us even deeper as this first series comes to a close.

I wanted the Pawn’s first poetic series of films to have a unique journey, one that built throughout the series with each entry. Not only do I feel that we were able to pull that off, but the last chapter does such a fantastic job bringing the journey full circle, and in my own humble opinion, sticking the landing on its way out. I really am so proud of each of the films in the trilogy, but this third one, really takes the proverbial cake for me. I hope you get an equal amount out of the film and journey too.

What began last Halloween with our release of There Came a Knocking (2022), and which ended up kicking off our year plus of a new release every two months for all of 2023, came frightfully close to becoming an unachievable goal as summer came to a close and we were still one short…well, short of crossing the finish line. During the warm summer days I had been trying to put together another shoot for a short horror film I had penned called What They Do In the Shadows. It was a small cast of characters, but somewhat logistically challenging, and with the cast I had ready to tackle the tale, all of our schedules began conflicting with one another in just enough ways as to thwart our attempts time and again to move the project into production. So I had to get all Gellar on the task at hand and pivot!

Knowing it was being aimed for a Halloween release time frame, I wanted to keep the horror element in the mix, so I pulled out a fun little script I had penned earlier in the year called Avoid as Able. Having just completed a short film of Jack Alejandro Young’s (Matchbot, Pound, Contract) called Pseudo just a couple of months after we wrapped Pound, I knew Jack was available and down to clown once again (and it is always a pleasure to collab with such a funny, creative and kind soul as Jack) so I sent the script over to him to see if he might be willing to Whatsabudget once more. Once he was on board, I started reaching out to others to help fill in the rest of the cast. Having just come off a derailed project that I couldn’t make happen owing to scheduling issues, switching gears to a film that had a larger cast seemed like a risky pivot to make, but I was all in on the goal we had set for releases, so I knew this would be our make or break moment for that charge. And while it was a larger cast, the parts and setups were much less involved, and so it seemed it would be an easier film to pull together.

Immediately, I saw opportunities to combine a couple of the roles and lessen the number of people we needed (by one), and so I turned to another talented actor I had collaborated recently with on two feature films since we had worked together on a Whatsabudget short, Kendra Dae Shock (Only Devils Die On Wednesdays, Matchbot, Real Michigan) to be the one who would double up on the assignments here. Knowing her love of horror, and having her tell me on the set of one of the feature films that she wanted to work with me again on a short, I figured she would jump at the chance. And she did! I also couldn’t do a short film that plays with so many of the classic horror tropes and stages so many classic setups to horror moments without tapping the one man who taught me Horror. Literally. When I was at UCCS, he was the guy who taught my Horror Film genre studies course, Sean Forrest (Kingpin, Ackla Tev, Life’s a Tarantino Flick). So I had to bring him on board too!

Since I wasn’t able to work with Brent Wilkerson (Nature’s Bastards, Life’s a Tarantino Flick, The Hit) as I had wished on Pound, I reached out to him again with this project, and found him open and ready to step back in front of the camera! I also naturally reached out to my friend and frequent collaborator, Bobby Hadden (Night of the Missing Bleach, Ackla Tev, Nature’s Bastards) because he’s always reaching out to me and asking “when is the next one?” So I had to find a part for him to play since he would be relocating to Texas soon. I also saw an opportunity to connect this film in two places to past Whatsabudget tales, once again, threading the overall cinematic universe together as I had gotten to do with Pound. The first way to connect them, was through one of the characters our lead would cross paths with, by bringing Bunny Williams (The Suitcase, Pope On Film Podcast) back once again as an ax-wielding Psycho Killer. The second way is a spoiler, so not gonna cover that one here.

Jon Sargent (Puppet Fire, Reclaiming Icarus, The Freak) was a filmmaker I had met through the Peak Film Forum a few times, and who expressed a desire to work with me in an acting capacity (to try his hand at some small parts here and there). So I thought I would reach out to him too with a small role in this short to get that ball rolling. And with all of them on board, the cast was set and ready to rock! But I had recently reconnected with Kathryn Diana Rogers (Ackla Tev, Socks, Film 2000) in thes now “post” pandemic days, and she also expressed a desire to collab once more. Since I had doubled up on Kendra’s roles, I didn’t have anything else immediately apparent in this short that I could bring her on for…so I wrote some new scenes. There are always more horror tropes to play with, so it was easy to do, and have it feel right at home in the piece. After she was on board and that was done, Jack mentioned his dad once again, asking if there were any small parts he might be able to play since he made the offer on Pound to have him step in to help out. So since I was adding new tropes to the film anyway, I felt like nodding to some of the urban legends that featured so prominently in the popular canon of Americana and horror throughout my life. So we welcomed Chris Young to the cast for his first film role.

And boom, I had added to the cast by two. Just for the added difficulty and juggling perhaps. But it really served to round out the journey of the film and of the lead as well, so I really appreciated being able to expand the world of it a bit and bring on the extra folks. And it really didn’t add too much beyond an extra hour or two of filming, and one additional location to sort out/use. Given that it was pretty much all taking place outdoors, the location scouting was easy, and mostly done from my many hikes through the city and my neck of the hoods. So the pieces came together from there with ease. Jack and my parents came through on two locations we needed for interiors, and so we were off and running! The goal was once more within reach, and since our December short was ready over summer so it could make the entry deadline for a film festival it was aimed for, Avoid as Able brought us to the finish line of achievement once we wrapped on production!

The film, and all those released before, stood as a beacon to what our creative teams could accomplish when we all, dedicated to the same cause of indie film, came together as one to create this fun chapter in the Whatsabudget oeuvre, and put the final piece of the puzzle together on the self-imposed release schedule goal. I couldn’t be prouder of what we managed to achieve this year in the face of some pretty overwhelming odds and heartbreaking circumstances. Having lost one of my Uncles and a mentor from the Film Studies program in the months since we released Pound, I wanted to dedicate this new short to them both as well, and so I added a note at the end of the credits to do just that. It’s certainly been a whirlwind of a year, and overall through the Whatsabudget years to boot, so this achievement feels extra special and meaningful, and to be able to dedicate it to people who meant so much to who I am today meant even more. Hope you enjoy the film and get a chuckle or two from it.

After The Hit (2021) was released as a standalone short, apart from it’s original conception as the intro to an intended web series that did not come to fruition, I wanted to dip my pen back into the dark comedic waters in which the short lived. Having had such fun with the characters and the world. And I realized pretty quickly that I would be able to connect the world in which those characters lived with another character/world in which an earlier short from 2016 inhabited. Rule 17 (2016) introduced a character named Diggs, without actually introducing them. They were on the unseen/unheard receiving end of a phone call from the main character Faraday. Someone you called when you needed to get rid of a body. With O’Brien being mentioned in very much the same vein in The Hit, the idea and worlds webbed together with ease. Staying more in the comedic lane that O’Brien was born into, By the Pound, which would eventually be renamed to the shortened, final Pound in revisions that followed, took shape.

With Brent Wilkerson’s (Life’s a Tarantino Flick, la Chasse, Film 2000) Carl being smoking buddies with the body man from The Hit, I really wanted Brent to come back for Pound and play O’Brien to give the relationship between them a bit of a visual gag to thread things off from the start. However, as time for production moved closer and closer, Brent’s schedule was no longer working out to get him to return to the world once again. After some casting roulette and other scheduling misalignment kept shifting the production window, and delaying the short, I managed to find a time that worked to bring my frequent collaborator and long time friend, Cliff Cage (Red Ever Grows Red Ever Tires, Empty, The Wastelander) on board to take on the role of Diggs. Introducing a new character to the world, along with the actual physical introductions of O’Brien and Diggs, Franklin was a particularly fun role to play with and envision. However, having Jack Alejandro Young, (Contract, The Color of Apples, Matchbot) step into the role and bring him hilariously to life beyond even my expectations was comedic gold! And exactly what the role/film needed.

Unfortunately, with others being unavailable, and my self-imposed “new release every two months for all of 2023” deadline looming, I had to step into O’Brien’s shoes. Which having had Brent in mind for the role originally, whose comedic timing and delivery is the jelly making kind, those shoes were pretty big ones to step into and fill. Even if he had only worn them in my mind. Not that I am unfamiliar with the whole acting thing (Pseudo, Coffee & Cigarettes, ART) but tend to only do so today if necessary. Or if I owe a filmmaking friend a favor for starring as a storied cannibal body man in my latest short (see Pseudo…like seriously, go see it). With the three body men cast, and ready to rock, we rolled into rehearsals and I started building out my crew for the shoot. Given that I will, at any given moment and opportunity, jump at the chance to collaborate with my friend in cinema and beyond, Travis Eckland as cinematographer (Night of the Missing Bleach, ART, days without the words) I was stoked he wanted to shoot the short. If not a little hesitant to throw so much more onto his already overloaded plate. But he’s a multiple Emmy award winning cinematographer, so the demands on his time are understandable.

After recently reconnecting with my buddy from the Film Studies cohort, Kevin Mulligan (The Life and Times of Richard Nixon, Night of the Missing Bleach) and working on a couple of projects together, Kevin Mulligan signed on to assist with the film. And as an always engaging and entertaining storyteller and creative collaborator he is a welcome addition to any crew (and not just my own). So we were lucky to have him aboard. Like another guy I recently met who likes to help out on film sets to learn more about the process for his own growth and cinematic explorations too, Nate Moll (Just Business, Duck Rabbit, Real Michigan), he was another more than welcome addition to the team. And we all had such a fun behind the scenes energy and chemistry together, that each of them had some fun and hilarious ad libbed line changes that they shared, which were so pitch perfect and struck my funny bone in a fantastic way that I asked them if we could give the characters those laugh out loud adjustments. The entire process was great, and having another funny and fun member on the team in Bob Morsch (Venus In Cancer, Duck Rabbit, and more oh so much more) covering sound for us with such generosity of spirit, we were set to quickly knock out this short film.

And quickly we did. Having access to the tunnels we shot in, and having used them in films past after being introduced to them and the trail they were on by Ian Brander (Matchbot, Real Michigan, There Came a Knocking), we knew it would not take long to blow through the shoots given how well the rehearsals had gone in preproduction with the cast. The most unpredictable aspect was the weather because we were shooting outdoors in Colorado in a pretty public and well traversed area of town. That and you can never truly predict how people will react to you driving the “body wrapped in plastic” prop you assembled to set or “dragging” it around the trail. So there was that too. Speaking of props, this short also presented an opportunity for a fun little nod to one of my Dad’s favorite shorts that we’ve made, The Suitcase (2014) via giving Cliff’s character a means of disposal that some hawk-eyed, elephant-minded fans might recognize.

So overall, Pound acted as a fun and quirky, darkly comedic thread to weave together the ever growing WaBFCU. Because these days, it’s all about the cinematic universes. Jokes aside, post production offered an opportunity to recollab with my composer and filmmaking friend, Joseph Irvin (Overwhelming Majority, The New Millennial Tramp in “Is That My Wallet?”, days without the words) for some assistance with some original scoring to complete the piece in just the right fashion. And with being able to get the majority of the cast and crew together to screen the finished product to rave reviews with just one day left before the “every two months” window closed due to overwhelmed and stressed schedules, I am overly proud to finally release LB, or Pound!

It was at the end of 2022 that I was looking over some of the wonderful gifts I had been given as the year wound toward its final phases, I was extremely eager to use them. Trouble was, I had plans for some other projects already in the works, and nothing really I had already penned was calling to me particularly loudly proclaiming its desire to head into pre-production. So I sat down and started the gears turning, got the ink flowing, and I crafted a whole new tale of surreal drama. Nature’s Bastards was born, and I knew I had my project.

Having had been trying for a minute to reunite with and collab once more with my talented friend Mark E. Cannon (Soulmates, Return of the Masked One), I knew the lead role of Coleman in this script was one he was so well suited for, so I reached out to and sent him the pages. He was sold, and that meant we had our leading man, so things were officially kicking off! Though, as with most films, feature or short, there were several bumps in the road to come as we moved forward. We began planning to shoot in December, but ran into some delays due to Covid, colds, and unforeseen need for recasting a role after losing contact with the actor who was set to play Sharon.

But we pressed on, for as has been hailed for generations, the show must go on. With nine roles to fill, and eight other characters for Coleman to cross paths with in this journey of influence, recognition, and change there were a lot of pieces to get aligned as we moved into production. So I tapped several familiar faces from the Whatsabudget Films family (and beyond) to join us in this project, including Skye Armenta (thorns, Zapper), Bobby Hadden (Ackla Tev, Night of the Missing Bleach), Cynthia Rodriguez (There Came a Knocking, Matchbot), Anna Loehr (Night of the Missing Bleach, Lenore), Brent Wilkerson (la Chasse, Life’s a Tarantino Flick), and Becky Bruner making her debut in front of the cameras for us having helped out behind the scenes on a couple of other projects in the past. We also had Vina Valdez (of Lady V radio fame) and David Corder (Sour Ground) both of whom I had worked with in the past, and who I wanted to finally work with on a Whatsabudget piece.

With the cast all settled and placed, we rolled into 2023 ready to take on this short and kick it fully into production mode. We gathered on the first, in the revelry and celebratory air of the day for film and in the name of indie cinema. With the further aid and expertise of Ian Brander (Matchbot, There Came a Knocking) and Phil Sweren (Black Joker music video series, ART) we bounced between three different locations throughout the day and night to rock the first day. Then our plans hit something of sinkhole as both Ian and I caught Covid that first day. Not only that, but I only found out I had Covid after having my very first seizure a couple of days later. Talk about a clustery series of firsts triggered by our shoot on the first day of the new year. My first round of Covid since the pandemic began, and the out-of-nowhere seizure that hit me early in the morning days after production started on Nature’s Bastards. Bastards indeed.

But we all managed to bounce back, and it was only a matter of weeks before we were back on set making magic happen! We also had Caitlin McKoy join the project behind the scenes after she was so key and great to work with on There Came a Knocking. At this point, I had to lean more on my cast and crew than ever before, as the seizure took its share of steam from my sails, and I wasn’t able to drive and more. Though this certainly complicated matters, in true indie and Whatsabudget form, we persisted. Travis Eckland, the Heartland Emmy Award Winning cinematographer of ART, also stepped up to lend a hand as his schedule allowed to complete the team and bring this film to screen.

In a film about those defining moments that change our very nature and make us confront how they have molded us and the days that followed, I couldn’t help but to see some life imitating art as the seizure was certainly a mirror being held up in front of me. So the film took on a whole new meaning and importance to me as we pushed on to complete it. Not only because, as I like to joke, this film tried to kill me (Angie does not laugh at that), but because I began to wonder as we pushed on, if I would be able to finish it. My own health and future being somewhat uncertain at that time. So I put my head down, and I pushed as hard as I was able towards the finish line, fingers crossed and focus fixed. And by the first couple weeks of February, we were wrapping principle and moving into post! I couldn’t believe it.

It was probably the most difficult shoot I have ever encountered on a personal level, based on the health factors alone, and the ways they impacted me over the course of the shoot. But with a renewed sense of passion, edged with an urgency and silent fear, I pulled myself together. But it was only with/through the help of those closest to me, and the beyond amazing team we had assembled for the project that I was able to keep things on track. Together we crossed that finish line on what will likely live in my mind as my favorite film we’ve made to date for some time to come. Because, well, as I said, it tried to kill me. But we killed it instead. So proud of the team and the work they put into the film. Hope you all enjoy what we pulled off.