Director and writer, producer and professor, festival wrangler.

I’ve been a media professional in some variety my entire career. Network TV, feature work, shorts, corporate, advertising and puppet theater (yes, you read that right. Puppet theater).

My current schism is professorship at the University of Cincinnati in the new film school and pursuing anything creative I can pull out of my psyche.

Beyond the ‘doing’ of filmmaking, I also am a huge supporter of local indie film teams. As of this writing I’m about to launch the 8th annual Winterfilm competition – a little regional filmmaking cage match that has been enormously successful over the years.

First order of business – the Director’s Reel. This covers most of the indie film work I’ve done in recent years with some very talented folks. Each project is a joy, I’ve had the privilege of working with some simply brilliant folks, every one of them I would jump on a plane in a heartbeat to work with again.

All that being said, lately I’ve been in a bit of a rut creatively – though spending tons of time on the breakdown/budgeting/logistics and business setup for Into the Sunset, the feature I’ve been nurturing for close to a decade, has been exciting, it is very dry work. One way I’ve been surviving the pandemic isolation is to work within my musical universe, which is something I can actually do without a team in the lovely confines of my little studio.

But sometimes things get a little weird and begin to cross-pollinate. An instrumental synthesizer album I’ll be releasing in late Winter of 2021 (Millionth Village – more info HERE) has a track that began to beg for a short film to accompany it. I’d never done a stop-motion film, and had always wanted to take a crack at it. This was all done on a tiny tabletop in my recording studio with a green-screen sheet draped over a flat-panel TV for a backdrop, and all characters and physical props were made from stuff I had lying around the house/garage. It’s weird. And I’ve had an absolute blast doing it. Enter at your own risk:

So, enough of the weirdness and on to the semi-normal.

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INTO the SUNSET

My first feature, currently in preproduction.
An aging courier makes a final run carrying the ashes of his wife in a stolen wooden box to fulfill a long-broken promise pursued by someone who might the Devil. The production company (sunset filmworks llc) has been set up and fundraising activities have begun.

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WEIGHT

An executive of low importance awakens to find himself strapped into a chair, chain around his neck and credit card sewn into his palm, held captive by a woman of unclear motives

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TETHERED

Five college students are stranded in a dead car in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere as temperatures plummet, and there may or may not be a monster on the roof.

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SILENT RING

A man purchases his first cell phone and before he can get it set up random people keep calling for “Genevieve”, at the same time a ghostly manifestation begins appearing in his house as he tries to make sense of a fleeting memory that may answer all his questions.

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DARK AGE, PARTS I and II

A post-apocalyptic comedy about just trying to get on with life after the world ends.

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HIDE & SEEK

An old man suffering from the beginnings of dementia plays hide and seek with his younger self.

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PINS and NEEDLES

An acupuncturist tries to use taboo methods to make a client fall in love with her.
Director.

AN EMPTY HAND

Set in the 30’s, an up-and-coming executive finally gets invited to play cards at the high table, but he bets far more than he realizes.
Director.

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STAR WARS, UNCUT

Casey Pugh took the original 1977 “Star Wars” movie, sliced it up into 15 second segments, and offered anyone and everyone to pick as segment and re-shoot it any way they wanted. Our team did the “Luke trains with the light saber on the Falcon” scene as a western, and got into the final version in two spots. Absolute blast to do! This project won Casey an Emmy for interactive media. I’m ridiculously honored that we got not one, but two of our clips in the final film.