Hey there. 

So last time we spoke, we had just wrapped up shooting the proof of concept for Did It Wrong. Well. It's done. And I mean actually done. "Done" done. Which is not really my thing.

Because...I'll be honest and say that "Done" isn't a word I use a lot when talking about stuff that's artistic in nature. I've got a decent little pile of songs out in the world. It's not a lot. But it's also not nothing. And behind that little pile is an Indiana Jones warehouse of stuff. Verses with no chorus. Choruses with no verse. A bridge that's been sitting by itself since 2011 just waiting on a song to show up and claim it. Voice memos that are eleven seconds of me humming in a parking lot going "yea! That's the one" and then I never touch it again, and I couldn't tell you today what "the one" was supposed to be.

So when I tell you the proof of concept is finished, I need you to understand that this isn't all that normal for me.

Now, when it comes to the whole movie making thing, here's the thing nobody told me. The shoot is the fun day! That's the day you get to play make believe. You've got this thing that has only ever existed in your head and now there are grown ups standing in a grocery store pretending to be the people from inside your head, and they're saying the words, and it's happening in front of you in real life. I mean...is it stressful? Absolutely. 100 percent. But it was also stupid fun. I can only guess that's the whole reason most people do this.

And then it's over and it's not a movie. It's a bunch of really big files.

Now, technically I can edit. I've pieced together a couple of DIY music videos. I can tell the difference between the play button and the save button. But there's a Grand Canyon separating "I can do this" from "I should be the one doing this"...and this was the one thing I've got that's supposed to convince people to hand me money to make the actual movie. So I sent it to some folks in New York who do this sort of thing for real.

And that's where it stopped being make believe. It becomes weeks of sending files back and forth. Notes. Notes on the notes. Watching a version, writing down a timecode, sending it, waiting. And phone calls. So many phone calls. Which is a problem for me, being somewhat phone call averse. If you call me, my first thought is "what's wrong" and my second thought is that this could have been four words in a text. I'm the guy who rehearses the first sentence in his head for 10 minutes before he dials...and then says it wrong anyway.

But somewhere along the way the thing got done. And I'm gonna be totally honest, I still don't totally understand what happened. I watched it happen. I'd watch whatever they sent, then string together some barely coherent notes about what I liked and what I thought could be better. I'd be like "I love how it looks! But his face is a little shaded. Can we make the car a little less purple?" And then a couple of days later they'd send something back that was awesome. It would just look better...but I couldn't tell you what they did or why. It's like when a mechanic explains a noise to you. You nod. You say "yeah, that makes sense." But come on. You have no idea.

Anyway. It's a short film now. I've watched it enough times that I've completely lost the ability to tell if it's any good. I can tell you what every frame looks like. I cannot tell you if it does the job it's supposed to do, which is to make somebody want to know more about the story.

I imagine it's like being the parent of a five year old who counts to ten. Is that good? Is that where a kid is supposed to be? I have no idea. I've got nothing to compare it to. All I know is I watched it happen and thought "yep...mathematician." And then you take him to a birthday party and somebody else's kid is doing multiplication. Whatever...my kid is still rad.

So what now?

I've been submitting it to festivals. Some big ones that I know I have no business submitting this thing to. And then some regional and local fests that I'm probably equally unqualified to submit to. But I figure, why not? I believe in this story. So I'm hoping we catch the eye of someone, somewhere, who wants to know more.

And the process does feel familiar. I keep flashing back to 2010 or so, when I was submitting Transmission Fields to festivals. It's almost identical. You fill out a form. You pay a fee. You paste in a link. And then it goes into a void and you think about it for five months. In a way it also reminds me of emailing dozens of grocery stores looking for a place to film this. Except this time I'm paying for the privilege of not hearing back.

And then here's my favorite part. Most festivals want to be the first place a film screens publicly. Which means I'm not supposed to post it. (I actually did post it, and then somebody told me that might not be a great idea, so I did the old delete-the-post thing. Like it was an ill advised selfie I took at 2am.) So I made a movie, I'm proud of it, and my prize is that I get to put it in a drawer and then write a blog post telling you about the thing in the drawer.

And...I get the irony. The ridiculousness of me is not lost on me. I wrote a whole story about a guy who makes things and then hides them and won't show anybody. And now here I am. Not showing anybody. But to quote Han..."It's not my fault!"

And then what?

Well. Hopefully. Someday we get to make the actual movie.

The short was never the destination, it's the pitch. It exists because it's a lot easier to ask somebody to watch four minutes than it is to ask them to read 111 pages of my story. And the reason I'm asking anybody to do either of those things is that now I need to go find money. Which is a sentence I still laugh at when I say it out loud.

I've done a ton of googling and research and figured out roughly what it takes to make a movie like this. And I don't mean the version where I hire Matt Damon as the lead and Jeff Bridges as the funky old lawyer. I mean a real number for a small movie. So I've got a budget built, and now I'm reaching out to producers, which is another sentence that sounds funny coming out of my mouth. "I'm reaching out to some producers" feels about as cartoonish for me to say as “I'm hopping on the jet for a quick lunch with the President of Burundi.”

Which also means more phone calls. A lot more phone calls. I've made my peace with it. Mostly.

But it's finished. It's not in the warehouse. And for me, that's the whole headline.

More soon. Cheers.

So…Yea. Hey. How's it going? Over here it's great! Yesterday we shot the proof of concept for Did It Wrong. It's only one scene, but it's also everything. That's the scene we're using to raise money to film the feature. So, you know. No pressure or anything.

Good morning! Wes and I headed to start shooting the car stuff.

Let me start at the beginning of the day. I barely slept the night before. It was basically Christmas Eve to me, as I mostly just lay there pretending to sleep until the alarm went off at 4:30. We got to set around 6:30, a bit early, so I sat outside the store and learned how to play "Did It Wrong" on a ukulele. (Sidenote: I really like the song on the ukulele.)

By 7, people started showing up. Megan, Brennan, Josh, Wes. It was all coming together…

Except John.

John owns the store. Without John, we don't have a store. And here's the thing: I never got his cell number. So when 7:30 rolled around with no John, I had no way to reach him.

Josh and I started shooting exteriors and hoped he was running behind, but in my head I was doing this horrible math the whole time. If he didn't show, we'd have to reschedule, juggle everyone's calendars again, pay for the shoot twice. I started spiraling on the inside while trying to pretend I had it all together.

HMU getting started just in case we can get inside the store.

But Meg? Nobody knows me like her. She saw I was falling apart so she put on her cape and went full detective mode. Background check sites, every number for a John Crutchfield within four states, she even a drove to a listed address to knock on the door. Nothing. But she turned over every single rock in the state and eventually got in touch with him.

I looked at my watch a lot that morning. Like…a lot.

Turns out the problem was that we'd moved the shoot up a week, and John just never updated his calendar. Easy mistake. We've all done it. And I have nothing bad to say about the man. He felt terrible, and once he got there he couldn't have been more helpful. Lesson learned. Get everyone's cell number before shoot day. Kris told me later he could see the weight lift off me the second we got that call. I may or may not have hugged John when he arrived.

Once John showed up, we lost basically zero time, since we'd already knocked out exteriors while we waited. We went straight inside and stayed ahead of schedule the rest of the day. It felt like a miracle.

A deleted scene where Marty sits down and refuses to leave until the cashier admits it's his song.

As for making the movie? That was just such a surreal, emotional thing to be a part of. At some point I was at the monitor watching Brennan and Abigail run the counter scene…with Marty telling the cashier that's his song...and I just kinda teared up a bit. Just seeing the thing in my head, in real life, was kind of cool. I'd say it's like hearing an idea for a song come to life, but it felt bigger somehow. Maybe I've just gone a bit numb to music coming to life. Not to say it isn't still something that moves me. Making music is a very emotional thing for me. But, somehow this was different. Maybe the first time I recorded a song I had this same feeling. But the first time I was in a studio, I was maybe 17 years old, so...I just don't remember it. That might as well have been an entirely different human being that I just happen to look like a wrinkled caricature of.

Either way, I've had this scene in my head for so long. And there it is. Actually happening. A lot of that is Josh. The lighting and composition made everything look cinematic in a way I wasn't really prepared to see. But when I did...it hit me like...I don't know. Insert some fun thing-hitting-thing metaphor here.

Working the scene

And directing ended up being way less "big dramatic notes" than expected. It was a lot more of the small stuff. Setting headspace before a take, letting a beat breathe an extra second. I was pretty fortunate to have found some really good actors to work with. I'd blabber out some words about what was in my head, and they'd just run with it.

Oh! Somewhere in there I had a hand drawn sheet mapping where extras needed to move for every setup. I called it my NPC pathing sheet, like I was routing background characters in a video game. I felt a touch nerdy thinking about it this way.

NPC Pathing Sheet

So, at about 3pm, after a great take, I called cut and then loudly proclaimed, "That's a wrap!"

There's still a lot of work to do to get this ready for festivals and fundraising. But this thing I've been planning and daydreaming about for the better part of a year has finally happened. And...that's pretty rad.

The amazing crew that helped tell this story.

The amazing crew consisted of Marty Brennan Kelleher as Marty. Abigail Lee Baldwin as Cashier. Kris Kozlowski as Guy In Line. Jemma as Woman in Line. Josh Ausley as the Director of Photography. (And his two kids as his assistants) Wes Moore running audio. Megan Deputy on Hair/Makeup. John Crutchfield letting us film in Musten & Crutchfield. And my wife, Meg Neitzel, running the show. 

Anyway, here is a photo dump from the day (and it was a top 10 day, for sure!) with some commentary.

This is Brennan. He played Marty. The story is somewhat autobiographical in nature. As a result…I kind of dressed my main character up in fairly familiar garb.

Brennan doing the car shot.

The car. I didn't think my Mazda3 with a bike rack was unassuming enough…so I rented this old Jetta.

Following Josh around and watching TV.

Megan's attention to HMU detail and continuity was amazing. 

Brennan and Abigail

Looking at a box of waffles with Brennan and Abigail? Yea.

The Marty face reveal shot happens in a freezer.

Selfies.

Pointing at something.

There's just a lot of pointing and gesticulating in film making.

Megan and Brennan.

I don't know what's going on here, but I lol'd.

Josh working his magic.

Wes waiting to record some audio.

Brennan getting ready to go for a jog. Kris was pre-emptively tired of my jokes. Probably.

More gesticulating.

Abigail. Megan. And old glory. Old glory is my favorite lawn chair. Ever.

Meg and I watching a scene.

There was knitting on set.

Abigail ready for a shot.

I seriously doubt I said anything to warrant the looks on everyone's faces around me. Probably not.

And that's a wrap.

In my last post I left you with a couple of things that were going to happen. They both happened.

First, Meg and I got married on May 10th...in her driveway. That might sound a bit haphazard, but it was exactly one year from our first date, on the exact spot where we first kissed. And since that first date was a Back to the Future musical, we decided to cosplay a little and get married as Marty and Jennifer. It was pretty rad.

And then the table read a couple weeks later.

This was the part I'd been waiting on for months. Actual actors in a room, saying the words I wrote out loud. The question going in was whether those words sounded like sentences functioning adults would say. They mostly did. I learned a lot about what's working and what still needs fixing. So, the script is changing for the better. But mostly I just got to spend a couple hours in a room full of talented people. Some of whom I've admired for a long, long time. It was an amazing day.

So! Where things stand now...

Casting.

We went through a few dozen taped submissions for the part of Marty, and it was a very surreal process. We initially had about 700 submissions for the role, and that alone was daunting. So over the course of a couple weeks we watched a lot of reels. Like...a LOT. And some of them had me feeling a little like a fanboy. I'd hit play on someone's reel and suddenly there would be an episode of Psych and I'd be all "I remember this! That guy killed that other guy! He's a jerk! We should hire him!" Which...there's a sentence I never thought I'd say. Either way, we're down to 10 actors with callbacks coming up. This time we'll be hopping into some kind of video call that looks like an AOL chat room and spending 15 minutes with each person, going over lines and trying things out. This is the part where it gets pretty difficult. All 10 actors already feel like Marty to me. I have no idea how casting directors make these decisions. But in the next couple weeks, we'll have our Marty for the POC. And that's wicked exciting to me!

Location.

OMFG...location. Let me just say...this has been the worst part about the whole process. It wasn't even like I was getting rejections anywhere. I was just flat out being ignored. Trying to find a grocery store to film in felt like one of those anxiety dreams where you're in a packed room, you open your mouth to scream, and nothing comes out. Except I wasn't sleeping and the packed room was just a series of grocery stores...and the dream went on for about six weeks. I reached out to well over 40 places and got a total of 3 responses. All of them were “No”. I sent emails. I made phone calls. I walked into buildings asking to chat...and...nothing. I would have thought show business was filled with rejection. But I'm learning it's just filled with silence. Either way, after enough pounding, I finally walked through the right door and talked to an owner who was just amazing. And now we have a location for the end of July. Talk about a weight lifting off! And the sense of accomplishment here is real.

Anyway. I've rambled long enough. Now we go through over 1,000 cashier submissions and find the person who will unwittingly crush our beloved hero.

Until we meet again!

So I've been a little absent. And I want to be honest about why, because "life has been busy" is the kind of thing people say when they don't feel like explaining anything. The truth is simpler and, I think, better. I've mostly just been enjoying my life.

Back in August, I had shoulder surgery. Three months of being essentially useless followed. Now, I thought I was good at being still. I can lock myself down for an entire day with a video game like a freaking champ. Turns out that's different. Because that's a choice. This was not a choice. I got antsy. Very antsy. Eventually the shoulder came back online and I rejoined the human race. Yay.

So from there I coasted for a while in Meg's company. A little of this, a little of that. It's been a dream. Then on Christmas, I proposed. Meg and I have always joked that we're entangled, in the physics sense of the word. Just two particles that, regardless of distance or circumstance, are bound to each other. So honestly, the yes felt less like a decision and more like the universe just confirming what we already knew. On May 10th, I will be promoted from husband-elect to husband. She's very proud of me.

Then January rolled around and we suddenly had a project. Her house needed to be ready to sell, which meant we ripped up her kitchen floor. And yes, we put a new one down. We're not animals. Then we painted pretty much the entire inside of the house. It was a lot. It was also kind of great.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I've been quietly working on a screenplay. It's built around one of my old songs, "Did It Wrong." The song is the center of the whole thing, which means I'm going back in to re-record it. There is a table read coming up at the end of May, which is exciting. Actual actors are going to say the words I wrote out loud. And we'll find out if the sentences I wrote sound like words a functioning adult would say.

Anyway! More updates soon. Cheers.

My shoulder surgery recovery team (mom and Meg)

A handful of new songs are lined up for release in 2025, starting with "Mixtape" on March 1. This one has a bit of history. It’s a song I originally wrote and recorded with Transmission Fields, but I’ve reimagined it for my solo project. You could call it a cover of myself, though this version leans more into the organic side of things. Acoustic guitars, strings, trumpets…giving an old song a new feel while keeping its heart intact.

Like a lot of what I’ve been writing lately, these songs center around connection and nostalgia. Two themes I keep circling back to, whether I mean to or not. The music blends folk, indie rock, and whatever else naturally finds its way in. For those who followed my music in the past, the melodies are still there, just shaped by a more stripped-down, personal approach.

More to come throughout the year. Looking forward to sharing it.

Lee

This past weekend we loaded up the car, headed down to Southport, NC, and spent a couple days shooting some video for Vacation Song with Garrick Lane of Table Rock Media. Before heading down, I spent about 5 hours on Google maps scouting out locations to potentially shoot. Let me tell you the life lesson I learned….nothing looks like Google maps says it does. Well, at least not locations that have a growing population. And…is there really any place not being hit by urban sprawl anymore? Either way…we were given some good locations by some locals and were set to start shooting by noon on Saturday.

We started off by getting some shots at a local gelato shop. Then headed to a bike shop to rent some wheels and film cruising on the bikes under some live oak tree tunnels (Garrick showed off his multitasking ability by operating a camera while on a long board!), and then went to get a bite to eat before filming some band performance shots down by the water.

This is where mother nature threatened to shut it down. While we were sitting in the little restaurant on the pier, the skies quickly started to darken and the coast guard came rolling up telling the place to hunker down as things were about to get serious. And, sure enough, within minutes, the bottom dropped out of the sky and the place was quickly filled with pedestrians running inside in order to avoid the stormy wrath. BUT! As is typically the case at the beach, within an hour things started to clear up, the skies turned a few shades of awesome, and the game was back on!

Filming the band stuff was just such a blast. I found a local drummer from Wilmington (James Tomlinson) to bring out a minimalist kit for the shoot and then my friends Leigh Ann and Michael Gruver rocked on the bass and guitar, respectively. 

The next day we headed to the beach at sunrise in order to get some beach walking shots. This is where I learned that YouTube lets you play videos at quicker speeds. Seriously. Go to YouTube, look up your favorite song, and then hit the little gear icon and then change the speed of the song to 1.5. Now sing along. I'll give you a whole dollar if you can accurately sing along to REM's End of the World as We Know It at 1.5 speed.

Once that piece was done we went to pick up The Thing. What is The Thing, you ask? It is a 1973 Volkswagen Thing! Curtis of the Cape Fear Cruisers was kind enough to lend this amazing vehicle. I felt like I was on some kind of safari in some kind of classic film for some kind of adventure. It was some kind of good time!