After my recent decision to sell Cheap Noir as a spec script, the stars begin to align for a production of that film that meets my creative goals.  This is fantastic news for which I am extremely grateful, and should this trend continue, it offers up a challenging decision...

My creative catalyst for Receiver was the disintegration of my plans for Cheap Noir, which was to be my feature debut.  For months now, I've been laboring on my new script and turning the soil in my creative community.  It's a fantastic story, it's very revealing of my own creative values, and it's less expensive to make.  At the same time, something as stylized and sexy as Cheap Noir makes a lot of financial sense for the price, and it's a lot of fun.

Which film do I commit to first?

Hollywood standard operating procedure demands that I dance around decisions like this until the very last moment.  At the same time, I don't think that's how I'm wired.

When I first learned that the Cheap Noir I was envisioning wasn't in the stars, I had already set in motion very definite creative and financial goals for myself, and built some expectations in the eyes of others, around the production of that film.  In dismantling those goals and expectations, I gave myself Receiver as a new way to achieve some of the same things, as well as some fresh goals that had cropped up in the meantime.  Receiver was never a consolation.  Receiver is a promise, not just to my creative community, but most of all to myself.

Being honest, I confess feeling shame in not having delivered on the promise of Cheap Noir in the first place.  At the same time, I made a commitment to move on, and that was a good decision.  Right now, I feel the thing is to proceed with Receiver as though it were the only movie in the world, and to let Cheap Noir, and all my other projects, take shape around that.

Of course, if someone offers me the chance to direct The Stormcrow as a debut, 10 million dollar horror feature, I might reconsider that position...  I can feel the beat of the Hollywood Shuffle, after all!