I made a new puppet movie! The Outsider is a 15-minute short film using handmade puppets and sets to tell the tale of an isolated woman in a shadowy realm who braves the unknown to discover her true nature. The film is based on the bones of the H.P. Lovecraft story, but I made it my own…and added monsters, of course.
I’m excited and honored to be officially selected again this year for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival! After having its WORLD PREMIERE at the festival in Providence, RI (Lovecraft’s birthplace), The Outsider returns home for the Portland festival on October 5th, 2024.
Lovecraft’s short story The Outsider has always been one of my favorites, and for years I had considered just how I could adapt it properly. Before I was making films I even considered adapting it into a comic, but eventually wasn’t satisfied with how it worked in that format. In 2023 I finally began developing the story for a film treatment and planned to produce it within just a few weeks, but soon realized that, if I wanted to do it right, it deserved much more time. I’m so glad that I gave it that extra time. After chasing it down a few different paths, my film version of The Outsider became a story that I loved, one that embraced some of my favorite themes and told its tale without using any words.
Making The Outsider was crazy fun. It greatly evolved the methods I used to make 2023’s Night-Gaunts, and grew me a lot as a creative force and a collaborator. As with Night-Gaunts, I did all the jobs - writing, directing, editing, producing, concepts, fabrication, sound design, you name it - but this time around I co-produced with my friend, collaborator and fellow Portland weirdo, Mark Schneider. Mark is an incredible sculptor, creature maker, and fabricator (to name just a few) and he brought all of that and much more into our production of The Outsider. Building and shooting was completed by us in a few weeks during the summer of 2024. It was an intense schedule, and kind of a crazy undertaking when we’d stop and think about it, but the whole thing was blessed with synchronicity and lots of happy accidents that enriched the film in unexpected ways.
I’ll share more production and behind-the-scenes stuff later (check my socials and YouTube for that), but for now I’ll share this reminder: you have everything you need, right now, to make a film. If that path is calling to you, just start. Don’t wait for the perfect gear or the perfect story, don’t wait for anyone to tell you that you’re good enough…most of all, don’t gatekeep yourself out of a hugely satisfying path of creative expression. Start small and keep moving!