”Vital Signs” (2011)

My first feature-length films. A shameless rip off of one of my favorite movies of all-time, “Slacker.” This movie was an experiment for me for several reasons. One was to see if I could start and finish a 90 minute movie, which I did. It was also an experiment with my directing skills. I wanted to work with a lot of different people. While all of the movie was improvised, the first half was outlined, for locations and conversation topics. The 2nd half, we just made it up as we went along. There’s some brilliant scenes in this that I stand by to this day, and there’s some pretty bad stuff that I still cringe at.

I was really glad I made this movie because it instilled a lot of confidence in myself. I knew I was able to make a full-length film. It gave me confidence in my directing too. I knew if I picked the right people, they would be able to have interesting conversation on camera in a believable manner. I always say I made so many feature-length films early in my career because it’s important to learn from mistakes. I wanted to make my crappy movies now, so every movie I made after would be better than the last.