Even on a quick jaunt down the street from the office to grab some tasty sushi for a late lunch break, I find inspiration in everything, the Carolina blue sky, the sculptures on the square and the old giants that seem to watch my every move. They’ve stood for nearly a century in some cases, unknowing, uncaring about the tiny ants that weave in between their toes, running to and fro trying to find meaning in their barely noticeable lives.

I have heard the statistics on how most films fail. They aren’t talking about me, so I pay it no heed. It’s time to create another world, to envision and bring to reality the fictional lives of my heroes and my villains as I create a universe where their every feeling matters.

Up until recently, I thought I’d had my artistic future mapped out for the next few years on a follow up to 2012’s Tales from Mutantville involving 4 new short films from scripts written by Streebo a few based on stories from myself, a 3rd episode of Muticia’s Movie Morgue and an epic new tale from Streebo 2 years in the making covertly referred to as, “Blue Harvest – the Screw Everybody Edition.”

As I was trying to figure out my role for Blue Harvest and how I could really contribute, we kind of fell into those old familiar ruts. Streebo actually just made it really clear to me that we are headed in two different directions. It’s more than just, “You can go your own way.” At this point, it’s more like, “You SHOULD go your own way!” It’s a moral imperative.

Mutantville is just too comfortable and easy to fall into the same old role with. I need to progress and that means taking the reins creatively. I more or less started the process of making my exit 2 years ago with my big, “Stepping Back from Mutantville” post. There’s really no need for the dramatics at this point. It’s just been a really slow exit and promises to continue being slow as I’ll be working on C for Chaos – The Web Series for many moons to come.

J.T. and Geo are my homeboys and I’ll answer when they call, always. I just won’t be making any new (self written) content under that brand. We sure had a grand time and it’s nothing I’d ever be ashamed of. TFM was fun to make with all its struggles. Muticia’s been fun and Vanelle has been a real sport about doing that with us. The misguided G.H.O.S.T. family horror film was fun to make and I still find it entertaining to watch, despite the extremely watered down antagonist.

I actually thought Muticia’s Movie Morgue was probably the best pure Mutantville project to date. If I’m being honest however, I think “Take That” and “Buddy Row” were just a cut above in terms of writing and direction. Some writers like a lot of throw-back cultural slang and some do not I suppose. I’ve been told by Streebs repeatedly that I “have no soul and don’t know how to tell a story.” I’m all about putting my stuff out there and letting the viewing audience decide, but for me it’s self-expression, not a competition. In other words when people try to quote “how to” manuals to me like I’m sort of dummy if I haven’t read the same books, I brush it off. I am always reading and improving my understand of the art of storytelling and just as long as other folks have been writing comics or scripts or short stories, I’ve been telling stories in my original songs for literally 26 years. I’ve actually been practicing film making for 30 years at this point.

I was never comfortable with our Mutantville brand being taken in a Horror News website direction with a “let’s promote everybody” directive. I said so when it was brought up and I still feel the same now. The DVD T-shirt sales that were supposed to come as a result of that and the giant email list of people we could direct market to never really materialized. What’s worse, probably to those guys is that I don’t even care. My focus has been and will continue to be, CREATING! I know that this is not the most market savvy attitude, but it’s how I feel. I have my big break every time I start shooting a new project that has magically traveled from my mind into our reality. THAT is my payoff and it’s why I work a day job, so I GET to create. I do not do it for any kind of payment or profit and I think that fundamentally that is where myself and TPTB at Mutantville part. They are in Streebo’s own words, “Trying to compete with Hollywood.” Actually, he named a particular movie that has recently been released, but I promised to not divulge the genre of his new script.

I’d like to close with a line from Mr. Dylan.

“Sometimes it gets so hard to care. It can’t be this way ev’rywhere. And I’m gonna let you pass. Yes, and I’ll go last. Then time will tell just who fell.  And who’s been left behind, when you go your way and I go mine”