The Kool Kids

My goal as a filmmaker is to touch upon the human experience in a way I hope the audience can identify with. In our stories, as people, we share pieces of ourselves, sometimes autobiographically, sometimes abstractly through our character's emotions. While none of the tragic events in second half of this film ever happened to me, this movie is very much a coming of age story that reflects my own experience in a very fictitious way.

THE KOOL KIDS is a passion project that I have fully funded myself, utilizing my life savings, credit cards, and every extra penny earned at my day job working as a Business Analyst.

As a writer, I try not to limit myself in scope or budget and simply write the story I want to tell the way I want to tell it. The scope of THE KOOL KIDS turned out to be pretty large with an ensemble of 6 main characters, as many supporting characters, over 50 extras, a dozen locations, and all the other little details that go into making a film.

As a producer, I spent over two years in hard prep, putting all the pieces together to make this movie happen. Having produced 2 other microbudget features, I did face unexpected challenges this time around by being in a post-pandemic world and producing a movie in a city I wasn't at all familiar with. A huge portion of pre-production was spent securing our two central locations, but due to post-pandemic visitor restrictions those two locations fell through, so I recruited my retired 72 year old father to help me design and build 9 sets while I found new exterior locations to meet our needs. No matter what, I would not allow this film to fall apart.

When it finally came to directing this movie, that I had been directing in my head for so many years in the time spent location scouting, casting, and while hammering away and building sets with my ol' man, the first day on set was a dream come true. I worked heavily with the cast in the months leading up to principal photography and when the day finally came, they were firing on all cylinders, knowing they were in for 2 months of intense dramatic dialogue and performing their own stunts in some high-energy action scenes.

I am very proud of the film I put together with my cast and crew and I hope the film finds its audience, be it those just looking for a psychological thriller, a high school drama, or a movie that's true intention is to speak to the outsider and remind them that they are not alone.