*For no reason, other than that I really like this photo of Heather Jackson as Mercedes Masterson.*

My first indie film was a 45-minute film noir that blended drama, comedy, and action — you can download a free digital copy of the movie in the library here. Originally, I was working with a small group of actors on a sitcom that had Arrested Development vibes (even though I didn’t watch that, but that’s how I tend to film comedy). I was working for a TV station at the time, and my boss had pocket-vetoed the last comedy show I did for them after the first episode aired — even though we had filmed an entire season. The reasoning he gave, which he never said to my face, “Get that liberal garbage off my TV station.” That’s what he told my executive producer who defended us and made him promise to wait on his decision until after watching the second episode. My boss never spoke of it again. I assume he didn’t even watch the second episode. He also never addressed me about it. Ironically, I had worked extremely hard to keep our comedy apolitical, but yeah, I guess that’s too liberal for a conservative.

Any rate, we did this read-through of the pilot episode I was working on, and no one was feeling it. We had just done a lot of comedy and wanted to do something more dramatic. Plus, several of the actors didn’t want to work on a show again just to have it cancelled before it even begins. So we decided to work on an independent film with some drama to challenge our acting chops, and so we could work without fear of some boss figure shanking it afterwards.

I had tried doing indie films before and always struggled to get them off the ground, so I knew it was gonna be a struggle. I knew people would probably quit or just not show up. I did end up losing contact with one actor just before filming, but having learned from past experiences, I left myself out of the cast so I could step in as needed. I ended up playing two small roles. One of the roles was off-camera, so we never saw his face, which helped blur the fact that I was playing two roles.

We also didn’t own a camera which is kind of a big thing to be missing when making a movie. We arranged to borrow a nice camera from a co-worker, but I also lined up a Plan B. That was a big thing for me going into that production, to always have a Plan B.

Shortly before production began, I asked for the camera and my co-worker revealed he had forgot he was lending it to me and had sold it to someone. It was upsetting, but I had a Plan B, so I slid into it.

Plan B was borrowing a different camera from someone else. One that was an old 90s camcorder that shot in pretty poor quality. Part of that Plan B was to not use a steady-cam or tripod, but instead the movie would all be shot handheld. We would try to create a raw documentary style with the cinematography. The other thing was to edit the entire thing in black and white because the camera couldn't capture colors well. I also added visually noisy film tears to create the illusion the movie was old and worn out. I figured if the poor quality image looked intentional, audiences would accept it as a style choice. Some audiences struggle to watch poor quality films trying to pass themselves off as polished, I find, so the goal was to lean into the piss poor quality as a style choice and avoid polishing a turd.

The whole experience was full of falling back on Plan Bs — but that was the beauty of it. It’s hard to stay upset as things fall apart, if you already have a solution to your problem waiting in the wings. You just go, “Ok. Plan B it is,” and move on. You keep the momentum going forward. No pausing, no slowing down.

“… we could work without fear of some boss figure shanking it afterwards.”

The disappointment of having all your hard work tossed out by the boss of a company who doesn’t care about your craft and choosing a path forward that avoids that is very relatable in today’s climate. The video game industry is experiencing this, as corporations like Microsoft cancel Xbox games all willy-nilly and let go thousands of those employees just so they can keep investing in AI.

It also reminds me of the choice I made early on with my Mercedes Masterson Detective Stories. When I was deciding how I wanted to publish the Mercedes Masterson books, I couldn’t help but keep thinking about the HBO series Carnivale. If you know, you know, as they say. But if you don’t, the short and skinny is that Carnivale was an HBO series in the early 2000s that was incredible and ran for two seasons. HBO cancelled the show after the second season without warning and without giving the creator of the show a chance to wrap up the story. The result is the audience is on the edge of their seat, wondering what the hell is going on for two seasons, thinking they have it figured out, and then the last episode of the second season ends on a twist and cliffhanger that makes them realize they know nothing. And that’s it. The audience is Jon Snow and the audience knows nothing. And will know nothing. Because despite all the begging of the creator of the show, and petitions of fans, HBO refused to let him finish it. He was tied into a contract where he had relinquished his story to HBO and they had no interest in finishing his story.

I also knew of horror stories of book publishers killing contracts or otherwise screwing over authors — ya’ll it’s still happening today. Knowing that I had a long series ahead of me with Mercedes, I didn’t want to risk that. I also knew that I didn’t want to compromise the stories and themes of the books, and if I was in contract with someone, I might have to. To do Mercedes Masterson right, I needed creative control and I wanted to make sure I could finish the series on my terms. And so, like all those years ago when I went indie to make my first movie, I chose to self-publish the Mercedes Masterson books.

Conclusion.

The moral of the story? As writers and artists, sometimes we have to kill our darlings. But we also have to protect them. We have to shield them from outside sources like bad bosses, politics, book bans, AI, and a whole gambit of bad actors. And for god’s sake, make a Plan B.