**Half way mark reached 07/09/10! Thanks to our incredible families and friends.

*Please check out the Updates section to find more videos and songs and other cool stuff relating to the project.

Collin Smith will revisit the character he played in my recent short, The Big Fiddle: a young chef, recently made famous in New York. He doesn't believe he deserves the attention, and his fears and anxieties over his talent only widen the distance between him and his peers.
Monk Fish is a quiet film exploring the way Collin deals with his troubles in private. He prepares elaborate meals, and eats them by himself. It's a meditation on talent and loneliness, as Collin attempts to get back to what he loved about cooking in the first place, before the idea of an "audience" began causing him so much stress.

Collin and I have known each other for years, and this is our third film together. I believe our talents are evolving, and the process we have developed together between the writing and the performance has truly become my very favorite thing about making films. Together we're striving to really bring this character to life; to capture that feeling of being lost and alone, but also willing to push forward and make the changes necessary to find yourself.

My last film, The Big Fiddle premiered at SXSW this year. It was a huge honor to sit in the great theater at the Alamo Drafthouse and watch the 30-minute short with an audience. The feedback I received was so positive and supportive, I'm really excited to keep going with that momentum. I want to continue to make personal, character driven films that focus on experiences that we can all relate to, and showcase the talents of my amazing collaborators. I've got a leg up, but I need your help.

All pledges will go towards the production of Monk Fish. We have almost everything in place, and will be working with some major talent. Our cinematographer, RJ Glass is just awesome, simply put.
This marks our 5th project together, and he's excited about the challenge of capturing the visuals of all this great food on Super-16mm film. Your donations will help us pay for film, rent equipment, feed the cast and crew, buy all the ingredients that Collin will be preparing on camera, process the film, and get it ready for festival exhibition.

I'm very excited to present this project to you. If you can help support us, I promise to make it worth your while with some cool gifts, and of course by working as hard as I possibly can to make this a memorable, unique piece of art. Thanks so much for taking a look.

“My characters are on the edge of society. I want them to testify to human fragility, because I don’t like toughness. I don’t like very strong people or people whose weaknesses don’t show.” -Truffaut

"I think melodrama is always a splendid occasion to entertain an audience and say things you want to say without rubbing their noses in it. With melodrama, as in dreams, you're always flirting with the disparity between appearance and reality, which is a great deal of fun. And that's also not unrelated to my perception of my life working in Hollywood, where you're always wondering, 'What does that guy really mean?'" -Robert Towne

“Men have problems admitting to losing things, I think women are much better at that. . . " -Bill Withers