I'm doing some bits and pieces for upcoming projects and I just stumbled across stills from rehearsal footage that we shot last year for a cancelled film project that I was going to do. It was a feature-length dark comedy, titled "Secretly Crazy", about a teenage drug dealer who gets sent to a sinister Scared Straight type of program. Chaos, creepiness, and murders ensue. The main character, Connie, was basically a really hard, grouchy Nancy Drew sort of archetype (or imagine Veronica Mars as a lower middle class, cynical, greedy, bisexual bitch who beats people up--you get the idea). The concept was fun but I was concerned that it was just going to be too much like "Annie" (in some ways....) but with a lot of swearing and some gore.
I was worried that the story wasn't going to be funny or interesting enough to merit another long, drawn-out, time/energy/money-sucking major project in my life. I wasn't sure if people, even a small indie audience, would enjoy it. The dialogue was pretty good, I thought, but the overall storyline.....? Uh, I don't know. I hate diving into projects and then just cancelling them because that's weak; I'm one of those guys that has little respect for indecisive people so I hate seeing that kind of behavior in myself.
The actors who were cast were terrific in their roles but I felt that the story that was written here wasn't beefy enough and that's the writer/director's fault (mine).
It's possible that the valuable elements that I do like from "Secretly Crazy" will be absorbed into other film projects (specific, little plot hooks, some good lines, some good character aspects) but, no, "Secretly Crazy" as a film isn't going to materialize.
I'm not going to upload footage snippets from "Secretly Crazy" (that would make me kind of melancholic--we did have a good time shooting the rehearsal footage but I'm still kind of mad at myself for launching and then abandoning a project) but I do feel comfortable posting some photos on this page and then finally shutting the door for good on this film.
Special Thanks to Victoria, Lauren, Michael, Brian, etc. for participating. Everyone will be working together on current projects and, hopefully, on other films down the line.
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