- It's funny how much your life can change in one day... it's really pretty amazing.
Synopsis
Anthony Burns has had an especially rough day. He lost his fiancé, his job and most of his money; all before noon. When Anthony hastily confronts a noisy neighbor, he runs headlong into the intimidating, mysterious Mosier. Mosier invites Anthony in and makes him a proposition that leads him deep into the dark, dangerous Los Angeles underworld.
Anthony can't do it alone so he lures in his newly-exed girlfriend, Amber Tanner with the promise of some quick cash. Together they enter a world of life or death. What they never could have seen coming... was the third option.
Director's Statement
I like to believe that my approach to filmmaking is firmly rooted in my love of movies. That may sound incredibly obvious but I believe that, like relationships between people, a relationship with one’s craft must be nurtured; it takes work. As a filmmaker I must approach every new project by first contemplating how and why I fell in love with this stuff in the first place. The logistics, the business, the every-day tedium and the struggle of pursuing a career in filmmaking can all combine to blur the memory of awe, excitement and pure exhilaration that I felt when I first committed myself to this art form.
The Shooting of Barry Miller is a screenplay born of my re-commitment to my relationship with filmmaking. Just as the grind of writing for commercial appeal and “sale-ability” had taken its toll, I found myself re-evaluating my relationship. As I opined that the days when I “just fucking did it myself” were over, I remembered why I had fallen so deeply in love those years ago. The immeasurable joy and intense excitement that filmmaking first brought me had come directly from the connection between what I loved about watching movies and what I loved about making them; that was the curvy, young filmmaking that I fell in love with.
This story represents my return to telling the kind of story that I love to hear. Writing this screenplay was my trip into a world of danger, mystery, love, misdirection, complication and life-or-death tension. All those complicated elements of a story that the suits tell you make it “hard to sell” are precisely the elements that keep me up at night with excitement about how I will portray them on screen. Who is Barry Miller? Why is he being shot? Who is shooting him? The mystery set up right in the title hides bigger questions that seek deeper truths. This story will not bore you, you have not seen it before and you will not forget about it soon after the credits role. I want to make a movie that renews my love affair with the medium; and I will strive for nothing less than doing the same for you.
