GOING MAD

I've put Lots of Nazis on hold. Nothing went wrong with it — it just needs money I don't have, and I got tired of waiting for permission to make something.

So I started a new one. MILO MAD. Shooting in Charleston, on close to nothing, directing and producing it myself.

It started with the title and nothing else. Instead of an idea, I had a set of constraints: I can get a beach house on Folly in the off-season. I know how to shoot road scenes — they're cheap, and they make a small film feel bigger. And I know that low-budget movies that try to look like studio movies never pull it off, and the effort shows. So we decided on the look before the story: naturalistic, available light, long takes, a camera that behaves like a witness instead of an author.

The story came out of those limits. Milo is a bartender in New Orleans who's spent six years as the secret of the man who owns the bar. He's connected in the small, unglamorous way that actually exists. She's being quietly replaced by a younger woman, and she watches it happen at work, on the schedule, in front of everyone.

Then she kills him, takes what's in the safe, and drives to Folly Beach with an ex who still loves her and thinks the worst thing she's done is steal the money. The wife sends a private investigator to get it back. He finds them fast, works out what really happened, and doesn't much care — he just wants the bag.

References, if you want them: Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law for the rhythm. Crimes and Misdemeanors for what's underneath — she gets away with it and the universe doesn't blink.

The audience knows what she did from early on. Nobody at the beach house does. That gap is where the comedy and the dread live.

Four actors. One beach house. One dive bar shot on weekday mornings. A car and the road. One gunshot, which I intend to make an absolute mess.

Nineteen pages in. More as it develops — and if you're an actor in the Lowcountry, get in touch. Casting is the whole ballgame on this one.