Savage County Official Trailer from Savage County on Vimeo.

In the summer of 2009 in Memphis Tennessee with a script co-written by Dan Alvarado and a crew of talented actors and filmmakers from Los Angeles and Memphis, I directed Savage County as what was originally intended to be a fifteen-part web series that worked as either short chapters or as a feature-length “film for new media.”

Greenlit as a leap of faith on the part of my boss, David Gale, and MTV Networks and produced by BR2 in Memphis* – it was a project that was exciting initially only for its potential. When we made it, we didn’t know where it would live, or how it would work within the network’s many tendrils. With a production budget of $250,000, it was always possible that it might just be an expensive experiment in online horror.

Since then, it’s become much more.  Thanks to a campaign by Eventful, millions of people checked out the Savage County trailer and 150,000 people have demanded that MTV air the show.  It premiered on MTV2 on October 7th, reprised on MTV Tr3s on October 30th and 31st, and is being represented for sale by Cinetic Media through their FilmBuff service.

Savage County is currently available on Xbox, Playstation, and iTunes.  The physical DVD release is scheduled for January of 2011.

Leading up to the release of the film, we released a number of assets to give the audience a taste of the film, including two original comic books (the first is HERE, the second HERE), five exclusive trailers, an iPhone and iPad app, and an immersive transmedia experience by award-winning producer Nina Bargiel.  Perhaps most notably, we commissioned artist Vincent Castiglia to create an original poster executed (as is all his work) in his own blood.

by Vincent Castiglia

In making Savage County, I was inspired by the innovative horror filmmaking of the seventies – an era of films that did a lot with limited means.  In paying tribute to these films and this time period in horror filmmaking, I’m proud that we were able to do so much with our limited means, while taking advantage of all the new possibilities that new platforms offer.

* Craig Brewer‘s production company, run with his producing partner, and Savage County producer Erin Hagee. I met them working on $5 Cover: Memphis.

MUSIC VIDEO: Snowglobe – Teenage Queen from holycowboy on Vimeo.

I love Snowglobe. I had a blast making this, which I “directed” but was done in collaboration with the band, Kate Crowder – lead singer of Two-Way Radio, and shot by award-winning filmmaker and photojournalist, Alan Spearman.

Address to Silas on the Occasion of the Retreat at Los Angeles County from holycowboy on Vimeo.

A spin-off of How Do I Say This – Address to Silas is a short that uses a civil war battle in a contemporary apartment to tell the story of a girl who wants to mend a break-up. It won Best Short Film at Indie Memphis in 2008.

How Do I Say This? Intro from holycowboy on Vimeo.

How Do I Say This Teaser from holycowboy on Vimeo.

This was my MFA thesis for the UCLA school of Film, Television and Digital Media – an “Online Video Advice Column” that like This American Life, focused on themes (such as “How to tell your friend he’s a bad actor” or “How to tell your parents that you’re gay”) and like PostSecret allowed the audience to participate anonymously in the creation and sending of the videos. It was funded by mtvU and Cisco, won the 2007 SXSW Interactive Award for Best Student Site, and was picked up by mtvU for a second season. Videos from HDIST played on mtvU, MTV2 and Logo.

The most viewed video from How Do I Say This was this Super8 “Video Valentine” a music video for iamb:

Video Valentine from holycowboy on Vimeo.