Wrapped a big milestone today. After months of rethinking the architecture of this project, I finally submitted my short screenplay NINE LIVES to its first wave of festivals and competitions.
This one started as a full‑length, live‑action piece. I kept trying to force it into a feature frame, but the story kept telling me it wanted to be something else — tighter, more focused, more relentless. Once I accepted that, the script collapsed into its true shape: a near‑one‑shot descent through a quarantined high‑rise, driven by a man trying to save the last living thing he cares about.
The second shift was bigger. Instead of chasing a live‑action production that would take years and a budget I don’t have, I made the call to self‑produce it as an animated short — leaning into anime influences, long‑take choreography, and the visual language the story always wanted. That decision unlocked the whole thing.
Today I put the finished short script into the world. No expectations — just momentum, discipline, and the satisfaction of finally getting the story to its honest form.
On to the next phase.
