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"The Portrait of an Artist" is a story of a kid who feels trapped in his life situation, a kid who feels he has no control over his own future. I started writing the script when I went into post-production for "Symposium," right around Christmas, 2001. It was meant to be something to give me a break, to flex my creative muscles while being forced to work in an editing room day in and day out. I soon found that the story was enveloping me, keeping me up at night thinking about the characters. It was one of those stories that developed as fast as I could write it down, and before I had even finished a complete draft, I gave it to Sarah Weinberger to read. She called me when she was done to tell me how much she'd loved it, and couldn't wait to read the completed script. Already, I had in mind what I wanted to do for my next project, and it was this script. When I first started writing Portrait, my idea was to keep it a secret from everyone, and save it as a pet project to work on until I was around forty, with a good 70-or-so pictures under my belt. I don't know what made me change my mind; maybe I realized that I change so fast - that a great concept for me one week will be a bad one the next, or maybe I understood that what I was dealing with would never be perfect. But this was what I wanted to express now, and I didn't want to settle for anything less.
A few weeks went by and we'd completed Symposium. The day after the premiere, I was thinking a lot about who I should choose to play the main character. Being the self-obsessed jerk that I am, I naturally thought that I should play the main character, while at the same time direct and photograph the picture. Needless to say, I quickly realized how stupid the idea was, and I had a vision. I'm not shitting you - my eyes were closed, and I had a vision. I saw a scene from the movie, one that takes place in the hallway, and the main character, Nick, was walking through the hallway with an angelic halo surrounding him, and his hair, dreadlocks, were flowing casually behind him. Immediately, I knew who I wanted to play the part of Nick: Alexis Budd. I've worked with Alexis in the past, and he's a really talented actor who plays really well off his emotions, and, seeing as how we'd been really close friends in the past, I knew that he would make a great contribution to the picture. So at this point, I already knew who I wanted the character of Andrew to be played by: Kyle Nearing. Kyle is one of my favourite actors to play off of. He always brings real life to scenes with his offbeat and talented aproach to acting, and he was my first and only choice to play Andrew.
Every step of the way, I've found someone willing to give that extra bit of effort to make this project succeed.
The story opens in a suburban town to where Andrew, played by Kyle Nearing, has just moved. He soon meets Nick (Alexis Budd), with whom he has a lot in common, and they develop a bond throughout the picture. While all of this is happening, Andrew finds out his new friends - played by Aaron Wright, Sarah Weinberger and myself - are involved in seedy matters. As the stakes get higher and Nick tries to find some faith in humanity, only something drastic could make him start taking his life seriously.