A.PAYNE PROJECT

In 2019 I began work on Alexander Payne's 8th feature film. It was a tightly constructed story about a narcissistic Swedish author going on a book signing tour in the US accompanied by his young daughter. It was going to be one of Payne's best films. We had it all ready to go when the film suddenly was shut down for a combination of reasons. Needless to say it was a shock and it's a shame that no one will ever get to see this crunchy, would be masterpiece.

As this was a story about an author (a fictionalized version of a real author) I was tasked with creating his entire catalog of titles. From children's books to studies in human behaviour. Not only did they need titles, cover art, a publisher, synopses and matching inner pages for book signings... we needed them in 3 languages. The character was published in his native Sweden, he attends a signing in Denmark and again in English. I had to first write what these books were about, then do a rough translation and finally get them copy edited by native speakers. One of which is a friend from high school.

We also had a Tom Clancy knockoff that we couldn't decide on a cover for. We were going to have them all ready to go the day of filming.