DIRECTOR STATEMENT
For Writer's Block, I didn't ask myself, "What do people want to see in a short?" but instead, "What do I want to see?".

It took 8 years after graduating film school with a conviction that commercial and corporate filmmaking would feed my passion and drive only to realize that I had been fooling myself. Truth is, I was procrastinating creating a “real” film because I was afraid of the process and what that would ask of me. Commercials were easy because they were someone else’s, I would act as third party to someone else’s “vision” even as a director. It wasn’t fulfilling as true artistry because it wasn’t asking much of myself. Depression sunk in as I saw my peers making films and I was still shooting interviews at Pfizer which is when I realized I needed to do something about this.

The process was painful. Sitting down with no walls, no rules, no regulations and no client was in a way, torturous. All of my nervous habits crept in, picking my cuticles, restless leg syndrome, chain smoking. The only option was to go into my own head and begin to dig deep discovering a dark side of my thoughts, the result a reflection upon myself and how I felt. I saw this image of a fragile man alone in a cabin with nothing but a pencil and paper in front of him. He accidentally discovers that through pain, he is able to create. This idea gave me a spark that never left. But it was missing something, so I tabled it for a few years.

In 2022, I forced myself to make a film the only way I knew how… signing up for a 48 hour film contest. To break the spell I needed restrictions, time constraints and walls and in hopes getting through that would produce enough momentum to spark a narrative film journey. Well in fact it did and I rode that momentum to revisit this concept of Writer’s Block which turned into a whole other beast. It started to grow into something completely different. This wasn’t a fragile man, this was a beast man. And he’s not in a cabin, he’s in a prison. That was me, that’s how I felt and wanted to put it out as a form of expression to see if others can relate to that some feeling.

DIRECTOR BIO
Steven Schloss is a Boston-born and raised director and cinematographer with a blood-thirsty hunger for visual storytelling. He strives to create unique languages for each piece, with a particular attraction to surrealism and gore that lends itself to a unique genre of horror.

After graduating from Boston University Film School in 2014, Steven sought out to pursue a career in commercial directing which he found early success in, working with brands including Sony, Google, Draft Kings, Mattress Firm and many others.

In 2022, Steven's heart pulled him towards creating narrative films that he could take ownership of. Particularly, films of which he had been restricted of making for his clients.

When he isn't making films, he's either playing competitive paintball on a semi-professional level or hanging out with his bulldog, Bruce.