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Written by lifelong actor and creative writer
Geoffrey Gould
(that would be me...),
Ten for TN
is a short comedy horror script, about an adult son visiting his mother back in Tennessee, finding his childhood room is not only converted into a craft room, but is also now occupied by ten somewhat creepy dolls, that after dark may be not as inanimate as one would expect... or hope...
Eric Bartlett and I share similar tastes in humour and certainly films.
We text each other what flms we've seen and recommend ones we like or warn away from those we've each found disappointing.
While he was visiting his mother in Tennessee in early 2024, he conveyed that she had begun collecting vintage dolls.
They were Just Creepy Enough that he tossed a towel over them.
Characteristically, I couldn't help but make quips about their most likely being haunted and to watch out for his feet at night...
He quipped back until, after a few such back and forths, he openly wondered if we were organically creating another of my short film scripts.
I figured Why Not? and I wrote up the story within an afternoon and sent him the link to its .pdf file.
He read it to his mother who also enjoyed it, as well as her being relieved the story didn't get too scary.
I began submitting it to festivals, and as with my other scripts, it quickly began to win awards, first the
Florence Film Awards,
then the
Cult Movies International Film Festival.
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Update/s:
07 August 2024
The screenplay for the short film
Ten for TN
was publicly table-read at
We Make Movies,
meeting with much .
As an unproduced script, it was also winning at various film festivals.
Michael Beardsley
had had me write the script for the 2024
Easterseals Disability Film Challenge
entry.
As we had a Koreatown dental office for a location, and our
Bucky
star
Victoria Ippolito
acquring the office at which she's normally its receptionist, an office kangaroo plushie
with human teeth,
I wrote
Friends With Dental Benefits,
which Michael directed, as well as playing the dentist.
Sadly the short was not selected by the competition.
It is unclear whether this is the reason the group leader Dawn, the wheelchair bound
in the short film,
unceremoniously booted Michael from the group.
Either way, Michael wasn't having it.
Along with
Shift Orion,
Michael offered to produce one of my many scripts into a short.
We selected
Ten for TN
as it was one of the easiest to shoot.
We used Orion's place as the location, while he still lived there.
I acquired the dolls, mostly from the weekly street fair on Vermont, south of Santa Monica Boulevard.
We offered the role of Eric's mother to We Make Movies member
Christine DiTillio,
which she accepted, along with her husband
Robert,
who came on boad as a Production Assistant.
Michael Muncatchy,
was our director of photography,sadly moving toe the east coast after wrapping, so I cannot utilize his talents for future projects.
Originally to be shot in one day, there was a few glitches as Michael was editing that it was clear we had to do some pick up shots, so the intiial shoot date was 14 May, 2025, and the pick-up shots 14 June 2025.
A rough cut was screened at the 22 October 2025 We Make movies meeting.
We got some good feedback, and as our originally music composer had dropped the ball big time, Orion found
Guthrie Lowe,
whose scrote was/is brilliant.
During the shoot we had a few easter eggs.
Michael wears a hat, and a blue shirt, which were requirements for that years's Easterseasl competition.
We put up a calendar with a seal as its photo, and highlighted Easter.
When the mother turns on her bedroom light, the shot is barely two or three seconds.
On the end table (that is not in the subsequent shots of her in the bed), is a photo of my first cat Bast, considering she mentions her cat, along with a small framed photo of Michael.
Also on the end table is an actual trophy award from
Shockfest Film Festival,
from which the unproduced screenplay had won.
Orion eventually referenced our collaboration be called
Petty As a Picture,
for which I created a li'l
Petty As a Picture logo.
Michael didn't tag it onto the filmn, but I did for my version, which is the version seen by film festivals.
Even with the static photo, the film is a few seconds shy of ten minutes in length.
I saved the
finished film,
on my computer as well as here on my site, until its run through enough film festivals for me to add it to
my YouTube channel.
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