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Mr. Freeman's first account of writing was in Junior high. He wrote a piece on the Vampire of Dusseldorf. It was a story about a man that took the Dusseldorf children and savagely murdered them for years. This piece got him suspended from school for 3 days because of the graphic nature of the content. He knew then that writing was something he enjoyed. Later he went on to work at the school paper in an unknown town Mr. Freeman's mother moved them to. He wrote a piece on racial inequality of the 1980s and drew a picture of a white man hanging a Jewish person from a swastika for the picture to accompany the article. It was not intended to be a racist picture or story, but instead to show people what the cruelty that was devouring the school he was attending. Two weeks was Mr. Freeman's punishment, one for the story and one for the picture. The story was confiscated as we only used typewriters in the 80s, so no files to save and he lost the whole thing. To me that would have been more damaging than being kicked out of school.
At 15, he embarked on his first book called "COLD AS ICE" about a young boy that was shot in the inner city and confined to a wheel chair. A demon came to him at night and granted him powers to freeze people and shatter them. It was more of a vigilante tail that numbered in the 200 page count category. Now mind you, he could have published this book, but never did because of the rejections at school for things he had written. As it was explained to him, "THE THINGS YOU WRITE ARE TOO GRAPHIC FOR YOUR AGE." That same age he wrote a parody of Star Wars. Mr. Freeman's friends and himself shot with an old ass RCA Camcorder. (THAT CAMERA SUCKED)" "We used broken bottles of varying color to use as filters and the movie itself was cheesy and hilarious all at the same time." Nightmare on Elm Street premiered during that week and at that time he knew how to sneak into theaters. They got in and watched the whole movie from the back of the theater."
Mr. Freeman discovered he was more in love with the crowd and their reactions to the story being played out on the screen. He knew what he wanted to do from then on. Horror and Film. Mr. Freeman's began his quest by working in the Haunted Attraction industry. Soaking up everything in creature make-up. By 16 he could turn an ordinary person into a horrific, ooze dripping monster that would scare the pants off of anyone that dared come close. "We had a catwalk to watch the scares from above and it was like a drug seeing those people jump and scream from a creature that I had created."
Over the next five years he would study the works of Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and Rick Baker. These guys where masters at scaring the hell out of people. But this was not the only research he did. Horror movies. Mr. Freeman watched horror movies from the 1920s- all of the 90s. Writing horrific stories that caused Mr. Freeman's mother to ask why he could never write a children's book or a book about cute little fluffy bunnies. He explained that the cute bunny in Mr. Freeman's story would hop through the forest only to have its head ripped off by the creature that lurks in the dark. She was not amused.
Nashville Tennessee changed Mr. Freeman's life forever with 2 events. The first was when Mr. Freeman's ex-wife tried to murder him. And the second was meeting A shock-rock icon while managing a Hooters. The Icon was talking about film and his love for it. He spoke shortly about a film idea and Mr. Freeman was hooked. He went home that night thinking this was the greatest day of his life. He got to overhear a genius talk business and The Icon discuss leaving music to pursue other paths. Mr. Freeman was sure it was just an idea that was milling around in his head like most writer's do. He knew he needed to learn screen-writing.
David Trottier introduced the Screen Writer's Bible shortly after and he snatched up a copy. The endeavor to convert the trunk full of stories and books to screenplay format. It was long and tedious and a monumental task that was abandoned by 1999.
During the course of 1999, Mr. Freeman wrote a film called FELINE that was well received in the competition market. That same year he wrote a trilogy called VAMPYER WAR that followed a half vampire through the war of her species. The Trilogy was optioned by then COLUMBIA/TRI STAR. That event sealed it for him. Mr. Freeman's knew his writing was rock solid, but he was missing something. He wanted to film his own pictures. The Film Industry optioned up another 2 screenplays, one by Warner Brothers and the other by New Line Cinema in 2000, but Mr. Freeman pulled the projects because they wanted to change the story-lines so much that it wasn't Mr. Freeman's writing anymore. Mr. Freeman left conventional film making and went back to writing for the thrill of writing.
He writes every day and still loves it, but he was also laying the ground work to start a production company. Mr. Freeman opened Living Nightmare Publishing in August 2011 to publish his books and January 2015 he started Next Evolution Films. Mr. Freeman is now credited with 6 books out, 38 screenplays, 2 short films and has a Direct-to-DVD series and books in the works. He is more than willing to help other writers get their feet wet in the business end of writing and is always looking for talented people to work in film. Mr. Freeman is currently at Southern New Hampshire University, school of Graphic Arts, working towards his BA 3D Animation. He lives in a quiet Missouri Town, where he continues to write and film his screenplays.
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