John-Michael Powell is the writer-director of Violent Ends, a revenge thriller out now about star-crossed lovers set against the backdrop of the Ozark Mountains. In the piece below, he describes his first day on set.—M.M.
It’s 4 a.m., the morning before principal photography begins on my feature film, Violent Ends. Crisp wafts of Ozark Mountain air brush against my cheek from a window too old to fully close. As a rain lets up, moonlight slips through the clouds—bright enough to cast strange shadows across tattered curtains hanging from a piece of resin-speckled pine someone nailed to the wall.
I haven’t slept. I’m floating between dream and anxiety. This is the day—the one I’ve been chasing my entire life. In a few hours, I’ll step on set as writer-director of a real movie, with a real budget and a cast of actors who’ve been collectively working longer than I’ve been alive. Fear shoots up my spine in waves of heat. The imposter voice appears. They’ll see through you, it hisses. They’ll smell fear, fraudulence. You’re a cinephilic huckster who’s conned his way here!
Through bleary eyes, the folds of the curtains begin to look like Roy Scheider. He’s squinting at me in gold-rimmed glasses, cigarette dangling from his lips.
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat, kid.”
“What do you mean?” I whisper.
My alarm shrieks. I slap the phone until it quiets. When I look back, Roy’s gone.
Minutes later, I’m driving through the Ozarks, thinking about Roy’s warning—wondering if the people waiting on set are the mother of all sharks ready to eat me alive. As dread creeps in, Aerosmith comes on the radio. Joe Perry’s guitar growls. Steven Tyler belts out, “Some sweathog mama with a face like a gent,” and for some reason, I feel confident. I got this.
The Shark and the Boat of Violent Ends
I pull into basecamp—poof, confidence gone. There’s a small army and trucks, so many trucks! My first film cost the price of a used Honda Civic with a crew the size of a basketball team. There are a hundred people here. I spot an eighteen-wheeler by a gas pump and don’t even ask what it’s for. Remember the fraud thing? Yeah. I tell myself: just make it to lunch and it’s a win. I might not be Rocky Balboa, but maybe I’m Jake LaMotta: “You never got me down, Violent Ends. You never got me down.”
Our first scene has Kate Burton, best known for Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, playing a gritty small-town deputy—a role she’s always wanted. At craft services, I ask if Kate’s here.
“Running late,” someone says.
“No worries.”
I immediately start worrying.
My shot list is insane—too many setups, not enough daylight. Before I spiral, my production designer, Christian Snell, drags me to the Ford Bronco we bought and converted into a sheriff’s cruiser. Turns out, when you buy cars on Facebook for an indie film, you get… character.
“The transmission’s a little wonky,” Christian says. “You’ve gotta roll into second to get her moving. Oh—and there’s a small oil leak.”
“Is it safe?”
“Sure, but the cabin fills with smoke if you run it too long.”
“How long’s too long?”
He thinks. “Two takes, maybe.”
It’s 40 degrees out, and I’m sweating like it’s August.
It’s not even 8 a.m., and Jen Gerber, my 1st AD, already has a thousand-yard stare. When she says, “Kate’s having some issues with wardrobe,” I know it needs attention.
I bolt toward the hair and makeup trailers, lined up like a traveling carnival. As I stomp through, PAs glance at me and scatter like pigeons. Probably not the calm, confident energy I meant to project. Maybe I should’ve sent Jen. Too late.
Kate bursts from her trailer, two coffees deep and buzzing. We cast over Zoom, so this is our first face-to-face. She’s polite but I can feel the nerves beneath. I get it—she joined only three days ago after the SAG strike scrambled our schedule. She’s still learning lines, and the wardrobe isn’t helping.
My costume designer, Kristen Kopp, presents options: a beige shirt, a striped shirt, a brown one. Everyone stares at me. In my head: shirts. In my heart: trust. This is the moment I realize what directing actually is—making decisions.
I point to the striped one. “This is it.”
Kate studies it for a beat, then nods. “Yeah. I like that one. Let’s go with that.”
Crisis averted. One down.
Back on set, my DP, Elijah Guess, asks what lens I want just as Jen warns we’ve got four minutes to roll or I lose shots. My producers, Undine Buka and Vincent Sieber, appear, checking if I’m about to implode. I am.
I fake calm. “We’re good,” I say, then turn to Elijah. “Let’s start on the forty, move to the eighty.”
He nods. Jen exhales. For the first time all morning, things start to click.
When Kate arrives, the Bronco coughs to life. Cameras roll. Jen eyes me. I nod and she calls, “Action!”
As Kate rumbles in that beat-up Bronco straight toward camera, time slows. The chaos, the noise, the doubt—it all fades away. Suddenly it hits me:
The cast and crew aren’t the shark, you idiot. They’re the boat.
They’re what carries me, keeps me afloat, gets me to shore. All I have to do is be the captain. I am Roy. I am looking death in the eyes and gleefully saying, “Smile, you son of a bitch!”
“Cut!” I yell. Silence. Everyone looks at me. For the first time all day, I feel it—clarity. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
That night, back in my little apartment with the crooked window and the sap-stained pine holding up those cheap curtains, I collapse through the door, exhausted but alive. I made it through Day One. Rocky would be proud.
I want to tell Roy everything—that I understand now. That I’m not a fraud. That I was born for this. But Roy’s gone. It was just a dream.
I’m not alone though. I’ve got a cast and crew who believe in Violent Ends, and that’s everything.
And tomorrow, we roll again.
Violent Ends is now in theaters, from IFC Films.
Main image: Billy Magnussen in Violent Ends, written and directed by John-Michael Powell. IFC Films.