Directing before Ai
This is a project directed back in 2014 with real people and some of the cast of Boardwalk Empire
Critically acclaimed 200 Contracts is a forty-minute fictional drama series I created, wrote, and directed, loosely inspired by the early years of Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski, before he became the killer he’s known as today. I took creative liberties with the details, but the premise, an ordinary man drawn contract by contract into becoming something else, gave me a lot to work with as a writer.
The story follows Ray Kelly, the mafia’s #1 hitman in NYC for thirty years. At the center of the story is Ray Kelly (Bek Markas, “Salt”), a severely deranged killer just beginning his career in professional killing. Employed by his boss Al Moretti (Adam Mucci, “Boardwalk Empire”), Kelly falls in love with his new life of crime, but has to keep it separate from his new love, Lydia McCormack (Shea Glaser, “Breathe In”), the church-going daughter of devoted Irish parents with a desire to find love of her own.
Adam Mucci plays Al Moretti as a crime boss whose quick rise to power has made him eager to surround himself with people as diabolical as himself, and Shea Glaser brings a quiet vulnerability to Lydia that runs against the world Ray is pulled into.
200 Contracts is a Mickey Micklos Films production, in association with Gravesend Pictures. I served as creator, executive producer, and director, alongside producer Francesco Soru. The series won Outstanding Achievement for Outstanding Series in a Drama at LA Webfest 2014, and Bek Markas won Best Actor for his performance as Ray Kelly at the Holly Web Film Fest.
Here’s a few episodes from the series:
There’s plenty more where that came from
These two episodes give a sense of the series, but 200 Contracts runs twelve episodes in total, following Ray’s full descent from reluctant new hire to the mafia’s most trusted killer. You can watch the complete series on Vimeo HERE