INDIE SPOTLIGHT: Interview with ‘A Crime Story’ Filmmaker Brian A. Metcalf

A group of misfits employed at a rundown motel stumble upon a drug trafficking operation orchestrated by a powerful crime syndicate, thrusting them into a perilous situation.

Telling stories and making movies. That’s what filmmaker, actor, musician, model (and maybe a deep sea scuba diver, yet to be confirmed) Brian A. Metfcalf lives and breathes. His guerilla filmmaking intuitions have served him well. And having formed a well-rounded filmmaking tribe under his production banner Black Jellybeans, this creative team bring their best talents to the forefront. And that’s fully embraced in their latest independent feature film, A Crime Story.

Brian A. Metcalf returns to Script to discuss reworking what was initially a TV series into an action packed feature, the importance of a ticking time clock in both his storytelling and writing process, the necessity to wear multiple creative hats to get your movies made, and his creative collaboration with his producing team.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: How did you initially land on this story?

Brian A. Metcalf: I had seen a news headline where a group of workers were basically selling drugs out of their hotel and they got arrested. So that's where the initial concept of that came from. I took that, and then I expanded upon it, and made them almost sympathetic in the sense that, well, what if they're trying to save their hotel?

Obviously, when you mess with drugs and certain things, other people are involved, and what are the dangers of that? And so I just came up with the whole back story with the mafia... and just thought it would be a kind of a fun experience. It was initially meant to be a TV series, but then it got cut down to a feature film.

Sadie: It does feel like there is a whole world underneath all this and there could be legs for a series.

Brian: We shot it as a series, but then it was decided by producers we'll just release it as a film. I actually personally wanted it to be a series more than anything else. I re-edited it to make it a feature film, and I'm really happy with it… taking the best parts or taking a lot of parts from the series and just making it a film, and it's turned into this action movie.

Sadie: How many episodes had you initially shot for the first season?

Brian: It was initially shot as six episodes.

Sadie: Re-structuring it as a feature was it easier to dissect those six episodes and dissect them into a three act structure?

Brian: A lot of backstory was taken out from each of the characters and focused on the main, now, storyline. You have to have a big climactic ending, since it's a film now, you have to have resolution to everything, in a way that you don't have to have in a TV series. A lot of things were restructured around, but I'm fairly happy with the outcome of it now, having what I had to work with, and doing what I did. And I got to tell it the way that I wanted to tell it still.

Sadie: There’s a really great ticking time clock aspect that helps the engine – how did that come into play to help amp up the stakes?

Brian: I try to incorporate that in all of my writing, because it makes the pacing more interesting and faster, and it gives you a reasoning. That's one thing that always seems to work with me better than if there isn't that type of situation. And it can be very subtle.

Sadie: When you implement that into your writing, does that translate to you as a writer in that you work faster?

Brian: It does. Literally, when I'm writing, I start out with an outline, and a lot of times, I go, how is this going to end? I try to figure out the ending first, sometimes even with a concept. And then I work my way in the middle and in between, and I fill it all out till I have the full outline done before I ever even touch Final Draft. And then from there, I do a first rough draft, and the first rough draft is normally horrible, but I just get it down so I can then go and rewrite again, and rewrite again, and rewrite again until I get it to someplace of decency.

Sadie: Obviously this is not your first acting rodeo, nor your first directing rodeo, or directing yourself in something, but have you found as an actor and director, that you find that there's more overlap with both crafts than you suspected there would ever be?

Brian: I feel like there's more overlap than you would suspect, because literally, as an actor, you start to realize how the timing is, and the camera angles, and the editing, and so forth. It all works together in a lot of ways, and I think that you have to know all the different angles.

Now, a funny thing is that I initially wrote this for myself to be the lead. But the way that I was editing it, I started to realize, especially for the film, that it worked better having Mark Pellegrino and Niko Foster as the two leads… so I had to take away from myself as the actor and put my producer and editing hat on, and be like, ‘it works better this way.’ You want to look at it from all angles, because if I was just the actor, I would be like, ‘I want to be the lead,’ but since I'm not just the actor, and I'm the director, and I'm the editor, it’s ‘What's best for the writing of the story? What's best for the project?’

Sadie: Your production banner and your producing team, at Black Jellybeans, it’s really cool to see all hands on deck, in that your producing partners are also wearing multiple creative hats both behind the scenes and on screen. Have you guys found that that approach has been more fruitful for you as you all navigate the industry?

Brian: Because it is this hard to get things made, you have to take on multiple hats. That's why I was doing all the visual effects, the color correction, the editing, obviously the directing and the producing and the acting. You have to wear multiple hats these days to get a project off the ground. If you do just one thing... I mean, look, I would love to do a project where I'm just doing one thing and one thing only, and focusing on that one thing, but I'm finding that for me, in particular, it's easier to get financing and everything if you wear multiple hats.

Plus my team, Tom [Ian Nicholas] and Kelly [Arjen], who I've worked with multiple times, they love to act, they love to be on camera, but they also love to produce, they also love to help out in different ways. So it's great to have my team with me.

A Crime Story releases in select Theaters on June 26, 2026 and VOD on June 30, 20206.