Holly Randall and Jeffrey John Hart accept the Best Featurette Award at the XMAs.

It was a hot, September day and I was visiting a friend in Arizona to catch ideas for a new screenplay. We landed on developing something inspired by the Satoshi Kon anime “Perfect Blue” and had sat down to watch it when I got a text from Jeffrey John Hart – a video he was editing of a shoot with Jewelz Blu. Lightning struck. Perfect Blue... Jewelz Blu... the idea writes itself.

Come October, Jeff and I were working a travel job in Palm Springs and I floated the basic idea to him. He had never seen Perfect Blue, but liked the idea of working with Jewelz. The issue was, there was still work to be done on our first featurette, Hopeless, and award season was around the corner.

We went on to win Best Featurette at the XBIZ Awards, and the AVNs were rapidly approaching. Jeff had his heart set on scoring an AVN Award, but I was much less optimistic. Of course Holly Randall was a highly respected and revered figure in the industry, but who the hell were we?

We had made a great film, but as far as anybody could be concerned, it may well be a flash in the pan. We hadn’t done enough to pay our dues and earn that level of respect yet.

Convinced that Jeff may end up disappointed and start pondering what he could’ve done better, I cobbled together the first rough treatment of what would go on to become Broken Butterfly. I sent it off to Jeff the morning of the 2024 AVN Awards and asked him to read it. He said he was going to breakfast with Holly, but that he’d read it the next day after the awards. That wasn’t good enough for me. I implored him to read it now, knowing that he’d need something to channel his energy into after the awards. He’d need a new project to sink his teeth into. Something to come back even harder and push the boundaries further.

Sure enough, we went home empty handed at the awards and Jeff called me the next morning and said “we’re doing it.” “Doing what?” I asked. “The treatment you sent. I love it. We’re doing it.” “Are you sure?” “We’re doing it. We’re gonna make the best movie we can make.”

Somehow, it had all gone pretty much exactly as I’d foreseen at that point. But there was still a clear hurdle to me. We needed Jewelz. Not like, “oh this would be great with Jewelz in it”, for me it was “this only works with Jewelz in it.” I made my feelings known to Jeff under no uncertain terms, “if we don’t get Jewelz, we’re not making this.” Jeff agreed wholeheartedly and set up a phone call with the great Jewelz Blu.

I had edited a couple of things featuring Jewelz and she always stood out to me, not just for her unique look and style, but for her expressiveness. We jumped on a conference call and Jeff asked me to pitch the idea. The first thing I asked, knowing she was a fan of anime, was “have you seen Perfect Blue?”

Not only had she seen it, but she loved it. “So you know what we’re getting into here...” She knew. Jeff let her know that if she was down, we were full steam ahead, if she wasn’t down, we would do something else. This idea was for her and only her. I’ll never forget the dramatic pause and response, “I’m totally down. Let’s do it.”

What followed were months and months of story development. The basic idea remained the same. The thematic premise, the character, the emotion was locked in, but everything around it was fluid as we poured over every possibility. Ideas for shots and cinematography, edit points and music bred new twists and turns. Once it was solidified, I started the script and enlisted the help of my longtime writing partner, Tanner Moody, to bring life to the therapist scenes and sprinkle in some of his own magic throughout. As we chipped away at the script, draft after draft like a marble statue, Jeff was busy preparing for production. He secured Robert Sotello and StudioNV to join Amber Guerra for art and set construction and Cajo for an original score.

With Holly lending her impeccable reputation and trust among talent, Jeff finalized a stacked cast featuring Hopeless collaborators Codey Steele, Casey Calvert and Lumi Ray, as well as Charlotte Sins, Lexi Luna, and Seth Gamble.

Tanner and I passed the script off to Jeff who did a final pass and crafted an incredible monologue for Lumi in a supporting role and it was off to production.

Now somehow, Jeff and his incredible crew managed to shoot an 83 minute movie in 3 days. It still blows my mind. The man wears a lot of hats and juggles them as best as anybody could hope. One thing I’ve learned working with him the past decade is that his creative drive is intoxicating for those around him and he just knows how to execute no matter the circumstances. Jeff always delivers.

They got the film in the can and the post-production process began. Jeff went into the metaphorical cave over the summer and when he emerged, he brought with him the first rough assembly of the film. He called me back into the fold and we spent the entire month of September holed up in his Hollywood apartment deep in the weeds, picking through every detail and grinding out a polished edit in preparation of an October 6th screening.

Somewhere in there we hit the one year anniversary of the lightning strike of the initial idea. It was pretty remarkable to look back at how far the spark of an idea had come in just 365 days. I’d been writing for about 15 years at that point, with a sense of seriousness for about 9 years, and it had been over 14 years since anything I’d written had been produced. It was humbling to see an original concept brought to life.

The post production process invigorated me. I felt an incredible sense of gratitude to Jeff for diving headfirst into this idea, to Holly for backing it unflinchingly, to Jewelz for pouring her entire self into it, and to the entire cast and crew for making it happen. We had done what we set out to do, we made an incredible film, but now we were back where it all started... staring down award season.

The script was written, the film was in the can, the edit was as done as an edit can ever be, and the cast and crew screening had been a success. But now we had to market it.

The entire project had been kept incredibly tight-lipped through production, but now it was time to unveil during the push for nominations. The initial teaser trailer release was something Jeff had envisioned before we even had the full story crafted and it manifested exactly as he planned. What starts with a cheesy 90s sitcom vibe, quickly turns to something dark and mysterious to create a sense of intrigue.

Each shot of the teaser was meticulously filmed, requiring as many as 20 takes to nail the timing perfectly. Cajo created a fantastic edit of the song to underscore the turn from corny to intense and the edit was immaculate. Coordination with the cast was key to release the teaser on social media at precisely the right time at 10 in the morning as pre-nominations went live.

We secured 8 XMA nominations and 8 AVN nominations across a variety of categories and we knew we had the content to showcase it all, but it was important to approach from all angles. A series of posters were created and The NSFW, an erotic private members club, hosted a screening in New York City while Jeff and I spent the entire month of December on the phone kicking around ideas and curating a look and style for a social media push.

We created a series of twelve one-minute long edits to highlight each nomination, blending visuals and music from the film with voiceover to give a glimpse behind the process. We felt that, cohesively, the collection of videos showcased the best of the best from the film. These videos have yielded over 800,000 views on Instagram to date, but there was still more to mine.

Jeff and I hopped on a call around 2am one night and debated how to punctuate the social media campaign. This led to a hot idea for a sort of “motion picture poster” and I knew I couldn’t just go to bed and wait for the next day to start the edit. I attacked it. I stayed up past dawn and hammered out a first cut and, within the next couple of days, we had a finalized reel up on Instagram that has hit almost 100,000 views alone.

We were blessed with back-to-back Best Featurette wins at the XMAs and, roughly a year to date from the initial Broken Butterfly treatment, we won Best Featurette and Best Screenplay + Featurette at the AVN Awards. The vision had been fully actualized.

The entire process was surreal and a tremendous honor to be a part of. When we set out to make Broken Butterfly, yes, we hoped for award recognition, but the only goal we were truly in control of was making the best film possible and telling the best story possible. We all gave it everything we had and now, finally, the film can speak for itself.

But while the film lives on with its audience, Jeff, myself, and the team are already back to business, crafting the next story...