Stories, projects, and life from Jeff Lion.
One weekend, a name, a parking garage cover, a one-paragraph history, and a thirty-second phone recording. The band doesn't exist, but the story does—and showing it to three friends revealed how little an audience actually needs.
For thirty days in 2026, I banned feature films and watched only trailers, teasers, and behind-the-scenes clips. The experiment turned into a crash course in hype, attention spans, and why the two-minute cut can sometimes hit harder than the two-hour story.
For thirty nights I hit pause halfway through every movie, set a fifteen-minute timer, and left the room. The experiment rewired my attention, shrunk my snack intake, and turned post-credits talk into an actual conversation. Here's what the humble pause button gets right in 2026.
Over six weekends, I rated eleven theater snack bars within twenty miles on popcorn freshness, soda refills, and candy-aisle nostalgia. The rankings were messy. The real discovery was that the concession counter is the last room in the multiplex that hasn’t been redesigned into a lobby.
For four weeks this fall, I watched one film per week with the commentary track on instead of the dialogue. The movies were fine. The conversations over them were better — and they changed how I think about craft, budgets, and the stories directors tell about themselves.
Jeff Lion spent October 2026 finishing only projects that already existed — no new pitches, no fresh scripts, no shiny footage. What started as a boring experiment turned into a useful system for deciding what deserves completion and what should be deleted.
One gray Saturday, I skipped the streaming menu and flipped through local public-access channels from small US cities and counties. What I found was funnier, stranger, and more human than most of my watchlist.
A 75-minute feature is not a compromise. It is the smartest weeknight entertainment of 2026 — easier to schedule, often sharper, and a better excuse to gather a few people in a small room.
Six friends, one shared calendar invite, and a notes doc nobody expected to care about. Here's how a group chat turned into a monthly movie night that actually survives contact with real life — polls, flaky schedules, and all.
One phone, one free editor, a bag of rice, and a hard three-hour deadline. A behind-the-scenes look at a three-minute audio drama built entirely out of a rainy Saturday and whatever was already in the kitchen.
I built a 30-title physical-media shelf from thrift-store finds and library sales, then lived with a one-in, one-out rule for a month. The shelf didn't cure my scrolling. It did make choosing feel like a decision again.
I gave up half my lunch break for a month and spent it watching one short film at a time. The surprise wasn't the movies. It was how much a 20-minute pause could reset a workday.
I shot the boring parts of one ordinary week and edited them like a movie trailer. The result was 58 seconds of coffee, commutes, and grocery aisles that made me see my routine differently.
I gave my streaming apps a week off and let my library card do the talking. What I found was less glamorous than a prestige TV premiere and way more useful for my budget.
A full project log for a zero-dialogue micro-short shot on a phone in one weekend: the three-shot structure, the pocket-sized kit, the sound design that saved it, and how to screen ninety seconds for friends without renting a theater.
For thirty nights in 2026 I let a quarter decide what I watched, read, and left the house for. The algorithm lost on satisfaction, won on convenience, and taught me something uncomfortable about my own taste. Here's the play-by-play, plus a one-week version you can steal.
Everyone keeps telling me the movies are back because of the giant releases. I think the better night out is happening two doors down, in a half-full auditorium showing a mid-budget drama nobody's posting about. Here's why the small theatrical release is winning 2026, and what US audiences can do to keep it alive.
For three years my second bedroom was a storage unit with a window. One long weekend and four hundred dollars later, it's the room I actually want to be in — here's the before, the after, the three purchases that mattered, and the mistakes I'd skip if I did it again.