Cockroach
Studios

Conceived of in 2015, officially started in 2020, Cockroach Studios LLC operates as a collective for like-minded artists from around the world to come together and bring original ideas to life through film.

Like many adventures originating in Austin, it started by escaping the hundred-degree heat with a couple of beers and a basket of chips and queso. Having recently finished a series of short films, Josh and I had more ideas to rub together than pennies. The goal: To develop a story we could tell on a budget and figure out a way to get it done. After throwing around the ideas which would eventually become Zwielichts Pilgrim, we had a road map for “what.”

The “how” came in the form of an unexpected muse. A thin man sitting at the bar with a fist full of bourbon and a cowboy hat entertained our questions about his custom T-shirt, which featured a big cockroach, and his distorted-hand cane. Before we could finish a cigarette with him, he was leading us to his office below a tattoo parlor behind the bar. Punk posters lined the walls. Piles of graphic T’s occupied every seat. He handed us pamphlets of his weekly ‘publication:’ several double-printed pieces of 8 1⁄2 by 11-inch paper folded and stapled down the middle with comics made of repurposed character cutouts, posters for movies that didn’t exist, half naked women, and a whole lot of anti-establishment slogans. We bought a couple T-shirts, thanked him for his time, and returned to the bar for another round. Before long, the image of an eternal scrapper selling homemade pulp art out of a tattoo parlor to his neighbor’s sultry patrons epitomized the spirit of how I want to make movies. 

Over the next three years we worked in theaters, bars, cafes, on railroads, in the military, and even on a few film and TV sets. We scraped together every penny we could while writing and assembling a team of rag tag independents who just wanted to do something different.

 
I started Cockroach Studios LLC and we filmed ‘Zwielichts Pilgrim’ and ‘Burn With Us’ out of pocket with these passionate men and women from around the world. I am so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish and am excited to bring our first fictional feature film, “Zwielichts Pilgrim” to market. It’s a privilege to show off our work and my hope is to get the same ragtag team of independents working soon on one of the projects we have slated for the next chapter of Cockroach Studios.