Paul produced, directed and edited The Front Man, which screened at both comedy-themed and music-themed film festivals. The film is distributed by The Orchard: 

“My friend Jim Wood is one of those characters who turns comedic timing into a lifestyle. 

Since he was always performing anyway, one day I told Jim and his wife Christie that from now on, I would show up with a camera every time we got together. I wanted to see if Jim’s humor could carry a movie. 

We collected outrageously funny moments. Like witnessing Christie fall in love with Jim while he’s singing in the band at her first wedding. And the announcement of their pregnancy on the Howard Stern show. But these were stand alone. I needed a story. 

Manufacturing narrative through-lines out of random, disparate set pieces became the daunting editing challenge of this project. Many of these solutions were artificial, but they worked. For example, splitting up the rock star conversations and the hilarious Baby/No Baby debate into smaller pieces so that they develop and even climax over the course of the film. 

At first I assumed the episode shown here - when Jim auditions for a horror movie directed by one of his heroes - would be another one of those hilarious stand alone episodes. But to my delight, it evolved over time into its own a natural three-act structure: The Audition, On Set, The Premiere. Much easier to interweave an actual ongoing sub-plot into the rest of the movie. 

That is one of the advantages of following a project like this over the course of many years. The Front Man has been compared to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood: Watching your characters grow up in real time creates its own fascinating narrative.”