On the fast track: Only five short years ago, T.J. Cimfel, top creative at a health care ad agency, decided to be a screenwriter after spending years searching for the right fiction medium.
Now his horror story, “No Tell Motel,” about five friends stranded at an abandoned haunted motel, has gone from script to $2 million movie and is set to release through Redbox on Oct. 9.
Cimfel graduated Illinois Wesleyan University with a BFA in Theater Arts, and soon staged a short-lived attempt to start a theater company in Minneapolis. He then came to Chicago where he acted in various stage productions (Piven Theatre, Strawdog, among others).
He got a job at Williams-Labadie on the account side in 1999, switched to junior copywriter now is VP/group creative director. He married Lainie Castle-Cimfel in 2002, ending his acting pursuits with too many demands on his time, saying it was “one of the best decisions I ever made.”
After reading scripts and books on screenwriting craft, his first short comedy script made the 2009 Page Awards finals, providing the validation that drove him to write feature scripts. “I write at night after my wife goes to sleep and on the weekend when (if) my daughter naps. I’m tired a lot and I drink a ton of coffee, but it’s worth it.”
At that time he reconnected with former Wesleyan classmate David White over their mutual interest in screenwriting. Their first collaboration, a script called “Shut In” has been optioned by Ombra Films and also (as a script sample) landed the two scribes work adapting a horror graphic novel entitled, “Crawl to Me.” Talk about a busy guy.
Screenplay contests and pitch sites were the beginnings of success. After winning contests such as the Chicago Screenwriters’ Network, Cimfel posted “No Tell Motel” on script pitching website Inktip, where it was picked up by actor-director-producer Brett Donowho (upcoming big-budget movie “1950”) and genre production company Tony-Seven Films, a subsidiary of Enderby Entertainment (“About Cherry”).
The movie stars Angel McCord (“Chemistry”) Johnny Hawkes (“Zombie Strippers!”) and Chelsey Reist (“Crowsnest”), and was shot over 19 days on a location 300 miles east of Vancouver, B.C. in the summer of 2011. Cimfel envisioned it as a Midwest setting in winter.
Three months after success with No Tell Motel, lighting struck again when another of Cimfel’s scripts “Beneath” (now titled, “Underneath”) was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship. This landed him a manager.
Yet another contest win yielded even more results. Cimfel and co-writer White won “Best Horror Feature Screenplay” in the Shriekfest Screenwriting Competition, which resulted in the option with Ombra Films, and the eventual job of live action adaptation of horror graphic novel “Crawl to Me.”
They were chosen over a dozen other writers who pitched for the job, and are currently in their second draft.
The movie will be co-produced by Roberts, Jeff Mazzola (“Descent”) and Christopher White (“My Super Psycho Sweet 16”). David A. Armstrong (“Saw” cinematographer) is attached to direct.
Even with so many Hollywood successes, Cimfel plans to remain in the area for the foreseeable future. “I have all my family here,” he says. “I feel a pull to L.A. because of the relationships, but at the same time, I don’t feel urgency to that pull. With today’s technology you can be anywhere to write. It’s the cheapest, greatest form of entertainment.”
