"American Cheese" was originally a feature script concept. I decided to condense the story down to a short form script for the 15th annual script contest at Grand Valley State University. It quickly made the top three finalists, and for unexplained reason, a winner was never chosen.

I went on to shoot the short script as my senior thesis film at GVSU. What inspired the short film were a few, real life conspiracy theorists, with which I had come into contact. One was a stand up gentleman who managed to function just fine in society, despite his wild ideas. The other was a homeless gentleman I treated to dinner once. He had seemingly crossed that "point of no return." His fanciful stories of witches and magical lands were entirely gripping... because he truly believed them. I wanted this film to be an exploration of a single moment when a person like the first gentleman crosses over to becoming the latter. A single moment. It's an unusual journey into the complex abyss of the instability and brokenness of which our minds are capable should they go unchecked.

Since completing the short film, and receiving such widespread praise, I decided to expand it back into a feature length script. It has been the most rewarding writing experience of my career thus far. Having had such a wonderful cast and crew breath life and vision into the short film, the feature script has been tremendously enriched since it's initial conception those many years ago. I am extremely excited to see the full potential for this story as we continue to develop the feature of "American Cheese" for production this coming spring/summer.

- Zac Page, Writer / Director