So, maybe an auto body shop in small-town Lockney, Texas, isn't the first place you'd look to meet an up-and-coming filmmaker who'd never thought about the Marfa Lights until he happened to visit the small town in Texas's Big Bend.
"I saw them!" he says enthusastically. Stapp was skeptical about the phenomenon at first, but then he realized—there's a film storyline in that. And no one had yet written it.
Stapp, who learned all about customizing cars in the third-generation family business on Lockney's Main Street, had crossed paths with film fame via a reality TV series about, well, customizing cars.
His work had caught the attention of California types, and he soon found himself spending time on the West Coast.
That's when he first encountered film, and enjoyed experiences like building a Lotus for entertainer (and well-known collector) Jay Leno.
At Ruby's Diner in Huntington Beach, California ("Surfin' USA," he interjects) he got the inspiration to craft a screenplay about hte Marfa experience.
Stapp had learned a great deal about the business from his reality TV series, but had to learn about treatments, screenplay forms, and shopping his story around to the right connections.
"I had to teach myself," Stapp said from the closet-sized office at Stapp's Body Shop in Lockney.
Apparently Stapp managed to take all the right cues.
After finishing his screenplay—and rewriting, then rewriting again—he read up on how to promote his idea via social media and industry websites.
He hooked a few big names right off the bat.
The project soon found funding, and Stapp negotiated to maintain creative control over the project. He's pleased with the casting and the final script, he says.
"Destination Marfa" previewed on four screens in Lubbock last week, and from there it's on to a national DVD release this week and more film festivals, and streaming services. Accolades from festivals boost the movie's cachet and help seal future deals.
He's working on those already. Treatments for four other films are in the hopper, and he's looking at another car-customizing series. (Watch for details on this soon!)
Directed by Andy Stapp with With Tony Todd, Stelio Savante, Brittany Jo Alvarado, Kyle Colton, "Destination Marfa" will be available for viewers everywhere this week.
Here's the synopsis:
hile on a road trip from a long weekend at the Terlingua cookoff, four lifelong friends decide to veer off road and venture into a small West Texas town known as Marfa. What attracted them to do so? Could it be the strange unexplained ghost lights that Marfa is known for? While on a fuel stop they meet two very strange employees of a secluded gas station. One of them offers them a chance to look into their future by pulling a ticket from his counter top 25 cent token fortune telling machine. What does it say? Can they trust it? When they enter Marfa, Texas they realize almost immediately that something's off. Why is this town so odd? Why are very peculiar things happening? Eden Percell, because of her desire to look into everything, begins convincing Erik that the town is full of practicing witchcraft and she even makes the statement "And I think they have gotten dang good at it." Can she convince Erik, and if so, should they risk telling the other 2 drama queens their thoughts. What is Marfa? Why are the townspeople so secretive? Will Matt, Erik, Allie, and Eden discover the truth behind the mystery of the Marfa lights?
We'll be watching, Andy.