Three film festival laurels and awards with text indicating awards from Montreal Independent Film Festival 2022, Lift-Off Global Network New York 2022, and Byron Bay International Film Festival 2019.
Debut Novel - coming soon!

Fear Sum

A once-promising band. A frontman with performance anxiety. A drummer who thinks rehab is a dating app. A bassist with a trauma-laced middle finger. A guitarist convinced the microwave is spying on him.

It's 1992, grunge is detonating the music industry, and Sydney’s underground scene is about to meet FEAR SUM, an alt-rock outfit on the verge of greatness—or spontaneous combustion. At the helm is Tim, aka "Rayon Silk",  who hides his passions in his lyrics whilst a childhood trauma keeps pulling the plug mid-set.

Fast forward to now. Tim’s life is falling apart. Divorce. Panic attacks. Two teenage daughters, Siouxsie and Patti, who think he’s a loser. His job as a trivia host for geriatrics hanging by a thread. When Simon, the band’s gender-fluid chaos engine/drummer, shows up claiming to have cancer (he doesn’t) and needing a place to crash (he really does), Tim’s meticulously unravelled life goes full spaghetti.

Add to the mix Amy, the band’s bassist-slash-heartache, who’s busy sleeping with her demons and select members of an orchestra, and Vulcan, their institutionalised guitarist broadcasting conspiracy theories to his toaster. Together, they hatch a plan to get the band back together for one last gig. One last chance to fix what’s broken — part redemption arc, part slow-motion car crash.

As the band lurches back to life, so do the wounds: betrayal, addiction, generational scars and songs that hit too close to home. But in the noise and nostalgia, something unexpected happens—connection. To overcome their individual fears, the band need to do something they’ve never done before. Stay together.

Darkly funny and painfully human, FEAR SUM is for anyone who’s ever loved too hard, failed spectacularly, and dared to make noise anyway. It’s a story about music, midlife, and the beautiful wreckage of trying to put yourself back together with friendship, family, and the kind of love that won’t fade when the spotlights do. 

Scripts

For pitch decks or scripts, please contact me here:

A marquee sign with the text "It takes a village" and the movie title "Federal Film Society". Surrounding the sign are images of various people and characters, including a woman with long blond hair holding a bow and arrow, a woman doing yoga with colorful body art, a man with hands raised surrounded by money, a man shouting in a crowd, and a young man with his hands tied with a rope.

Federal Film Society (FFS!)

Comedy/Drama Series

A sex-starved matriarch battles to save her community’s soul when a polyamorous power couple take over her beloved film society to showcase adult entertainment. 

Raw, bawdy and unapologetically bold, FFS! is a warm-hearted, comedy drama about the loveable, quirky and sexually frustrated characters in a small regional town. It is a story of generations and families and the conflict between those that desperately cling to the glories of the past against those that forge blindly into an unknown future, where ultimately, love conquers all. 

Poster for the film 'Fear Sushi' showing four actors, with one sitting and three standing, in a movie theater setting. The poster highlights awards and film festival selections, with text describing it as 'A Coming of (Middle) Age Story' and credits to James Mayson.

Fear Sum

Drama/Dark comedy Feature

A quiz show writer in a midlife crisis has his world upended when his old punk bandmates - a drug-addled nihilist, a sex fiend and a mentally unstable conspiracist - turn up to help him win back the love of his life.  

Fear Sum is an endearing tale of 4 individuals struggling to find their place in the world.  They were part of a highly dysfunctional rock band back in the heady days of the Alternative Music Scene of the 1990’s. To overcome their individual fears, they need to do something they’ve never done before – stay together. 

A collage featuring three images at the top: a masked protester, a child with tape over their mouth, and a person carrying children through a smoky landscape. Below is a quote: "What happens when you need to protect your family from your past, but you need your past to protect your family?" The main image shows a man aiming a gun, with a serious expression, pointing the gun directly at the viewer. Text at the bottom reads "Guard. Dog." and the author's name, James Mayson.

Guard Dog

Drama/Thriller - Feature

When the father of a refugee family has his daughter abducted by a group of right-wing militia, he must try to keep secret his past as an interrogator for Saddam’s Republican Guard, whilst increasingly in need of his former skill set to find her.

Guard. Dog. is the story of a Farook Nasir – FRANK – who in an increasingly polarised and hostile world battles with conflict where the stakes couldn’t be higher: What do you do when you need to protect your family from your past, but you need your past to protect your family? What are we prepared to sacrifice for those we love? On both a personal and societal level, this story investigates language as a weapon and opinions as a virus - weaved into the complex, ethno-diverse issues of race, religion, immigration and the rise of extremism. 

Cover of a book titled 'NEO-FARSI' featuring pixel art of a man with black hair and mustache, wearing a brown uniform with swastika armband, and red boxing glove. The subtitle reads 'Two Clueless Neo-Nazi's - Two Canny Refugees'. Below, there are four photos: a desert road, a woman with her hair blowing, two men playing video games with intense expressions, and people dressed in Native American costumes. The story is by James Mayson.

Neo-Farsi

Comedy/Romance/Horror - Feature

In the Outback, love and terror collide as two clueless Neo-Nazis and two streetwise refugees’ must band together when they are hunted by a sadistic cabal of left-wing bureaucrats. 

Neo-Farsi is an absurdist dark comedy that shines light into the pitch-black caverns of contemporary extremism – left and right – and not only how frighteningly close they are, but how the bonds that bind us are stronger than those that threaten to tear us apart. It is a darkly satirical, heart-pounding ride into the murky world of the greatest existential threat we face as humans – each other. 

A person walking on stilts against a cosmic, starry sky with other figures in the background, with the word 'WOKE' at the top and a quote about monsters and imagination at the bottom.

Woke

Thriller/Psychological Horror - Feature

Whilst on a hike with her high school friends, a traumatised student must reconnect with her ancestral roots to unlock the truth of an historical massacre that has unleased Dark Forces.   

From Terra Nullius through the Frontier Wars to the Stolen Generation and the hundreds of Historical Massacres, Australia has failed to address the dark truth at the centre of its soul. If we as a country do not address the horrors of our past, we will forever be haunted by them. Woke is an exploration of white guilt, cultural appropriation and the dangers of virtue signalling in a world where we are in desperate need of healing, acceptance and forgiveness.

Book cover titled 'second sKin' with a biohazard symbol and a human eye in the background. Subtitles read 'Truth is only sKin deep' and 'Screenplay by James Mayson'.

Second sKin

Sci-fi/Thriller - Feature

In a post antibiotic world where the populace must wear a second sKin to avoid infection, a blacklisted journalist seeks out the Resistance, an eco-terrorist group determined to capture the Doomsday Vault: the last seed bank in existence.

Second sKin is a high concept, sci-fi thriller that tells the story of FLYNTT, a jaded, blacklisted journalist who is offered a second chance to investigate the eco-terrorist group responsible for the outbreak of a worldwide pandemic – the still born virus - that took the life of his wife and child. 

In a world devoid of touch, FLYNTT must decide to risk the fragments of his life he has fought to hold onto, in order to expose the conspiracy that threatens humanity and lead to true connection with another human.

Contact

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