Here's something you wouldn't have assumed about Wes Craven: the Master of Suspense was an avid birder. To celebrate the arrival of spring in 2013, Studio 360 held a listener challenge: remix spring with sounds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. When Wes caught wind of the project on Twitter (where he tweeted prolifically until his death from brain cancer yesterday), he shared it with his hundreds of thousands of followers.
Fast forward nearly a year, when Studio 360 wanted to launch a genre-heavy filmmaking listener challenge. I pitched Wes Craven, our Twitter pal, as a judge and he graciously accepted. Wes quickly proved to be an exceptionally generous and fastidious collaborator. He frequently promoted our "Scary Short Film Fest" on social media and even took the time to write a blog post about his favorites! Even after reinventing a genre twice, after starting several blockbuster franchises that will probably live forever, and still having plenty of projects to balance and nurture, he was dedicated to aspiring filmmakers.
Wes also used his success to champion emerging talent. Most of his Twitter feed was dedicated to offering advice. He was one of the bigger names behind Project Greenlight. And just listen to the joy in his voice when he tells Jake Jarvi, whose work Wes researched thoroughly purely out of interest, that his scary short film submission won our listener challenge. That joy was what made Wes Craven one-of-a-kind.
