Draft:Travis Mills (director)

Travis Mills (born December 26, 1985) is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. Mills has directed and produced over twenty-five feature films, including 12 feature-length Westerns filmed during 2020.

Early life and education
Travis Mills was born in Quito, Ecuador to Christian missionary parents and spent most of his childhood overseas in the Comoro Islands. Mills attended film school at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts during its first years of existence, where he met professor and playwright Gus Edwards. Mills and Edwards founded Running Wild Films together in 2010 with a goal to make independent movies in Arizona.

Arizona period
Between 2010 and 2016, Mills produced and directed six feature films and over one hundred short films in Arizona under the mentorship of Gus Edwards. During 2013, Mills made 52 short films in 52 weeks. These short films were contemporary adaptations of short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, and other authors with works in the public domain.

In 2015, Mills directed Tom Sizemore in Durant's Never Closes, a feature film based on the true story of a Phoenix restaurateur with rumored connections to the mafia. The film mentions the murder of Arizona Republic journalist Don Bolles. Mills wrote a screenplay about the Bolles murder titled Valley of Shadows that is un-produced. Durant's Never Closes also stared Peter Bogdanovich, Michelle Stafford, and Jon Gries.

Silver Slipper was an improvised feature-length movie filmed without a script that follows a young woman selling her virginity online.

Mississippi period
From 2016 to 2019, Mills produced several films in Mississippi. Porches and Private Eyes and subsequent If These Porches Could Talk were small town comedies and murder mysteries. Blood Country was the first Western directed by Mills and is based on a true events in the post-Civil War 1880's.  Cornbread Cosa Nostra was a 1980's action film concerning the Dixie Mafia. Son of a Gun was a Civil War comedy/drama about Legrand G. Capers and the bullet pregnancy myth. The character of Legrand in Son of a Gun was played by three different actors including Miles Doleac.

"12 Westerns in 12 Months" Project
During 2020, Mills completed 12 feature-length Western films in a 12 month period. The "12 Westerns in 12 Months" project began in January of 2020 with Bastard's Crossing starring Mississippi film commissioner Ward Emling. This was followed by Texas Red, a true story of an African-American outlaw played by Grammy-nominated blues musician Cedric Burnside.

The Woman Who Robbed the Stagecoach, one of the films in the 12 Westerns series, was the first feature length Western film ever to be shot on a mobile phone. The film tells the story of female outlaw Pearl Hart, played by Lorraine Etchell. The cast also included Mills as her partner-in-crime Joe Boot and Cat Roberts as one of the passengers on the stagecoach.

Other historical subjects explored in the "12 Westerns in 12 Months" set of films include The Pleasant Valley War, the stories of Samuel Mason and the murderous Harpe Brothers in The Wilderness Road, and folk tales about Mike Fink and Andrew Jackson in Tales of the Natchez Trace. The project culminated with a dark Western titled Heart of the Gun featuring actor Jay Pickett with Cat Roberts in a supporting role.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic changed production plans, Mills and his team continued to film the twelve Westerns during 2020 and completed the project by the end of the calendar year. All twelve of the films were released during 2021. Mills published a book about his 2020 movie-making experience titled The Making of 12 Westerns: Or How I Made a Dozen Movies During a Global Pandemic and Survived in December 2021.

Subsequent Work
In July of 2021, Mills re-teamed with Jay Pickett while directing Treasure Valley, a modern Western set in Idaho. During production, Pickett died of a heart attack and the film remains incomplete.

Mills served as an associate producer and actor on Terror on the Prairie, produced by Dallas Sonnier and starring Gina Carano. Terror on the Prairie premiered on June 14, 2022.

In 2023, Mills produced the first on-screen adaptation of Stephen R. Lawhead's award-winning Pendragon Cycle fantasy series.

Mills' original script Thieves Highway is slated to be made into a movie starring Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight, Thank You For Smoking) and Devon Sawa (Final Destination). The film will be directed by Jesse V. Johnson who Mills met while producing The Pendragon Cycle series with Bonfire Legend and The Daily Wire.

Accolades

 * Won "Best Southern States Feature" for Bastard's Crossing (2020) - Southern States Indie FanFilmFest.
 * Won "Best Mississippi Feature Film" for Bastard's Crossing (2021) - Oxford Film Festival.
 * Won "Best Script Fiction Feature" for She was the Deputy's Wife (2021) - Spring Grove Caledonia Film Festival.
 * Won "Best Silent Film" for The Adventures of Bandit and Wild Wes (2021) - The Wild Bunch Film Festival.
 * Won "Best True Story Film" for The Woman Who Robbed the Stagecoach (2021) - The Wild Bunch Film Festival.
 * Won "Director's Choice - Best Actor (Feature Film)" for The Woman Who Robbed the Stagecoach (2021) - The Wild Bunch Film Festival.
 * Won "Best Director (Western Feature)" and "Best Western Feature" for She was the Deputy's Wife (2021) - Cowpokes International Film Festival.