Questions for Tennyson (and anyone else who would like to answer)!

Hi,

I am studying digital filmmaking at University at the moment, but i would just like a bit more of information from someone who actually works in the industry.

How did you get started in films, and why repertory films?

Where do you get your inspiration from?

What are some pros and cons about the film industry?

Are certain roles (director, producer, cameraman, etc.) more important than others, if so what is the most important?

Is there a certain type of medium (documentaries, major feature films, independent films, or tv shows) that is more interesting or more hard work?

Many thanks, It's much appreciated!

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on January 5, 2012 at 8:03pm

Welcome to the Forum, Constance!

First off, the questions you're asking depend, in my opinion, on who's career we're talking about. Everyone is different. If there is one universal piece of advice I could offer, it's never to pass up an opportunity to have more accountability and control over your own future. I've been working on stage since I was a teenager, which at this point is most of my life. Showbusiness is my home, and my start came from learning stage design, playing table-top role-playing games with my friends...

Actually, I taught myself to write before pre-school. My grandmother lived with us, and I wanted to write down stories about dinosaurs and spacemen so she could read them to me. That was my start.

I came to Los Angeles expecting to put my design and stagecraft to work. I didn't have the relationships to make that happen, but I wound up making cold-calls to private investors with a handful of independent producers. During the last decade while I was honing my screenwriting, this was my day job. By and by, I helped to found an independent film company called Unified Pictures... and I learned everything I could about the challenges of producing and distributing feature films from people who were in the thick of it themselves.

Repertory film makes sense to me because in this day and age, community is a more stable and reliable tool for success than marketing. Cultivating an audience is harder than buying one, but in the end it provides a far more rewarding and stable life. Repertory work is how theater has survived for centuries. Cultivating that audience is easier if the work is shared amongst a group of like-minded artists.

As far as inspiration, Roger Ebert said it best. Paraphrased, he said: "Inspiration comes once you set pen to paper, and not before." I get inspiration from working. If you write every day, your mind will become adept at finding conflicts and characters quickly. If you shoot every day, your eye will become quick at finding shots. Practice is the key to inspiration. It's a grueling, uncomfortable truth - but I think every successful artist will agree.

Pros and cons? Hollywood is a town that takes care of its own, and is very unforgiving of everyone else. In that way, it's like every theater community I've ever been a part of. If you want to be a part of this community, don't ask people for work. Create work. Make a movie, a show, a play, or something... and show it to people. And then do it again, and again, and again. Become a member of this community by contributing to it, and not by waiting for your turn. Every bit of support I've gleaned has come first from my own contributions to the community. People help me because they like me as a person, but they only know me as a person because of my work.

There is no most important role, but there are roles with greater responsibility. At the top of the responsibility chain are the producers. Those are the folks with the most to lose, so they make absolutely sure they also have the most to gain. Learning producing skills and taking on those responsibilities yourself will make you invaluable to any production, because nobody wants the blame if things go south. You'll get a lot more done if you can at least share that burden, and you'll have a far greater degree of control over your future. Like I said, never pass up an opportunity to be accountable.

What kind of medium you like to work in is purely a matter of taste. Starmind helped me prove to myself that I could handle a television production schedule, but I like the finality of a feature film. It's good, or it isn't. You go into production with a plan, and then that plan is realized or it's not. There's an end in sight, and you learn and move on. That appeals to me, but everyone is different. Plus, the kinds of stories I like the best tend to work well as movies.

Please, bear in mind that all of this is just my own take on things. What's more, my perspective is changing all the time. If you ask me the same questions tomorrow, you may get totally different answers. Part of what I love the most about film is that I get rewarded for constantly challenging my own boundaries and limits.

On the Quantum Theory page, we've been documenting the entire process of developing and producing the film... so you may get a better sense of what I mean by watching those. Already, my perspective on the film is changing. We should have a new set of interviews up in a few weeks, but there's a bunch to start with: http://www.8sidedforum.com/group/quantummovie/page/interviews

Thanks for joining us on the Forum, Constance! If other folks have questions, please have them join us here as well. I'm by no means the only knowledgeable person on this Forum, and we're grateful to have you.

Welcome!

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Permalink Reply by Constance Critchlow on January 6, 2012 at 3:44am

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these for me! It's really nice to hear someone who works in the industry's perspective.

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on January 6, 2012 at 11:43am

My pleasure! We're glad to have you here. If there's a way to use the folks here as an educational tool, I'm all for it. Don't hesitate to ask.

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Permalink Reply by Constance Critchlow on January 6, 2012 at 5:07pm

What sort of camera did you use to film The Starmind Record?

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on January 6, 2012 at 5:12pm

Just a tiny little consumer camera. We used Kodak Zi8's (Kodak's answer to the Flip) and lavaliers. The whole series only cost $3,000.

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on January 6, 2012 at 5:19pm

We found the money on Kickstarter, which in itself was a lot of work. Every bit of production value on that show comes from the unusually excellent cast, the script, and the rehearsal process.

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Permalink Reply by Constance Critchlow on January 6, 2012 at 5:29pm

Wow I didn't expect that sort of quality from them, it looks really good!

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Permalink Reply by Constance Critchlow on January 6, 2012 at 5:34pm

You have done a great job!

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on January 6, 2012 at 6:19pm

Thank you! You can't buy a good show. Preparation is a big part of it, and preparation comes down to three things:

Practicing your skills every day, year after year...

Surrounding yourself with excellent people...

...and planning ahead.

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Permalink Reply by Tennyson E. Stead on January 6, 2012 at 6:25pm

Also keep in mind that there was a fair amount of color correction done on Vegas. But in the end, the strength of the show comes down to the fact that everyone there had decades of experience, that we had exactly what we needed on-hand (and no more, I might add), and that the script and the rehearsals gave us a strong foundation to work with.

One of my favorite science-fiction films is Primer, which was made for $7,000. Both 2001 and Avatar are also among my favorites. What kind of camera to use is not really the question you should be asking, although I see it bandied about quite a bit on online forums.

What resources DO you have to tell a great story? What story would you really love to tell, that would benefit from precisely the tools you have on hand? What else do you need to make that work?

Tell THAT story first. Make that happen, and you're giving something to the community... and the audience. The audience is most important.

As a matter of fact, that's exactly how you got here!