Film Courage: How many years did you make a living as a filmmaker outside of Los Angeles? Jason Satterlund:
Probably about 20 close to 20 yeah it was a long long road and honestly you
know moving to LA that's the Superbowl and that's there's a question I wanted
to move here but I was terrified because it is this is where the big boys go and
if you're not living here you always have the excuse of like I could have
made it if I'd I could have done that but if you don't live here you can just
keep using that excuse so it's rubber meets the road time I do you have what
it takes to make it or not so it's scary plus I still had those
childhood baggage of like well it's the lion's den it's the big city so I
avoided it for a long time but I think it was it was a very good thing not to
live here because it forced me to do a lot more other things you and you're in
LA if you don't live here la is so big and there's so many
filmmakers doing the job that that the jobs become very specific like I know
cinematographers who who shoot commercials and they end up being the
guy that like I knew a guy who spent several years just being the guy
shooting things on tabletops like products on tabletops and that was it
that's all he would do and he gets stuck in that little job like when I tell
people and I'm you know you know a when I tell them I'm a director they say well
what are you a director of like well I mean I direct features and commercials
and music videos ya know but when you direct features is
it action or comedy like they want you to be very hyper specific in what you do
that's it's very strange to get used to that idea because there's so many people
and so much competition you know they want you to be like a guy the other day
told me it's a stay in your lane mentality we're in this lane to stay in
ooh I don't don't know or how dare you you know when you don't live here you
you have to do whatever you got to survive you know you gotta like work
music video one day and it's a feature the next door it's a training film work
whatever I totally lost my train of thought uh Nora's going at the end but
yeah yeah so you lived 20 years outside of LA making a living as a filmmaker but
you were also able to make your own projects as well right and do you think
that would have been possible had you been here with the cost of living and
and all of the fun things to do here and distractions that's the great question
so first couple of films I made making films is so hard to do so you know and
I'm saying this besides if they make a living jobs you know the corporate
commercial zone feature films it's a whole other deal so you have two options
when it comes to feature films you're either making independent ones or you're
making ones in a studio system so if you don't live here you have to do them
independent and I don't know if I could have done it
living here most people I know who live here who went you've lived here 20 years
have never done it like it's very hard to get through because you are fighting
a giant system like a massive corporations and people are groomed and
brought up and your your competition is people who whose fathers and
grandfathers were in the industry like you're that's the rat race that you're
in when you're here if you're not here the thing what you're fighting for is
finding investors or supporters for your film and it's in a way in a big way it's
a lot easier to make a feature not living in LA in fact the feature I just
shot this year we didn't shoot it in LA because it was too expensive so we went
to Washington State to do it because simply the studio cost in LA was $65,000
in Washington State it was 8 oh wow so you know when you're dealing with a
small budget an independent film that's a huge amount of money that you can use
for a lot of other things so I don't think I would have been able to do it
if I lived here but there's always the unknown you know the question mm-hmm
would I have like maybe I think not living here or helped me but I will say
that knowing that if you don't live in LA depending on whatever your goal is
there is a glass ceiling it's only so high you can do get if you live in
wherever Seattle or wherever the top you're gonna get to is you know internal
videos for Microsoft and Amazon if you live in Portland it was Nike and Intel
there's no shame in that that's fine that's a great living and you can for
the rest of your life doing that kind of stuff but that's that's it unless you
get some independent film going that's that's about all you can expect they're
not gonna hire a director even if they're shooting their TV show in your
town and I've experienced that big production comes to town they're not
gonna hire that director locally they're gonna hire that from LA you have to go
to LA if you want to work in that industry if you want to work on that
upper echelon at work and sorry the feature they sorry to interrupt the
feature you just shot in Washington State yeah did you hire local crew or
you had LA people come up both so I hired like the department heads some of
the department heads here cinematographer the producers were all
from here the cast was all from here once we got up there we hired you know
the Crudup the rest got a gaffer in RACs and all the other crew member and that's
typically how it works even in cities hub cities like New Mexico and Lana you
know they're they're not gonna hire the directors out of there unless they're
established they're gonna get there you can crew up there all day long but and
the 65,000 versus the 8 do you have a rough estimate of what was the
difference like why it was so expensive here well LA is just very expensive
place to live that's part of it so you're paying per
diem or you're different or just it was purely the building rental without
anything else building rental okay just to get into a building that was large
enough for us to use you know sound proofed and all of that that's how much
it cost it was that's no gear rental not utilities nothing and that was where
the soldier was in this like panic correcting okay right which was very
cool a link to that yes we had to build a set that was movable and we could
wrapped it around because the film was about anti anti gravity and stuff and we
had to do a lot of camera tricks we needed a large space actually the place
we found was twice as big as what we needed we didn't even use half the
building for yeah I don't know a tenth the cost or something like that
what about insurance the difference insurance about the same oh is it that
was roughly the same for production crew was well we didn't have a big budget
they can be roughly the same but yeah what a camera rental you could we got
good deals on equipment rental we got great deals on better than you could get
in LA but yeah it's just cuz it's so expensive to live in LA that's why all
the production's so many have left that's why they go to Vancouver that's
why they go to these other places because it's just expensive which is
unfortunate when you were up there dealing with any crew or I know you said
most the capsules from LA but did they have a desire to come down here or were
they happy working yeah you know I think everyone either secretly wants to come
to LA or they've been and they've left cuz they didn't like it or something I I
because everybody wants to work in the big wigs I think but there's also this
funny I live in LA kind of thing so um
there were some that definitely wanted to but I think a lot of are afraid or
they have children they don't want to raise them here which is a legitimate
concern you know or strong family ties and yeah yeah yeah I mean I'm from a
Northwest boy like I you love beautiful why this incredible you mountains enough
and all that up there very hard to leave that my family's all out there is very
hard to leave that very hard like come down here it's a lot of concrete it's
all people there's traffic and there's smog it's yes that's hard you know and
you may not work so that's tough to sack of you know sacrifice all of that for
something that may never happen that's what you're looking at that's reality so
yeah I mean a lot of them I think want to do that but may never just because
they don't want to make that sacrifice but then there's two schools of thought
because there's that leaving the nest and all the friends and family and
everything going somewhere unknown maybe it's a little bit colder and mentality
maybe it isn't or you stay back and you think of I you know woulda coulda
shoulda type thing at what point did you say I
have to try it I can't be that person in the cubicle going what would happen if I
was in right now and that's it - when did I'd make it I you know my wife and I
talked about it a lot for years we've actually debate constantly about how you
should have moved here then I did make the decide say I made the decision to
come here or maybe seven or eight years ago but I couldn't get here then like
financially because the reality is is you have to like it's gonna cost you
without even breaking a sweat you're gonna drop five ten thousand bucks first
and last month's rent a moving truck all the just the moving expenses and then
rent is more than likely going to be a couple grand a month and you have to be
working immediately like you got it either your spouse needs a job or you
need a job full-time that's if you're 20 that's much easier to do you can couch
surf and whatever if you have a family in my case I don't have children but I
have a wife we had pets I had a I had an office space for my business like how am
I gonna move all that I have to I can't just live in a one-bedroom place I have
to and I have no more clients so it was really tough it took me a long long I
had to take a job and to come down here like I worked a job for a year and a
half to like when I first learned it was the only way I could make it work so the
desire was there for a while I just could not figure out how to bridge that
gap that was hard
really tough sacrifice and that I think that will test you on how much you want
it how bad because most people who live here have had to do that maybe you know
any my friends have lived in their cars down here you probably know Lots who had
to like went for a stint because they just couldn't afford an apartment I mean
that everyone has to go through that gauntlet did you know then they fall
there is a law then you come back out of it but most people don't want to make
that sacrifice or they're afraid to or they can't like for some reason and they
so they just don't so yeah it's um and I also want to say though I want to want
to put any judgment on people who don't live here because I think a lot of this
comes down to what you want what do you want to do like there is no shame at all
in living in another city working corporate videos or wedding videos or
whatever it is there's no shame in that at all like it's it just depends on what
you want to do if you're comfortable in that world and that's what you liked and
great good for you that's great and you can make your independent films and get
them off the ground if you want to work and direct write direct or produce you
want to be in the above-the-line kind of crew on bigger films you gotta
leave you just have to live here it's here you know that's where they hire
these people from yeah and sometimes being here there's there's this some
thing of well oh if it's not all a list or it's not this then it's not worth
doing and there's a judgement and sometimes I find the judgment comes from
people that aren't even in that realm but they think that somehow they're
gonna hop to that realm have you faced any criticism in terms of because you
are making your living I'm assuming doing corporate videos which there's
still a sense of creativity yeah there's you're still doing
something there there's a sense of play I know you have to have the client
approving and some clients are probably easier than others but yeah how have you
dealt with that well so first I would say like I I do a lot of commercial
corporate but that's not all you know I do features as well like I do make a
living doing all of that stuff okay it's kind of spread out each day is different
literally and yeah there's a weird unspoken judgement about anything that's
not that upper tier or feature work or television work it's weird it's almost
like the work that's not that is not legitimate which i think is ridiculous
you look at anyone who's made it any any person you respect all of them got their
start doing Robert Altman did corporate video training films and he used that in
his career you know when he was directing big movies wally pfister the
DP for Christopher Nolan he started doing news Roger Deakins did
documentaries all of those guys whenever you read interviews with them they often
refer to those times before the skills they learn while they were doing those
jobs there is no shame in that like it is important training ground and if you
can do some stuff in that realm you're getting to practice on a level that if
you fail it's okay I'm much rather work out the kinks I'm working with an actor
on a corporate video versus when I'm directing for Warner Brothers I would
way rather figure it out back then before I get up there then I'm the least
seasoned that I know what I'm talking about when I get there so yeah it's
really and I never understood that and you're right it often comes from people
who weren't even one working up there anyway but what I have noticed is that
even you know like I said I've been able to carve out a niche doing dramatic
storytelling for corporations and things like that often the people I've met in
in the industry in LA are kind of like they they I've heard many times I've
never seen anyone do this before I've never I might have been directing as
much as you are and I'm not saying that to be arrogant I'm just saying it's
there I think most people are missing this enormous opportunity to practice
and get paid to practice and again it comes from this positive thing I'm going
to choose to use this as a positive and get it to get me where I need to go
because those things will get you in those doors
I think because it I mean the half the stuff am i real is corporate but you all
look like it yeah I know I mean you have in you have a beautiful use of color too
well that seems like you you really focus on I'm using just interesting
color palettes
you