Film Courage: What did you learn in film school that you didn't already know? Evan Kidd: I think
film school certainly taught me like a lot of the important basics of cinematography, of lighting of
making sure that microphones work in the best way. But I do think it also taught me
how to be resourceful because I think for for me certainly something that happened was our film
school didn't have a giant budget, didn't have a giant production closet with all the gear we
needed and everything like that. A lot of times it would just be like here's the assignment,
make sure you find a way to make it happen and that's just the way it went and I think a lot of
people might see that as a drawback but to me like having those creative restrictions
kind of opened up the freedom a little bit and it allowed me to sort of understand the way that I
would later be making a lot of films in the quote unquote real world. I liked that I didn't ever get
comfortable in the the film school bubble because I know a lot of people that get in
the film school bubble and then when it pops after graduation they're like what
the real world is crazy you know there's not people wanting to hold my hand and you know
provide a full lighting kit and makeup department you know it it it's it's fine like you know
that's one way to do it and you know i truly think there's no you know right or
wrong way but i just know for me that seemed to resonate the most with what i was doing
so you appreciated having to be scrappy and find things and and resourceful and
and not maybe not things being so easily provided yeah yeah absolutely i think for me like
the the scrappiness was almost the like the fun of it you know it was almost like
uh solving a puzzle and you know certainly like there's a lot of headache that comes with the
scrappiness and it's not glamorous and i mean you're not gonna sell people on filmmaking on the
scrappiness alone unless they've gone through it um on paper you know if you're just describing it
to someone i think a lot of times people be like why would you want to do that you know why would
you put yourself through that um but i think when you're surrounded with good people which is uh
majorly majorly majorly important like making sure the people on your crew the actors
um they're all in the same headspace with you if you're in a project with them for you know
extended periods of time and you're you know like staying for late hours and you know eating
like cheap meals around a campfire in the woods if you're shooting on location like i mean you gotta
make sure you like the people um but yeah i think it's like when you finally get those circumstances
aligned uh for me the scrappiness is kind of like a runner's high like it's like oh hey we figured
it out you know we were able to do it despite the you know the setback or the challenge so
um i always say like be be open to being scrappy because i think it's a good skill set have you
always been like that with other things where you kind of you like problem solving in some
some capacity like if stuff's too easy it's almost boring yeah it's funny like i feel like if
something is too easy you're right it is a little bit boring and i think like a lot of times there's
a perception right that things have to come easy or things you know if you're doing it right
if you're successful then you know you're you're sipping you know drinks at the beach and you're
not thinking about things and you know and that's fine for like i don't know like a week a year
maybe but the rest of the year like i really do enjoy a challenge like i think that's why
um i enjoy filmmaking so much is because you know trying to to frame you know a tiny portion of the
world in the camera and this little rectangle like that's it and that's the challenge but it's funny
like it sometimes is so all-encompassing like a lot of times i will like have to stop myself and
be like wow what i'm doing is kind of ridiculous like you know we're all trying to pull this weird
shot off and you have to be able to almost like laugh at yourself and be like this is
you know a little silly but at the end of the day um it matters and it's you know the the little
tool you take to tell the larger story um and i think it's it's like being able to zoom out
in that fashion that i think uh is invaluable just to kind of put you know broader context into what
you're attempting to do as a storyteller what did film school not teach you that maybe there
would be no class on it you just had to find out on your own yeah there's no curriculum that
could have showed you that yeah um i think film school you know it didn't always teach me about
the way the the hardship hits you when you get out um i knew it would be difficult
to you know get funding and i knew it would be difficult uh you know if i went and did the
film festival circuit because you know there's certainly a lot of rejection there's certainly
a lot of different things that happen there but i think a lot of times they don't prepare you
for the way to deal with it and that's you know no slide against a film school that's not really
their thing that almost borders into like mental health but i think there is some of that in the
film industry that maybe deserves to be talked about um it's that it's okay to get rejected
it's okay to make a film and have a couple hundred views on youtube and call it a day
um i think one of the things i've learned is that you really can't get caught into your
own work so much as an artist because uh you know the goal like i mentioned earlier for me at least
is to just create a body of work and keep things moving forward at all times and kind of continuing
a forward momentum and i feel like a lot of times if you get too analytical with yourself you stop
moving forward and you stay really stagnant um and it's it's challenging because you know these films
a lot of times they're very personal stories and they're things that we truly you know put
our all into and so i think at the end of the day it's certainly understandable that we care a lot
about them and we want them to be the best that they can be um but you know i think at a certain
point you also need to know when to walk away like you know at a certain point you need to say
okay this car i've been driving uh it's i need to leave it on the side of the road and get a new car
you know and it's always difficult to do and i think a lot of times you know it's
going to be a different point for everyone but it's finding ways to make sure that you
are always going forward i think that's uh one of the biggest challenges in filmmaking yeah
and i understand you love the office the tv show the office i do yeah i love the office
um i i love it because it's so random and i think that uh another thing i love about it is it does
a very good job of being funny but also being very sincere at times too and i love bait and
switch for me every time i make a movie i think i bill it a little bit differently than people end
up maybe taking away from the final product you know a lot of times um people will say oh that
looks like a comedy and they'll walk away and be like that was a drama wasn't it or vice versa um
i like to kind of switch things out and kind of blend the line a little bit and keep it
blurry with genre and i think yeah the the office like it does an exceptional job at that sometimes
so let's say you've written a feature script and you are going to be flown to Scranton PA
to use all of the cast as their characters who would you appoint as the director oh man um
i actually think stanley would be a great director stanley from the office
because he's very no-nonsense um he just wants to get it done and i think a lot of times
that's undervalued as that kind of workman uh like attitude because i think you would
think oh someone's super charismatic or someone super artistic maybe better but i think a lot of
times uh just just realizing that like this is a thing that needs to get done a b and c need to be
checked off and then you go home and then you make your art um i think sometimes that's undervalued
a lot of times so i think he would be very good at uh keeping keeping the train on the track yeah and
if there was conflict on set as there sometimes is what do you think that dynamic what would happen
if you had all those characters and who would come in and fix it who would save the day um ah man you
know i think pam would be very good at mediating conflict i think she would be able to say okay
this is a dumb argument we need to stop we need to get back on track um i think like michael and
dwight would probably be the ones stirring the pot a lot maybe even kevin inadvertently um but yeah
i now i really want to see a uh office episode like as a film set i think that would be amazing
and and uh one last question then we'll move on about this so then if there was a
film screening and everybody got to attend what would the red carpet be like who was
who'd be the one that would take the most time with all the answers on the red carpet
oh man um i think creed i think creed would take a lot of time and i think creed would take selfies
with every person that asked i think and he would give them like a different fact about himself
that you would not know um i i see creed as being like the the wild card people person of that crew.
Question For The Viewers: What do you wish was taught in film school?