Film Courage: Looking at your IMDB it shows that you are you said kind of this one man
band.
You are a writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, visual effects, camera.
Looking back do you wish you had spent more time just kind of focused on being a writer
or was that a natural evolution?
You needed to find what you really loved the actual activity of?
Logan Burdick: Filmmaker/Writer: Most of that and again I have an interesting parable that
I do feel relates to that.
Everyone bear with me for a second…so when I graduated USC I did a big thesis film and
I raised money and I tried do a big coming out party.
It failed abysmally.
lt's fine but it literally led to no opportunities.
I owed a bunch of money and basically I had two choices then which was well I can't make
any I can't I can't ask anyone for any more favors I can't ask anyone for more money so
either I don't make anything anymore or I start taking it upon myself to teach myself
all these trades at least in a way to be competent at them so I can keep making things and so
that's basically where that all came from was I wanted to keep making stuff because
I said oh this thing that I’d I tried a big shot at collapsed I it but again it did
not do anything from a professional career perspective but I want to keep having chances
and I want to keep trying so I'm going to have to do this I'm going to have to practice
you know cinematography and I'm going to have to become an editor and I'm going to have
to do all these things otherwise I just kind of I'm not going to be able to keep making
things and that really interestingly led me down the direction of youtube and digital
because then I could one man band shows or pilots and that I made a pilot for a series
that I thought was really awesome and I got pitched to and I basically I did everything
myself I got pitched to a really big digital company at the time called Maker Studios and
the executive who hired me was I don't know what to do with this particular show but would
you come on and do this for another show here and the other thing about myself is anytime
I've been struggling financially it's difficult to pay the rent or my day job is too engrossing
that I can't focus on my own creative pursuits I knew fairly early on that I needed to find
a very specific situation that allowed for enough stability but also enough freedom that
I could keep pursuing the things that I was passionate about and so in this very weird
roundabout way teaching myself to one-man band a digital series then led to my employment
doing that so that then I had enough freedom and mental space that I could come home and
I could write or I could write on the weekend and I wasn't because previous to that I'm
doing all sorts of just really odd odd jobs and random things but that I couldn't concentrate
because I was too stressed and so yes so basically in this very weird way teaching myself all
those crafts and then being able to apply them on digital shows allowed me the freedom
to keep writing so again it's a very roundabout way that that worked for me but I forget exactly
what my thesis is but it was probably something along the lines of figure out what works for
you and understand that it's it's never going it's never probably going to be the the paint
by numbers situation I guess can we go back to the party in the in the film I guess so
you you did this thesis film at USC and then you threw an event a screening or I meant
coming out party in the debutante way but yes I did have I did have a screening sorry
go ahead oh no but I’d love to hear more about it just because I'm just curious what
was the goal you were hoping that maybe prospective employers would would find out in in and you
would then land a job yeah well that's the other that is a little bit of the other problem
right is I think that when you're young you can even have talent and you can have ambition
and you can have all sorts of positive qualities but you also don't really know how the whole
system works real well and I think that now friend I have a I've been gearing up other
independent projects right to do with you know producers I know or talent and that thing
and a lot of people I know have been putting pressure on me for a long time to do something
that again and my thought has always been not not until I feel the dominoes are set
up correctly and I'm going to be a little bit more risk adverse than in that way than
other people but but to me that's also what I kind of learned from doing it when I was
young and going well I again time energy money and I didn't really know what happened after
that I'm sure I had vague notions of someone will give me an opportunity excuse me but
you have to be a lot more specific you know you have to have a strategy and a plan if
you're going to go down that route and so again to me it's important to fail because
that's how you learn and then hopefully you can take those lessons and then you can apply
them later on in a situation where you go okay now I have a much better sense about
how this is all supposed to go down to give me the best chance at being successful or
letting giving this project the best chance to be successful was it really a failure or
just that you had such high expectations for it I do think that again for something to
be the most successful version of itself it's obviously fulfilling goals that you hoped
it fulfilled and in this case that movie did not fulfill said goals but again from the
point of view of just having the experience and doing it and learning everything you do
through that that is also invaluable obviously that it's a very trite cliche thing to say
but you you do need to learn by doing especially in this situation I do think that however
you can mitigate your risk the most that you can because again in this world mistakes are
expensive usually not always but but they even even small projects you know you lose
money when they don't do whatever you were expecting them to do
again I think that it's very important to try to create a scenario in which you can
keep trying
I feel I feel if I had ever been in a situation in which my one my one shot failed then I'm
sure I would have never had any opportunity to achieve any level of success whatever that
means because it takes a lot of tries and it takes a lot of failures and so then I think
the question really is for any individual how do I create a scenario in which I'm allowed
to do that because that is hard right for me I've always been very lucky because I have
a lot of friends who are very talented actors and because they were talented actors and
we have a very good relationship and they trust me to do what I do that then they would
always be willing to put their money into projects so we could keep doing stuff together
you know or again I would also then at the same time be going literally on youtube and
what watching video co-pilot I don't even know if video co-pilot's still around they
they probably are there's something it and learning how to do special effects and learning
how to again how to be a better again I'm not a great DP by any means but at least competent
because that's available to you and then again whatever situation allows you to keep taking
chances because it's a it's a batting average thing you know if you're only up at bat once
yeah maybe you hit it but you're probably not going to you're that's just the reality
so it's how do you how do you figure out how to keep having chances at bat however whatever
that means to you I guess and once you realized this was quote unquote a failure in your eyes
maybe not to other people what did you then start doing to say okay well maybe it wasn't
my one shot and now I have to try it another way I think that that to me um
one thing that that experience taught me was to be a lot more interest I’ll be a lot
more interested in this idea of film as a business and this idea because my my thesis
was was very wacky right it was just it's very odd it did not fit neatly into any box
and I think that that was there was a couple issues and I think that was one issue because
it was well this is probably too strange for the for the industry for the average person
looking to do business with you where does this go it did not neatly fit into any box
and again there are individuals who come out of the gate with something really unique and
avant-garde and pushing the boundary and all sorts of these things and and they are rewarded
for it's important for everyone to realize that that's not everyone there is obviously
everyone wants things that are new and exciting and they want the new and everyone wants to
know what the new cool flavor is and what is gonna get people excited to go see this
movie but there is this very real business aspect to it that if you ignore that you kind
of do that at your own peril and I think the other thing that I thought going into it was
you do something a short for an opportunity just to be hired to do something and again
I do that does happen but I do think that if I were to do it again I would have been
a lot more specific about you know things that seem obvious now where it's you do a
short that is from a feature that you've also already written and that feature is marketable
right or that idea what are the very specific concrete steps that this that this project
is a part of again trying to feed into the idea of it's an industry and a business versus
looking at it as someone wanting to say oh you're
we're just gonna pick you out because you're so talented and again that does happen for
people but it doesn't happen for everyone and then the question ultimately becomes okay
if that didn't happen for me then what can I do to keep trying.
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