Chris Gore, Founder/Owner of Film Threat/Author/Filmmaker: I hear these to me horror stories from friends
that have gotten themselves in north of a hundred thousand dollars in debt from their
education.
Film Courage: Is it a good idea to turn your passion into a business?
Chris: Oh I think I think if you are starting a business that is not your passion that's
a mistake your your business must be something you're passionate about is it distributing
documentaries is it a a new streaming service is it a type of chocolate I mean whatever
it is if you I don't think a business can succeed unless you're passionate about what
it is and I think it's important to have that mission statement in your head I mean i'm
constantly altering it for film threat but yeah I don't know how you could even be successful
in a business that you're not passionate about but I also think it's important to be sober
minded
if you were passionate about crochet toilet paper holders and there's not a market for
that it might fail i'm talking about hand crocheted toilet paper holders that may be
the greatest business idea ever i'm going to guess it isn't but I just you know whatever
it is that you're passionate about I think I just don't see how you could succeed from
a business standpoint because there's so much sacrifice involved in business it is you know
and for my friends that have very traditional jobs I have friends that have nine to five
jobs they don't understand that i'm never not working you know if it's 9 p.m on a Saturday
night and my website goes down I have to be available to be able to solve that problem
right so and I have to be passionate enough about it that it's not an interruption it's
something that i'm leaping to to take care of it right but I do think it's also about
a balance there is freedom in having your own business because I can decide well this
morning i'm you know it's 11 in the afternoon i'm gonna go see a movie and I can do that
it's also part of my job sometimes but yeah I really feel like if you don't have that
passion then don't do that as as a job really because once you do it it doesn't even feel
like work I mean my job doesn't I never even describe it as work you know it's just it's
my purpose for being here when that teacher said to you don't you want the nine to five
job i'm sorry that was high school that was high school yeah okay and did they send a
note home to say you know dear mrs gore by the way your son no no I didn't we're worried
about him I didn't get pushback from that but I do feel I feel betrayed by my high school
education from this standpoint I it was very much focused on just making good workers for
certain types of jobs and I don't know if traditional pathways for education are preparing
preparing young people for for the types of jobs that are out there I feel in a way it
might it might be easier to just start your own job I mean my pathway which is very non-traditional
and i'm not recommending this i'm just telling you as an example here's what I did I felt
somewhat betrayed by my high school education in the sense that I took I was like got very
good grades in school a's and b's 3.5 3.6 plus gpa average it's I did well but I sort
of stepped outside my comfort zone said I want to be a writer I better learn to type
so I took a typing class and I did not get a good grade in typing I got a c and I got
a c because I didn't type fast enough and I thought the criteria was wait a sec I care
about accuracy you know so I mean now I type fairly fast but you know at the time I thought
well why am I being knocked out like i'm actually that's like outside of the required curriculum
I also took a whole met class because I wanted to cook right and I will say this just in
the days where I was single and I cooked it was as if I did a magic trick I do think that
developing skills that are useful in life are really important and I meet too many of
my friends who don't have skills and I feel like a lot of the skills that I developed
in high school and beyond were skills that were either things that I chose to do and
maybe didn't succeed as well or they were recreational for example when I was in college
I read a book on marketing called marketing warfare that taught me almost everything I
needed to know about marketing brilliant it it basically this book marketing warfare which
is an updated version taught me about the rivalries between coke and pepsi mcdonald's
and burger king the concept of free and how that is used in marketing and that taught
me a lot also I read that book for fun I was not assigned that book I just read it I also
read a book on advertising by george ogilvy called ogilvy on advertising that was also
a recreational read I learned about fonts I learned that white type against a black
background looks 10 larger among other sort of useless pieces of information that are
kind of ingrained in my head about why things work the differences between non-serif and
serif fonts graphic design so I tended to expand my horizons by just recreationally
reading books that had nothing to do with my chosen pathway which was filmmaking additionally
in terms of my education I grew up pretty poor single mother raised us and I really
wanted to go to usc film school I really wanted to go to usc why george lucas went there and
george lucas was my hero because he made star wars and I want to go to the same school that
george lucas went well my family being poor it wasn't even an option for me and I mean
I was disheartened I was going to this commuter college wayne state university in detroit
and I was taking their film courses and recreationally reading books about marketing and fonts and
it was I know it sounds strange but I really want to glean all that knowledge and and when
I was I was just so disheartened and I remember going on this kind of life-changing trip to
the west coast my mother took my sister and I to go visit my uncle who lived in the San
Diego area and I begged her I said look I know we're gonna go to like Disneyland and
do the touristy stuff can you just take me to the campus of of of USC just please take
me to the campus and we just drove onto campus and I went to their bookstore and I took all
the money that I had brought for this trip and I bought a copy of every book that I could
afford from the film program literally a stack of books this big going into my suitcase bought
every single book and the books that I couldn't afford to buy didn't have enough money for
I just wrote down the name of the book and the author and I went back to and I read all
those books and I said if I can't afford this education and if I cannot afford to go to
this school i'm going to read all the same books as the as the the the rich kids that
are going to this school i'm just going to read all the same books so i'll have that
knowledge I took I took that list of books and those books that I had purchased and I
typed up a list and I passed it out to my film class and I said hey check it out we
were reading some of those books but not all of them I said this is what the students at
USC are reading I feel like like i'm just going to read all these books and that's what
I did oddly enough I dropped out of school it was really a conflict between I remember
at the time my parents debating over who should pay for my education I was getting some financial
aid but I was working three jobs I still had paper routes when I was in college so I worked
at a video store restaurants on the weekends and I had newspaper routes and getting financial
aid and just trying to do my best to get through college and it was it was a lot so I finally
just said I can't I can't continue doing this you know and I that's when I decided I would
just do this thing called film threat because I could it would give me an excuse to talk
to filmmakers because they'd have to talk to me because I was doing this zine right
and I ended up you know months after the first issues of film threat came out I dropped out
of college years later ironically I wrote a book called the ultimate film festival survival
guide which is now for a lot of film programs in their in part of their independent film
studies my book is required reading so I have done speaking engagements at certain colleges
so I just find it funny that here I am like I dropped out of college dropped out of film
school never completed my formal education and now I talk to students who have read my
book which is filled with a lot of no bs advice about how to launch your your career in independent
film when you saw the list of books for USC at that time when you had visited la did you
almost feel like you were being led in on a secret in some way wow when I when I when
I looked at the types of books that that were part of that program it was kind of like getting
a glimpse into like this secret world because there was a better balance of there were some
film theory you know and and you know critical essay types of books that got into a philosophy
of film and cinema but then there were more production books cinematography right production
sound like much more of the much more about the craft of filmmaking so I felt that their
choices of books had a much better balance but I was pleased to see some of the some
of the the philosophical books mixed in there as well I really think it's like what you're
what you're attracted to I love the philosophy I also think at the end of the day you know
you got you got to know you got to know how everything functions and works together you
have to know about editing not just the theory of editing but how to physically do it so
I so I think that and a lot of trade schools have cropped up where you can pay you can
pay a sum of money and just get an education and trade but I feel like you're never not
done with your education I mean myself even like i'm always learning something i'm always
listening to you know filmmaker commentary and podcasts and and and whatnot i'm i'm always
i'm always learning it's like that that thirst for knowledge has never it's never left me
would you recommend to well maybe this is too personal but but having gone a route that
wasn't as traditional no no you can go too okay I mean as someone who also dropped out
of school and it was mostly because of financial reasons if I were to have children now I don't
know what I would advise them but I don't have kids so I don't have to worry about that
but just as a parent what did you tell yeah I you know I really think it's it's it comes
down to a personal choice I feel like there is a generation that may have not been given
enough useful education that would apply to what what the marketplace is looking for that's
why I think you see the rise of so many independent creators whether it be on youtube filmmakers
and whatnot there's so much more opportunity for independent creators but I do think it's
important to have that base knowledge you know so I don't know I gosh it's a it's a
tough one one thing I do know is I never advise friends of mine who are making films to ever
go in debt I mean I know I know the math I know that if you borrow thirty thousand dollars
on a credit card and only pay the minimum it'll take you over a decade to pay it off
and you'll pay almost a hundred thousand dollars don't do that and so student loans not recommended
if there is any way to get around getting yourself in any sort of debt go that way so
do I recommend or not recommend a formal education I feel like that's your personal choice what
I will say is don't go into debt if there's any way to avoid debt or manage it or at least
know that if you're going to go into a reasonable amount of debt that you're able to afford
it you know it's it's it's something that is viable not something you get nor I hear
these to me horror stories from friends that have gotten themselves in north of 100 000
in debt from their education and I think this is crazy you know you'll never build up any
sort of financial security so that I would recommend avoid debt but choose your own pathway
whether it's a non-traditional one or a traditional in terms of your education and never ever
stop learning meaning you always got a book that you're reading or commentary that you're
listening to I always this is why I don't mind la traffic which I know we all sit in
a lot if you live in l.a you're going to be in traffic i've got a book ready to go i'm
not I don't really because I spend too much time in front of a screen most days that I
don't tend to read a book but i'm very well listened so I will listen to a lot of books
and I tend to go between I love biographies you know autobiographies written by the author
I and I tend to go from non-fiction to fiction I just ping pong between the two and yeah
i'm a big big audible fan so but yeah like that education should never be ending you
should always be curious and always be challenging yourself and if you're not thinking if you're
not thinking and questioning it's like well that's then you're just you know no one's
ever done I mean like devices that we have they're not done that's why that's where firmware
upgrade updates come from right so I consider my continuing education to be firmware updates
to my brain I know that's a weird way of putting it someone out there who's watching or listening
to this is going to understand it but I feel my continuing education is just a series of
firmware updates.
What book are you reading right now?