Film Courage: What have you found is the best way to make money as a filmmaker?
Ryan Harriss, Filmmaker: I think that's a tough question. It's really important that
obviously a lot of people I think forget that filmmaking, you have to pay people for what
they do because there's the thing in Los Angeles that I’ve noticed a lot is people tend to
use exposure as currency and I think that becomes Oh well you're going to get so much
exposure if you do this for free and for free and I think a lot of people try and get freebies
from people but I think making money as a filmmaker is something that I don't think
ever gets easier. I always have to take side jobs, editing jobs or jobs on set and stuff
like that or for example I worked in a rental house and whatever you can do that's going
to pay your bills that gets you the closest to filmmaking and movie making is just as
important.
Film Courage: Without naming names are you able to share one of your worst jobs? You
don't have to say of course where. We'd rather you not but it just what the duties were.
Ryan: I’ve had a lot of bad jobs I worked the director I was friends with the actor
and the the actor knew that I was a director and the director of that actual project was
like this tyrannical sort of intense he would I think he thought that shouting and yelling
equaled direction and and and he was get we would get frustrated all the time and we were
we were traveling all over the country and there was one experience where he my friend
who was the actor was trying to perform this scene and he wasn't quite getting it the way
that the director wanted it and he came up to me because he knew I was a director and
he said what like what are you what do you think and I was just there as an AC [focus
puller, or 1st assistant camera] I was there pulling focus I didn't want to get involved
in any of that stuff but he was a friend of mine so I sat there I was like 20 I think
at the time so I was like well if you maybe do this or it might be more interesting if
you try this or that so he would try those things and the director would just get furious
at him and was like where are you getting this who is telling all this information and
he would point right at me and say oh Ryan I was talking to Ryan earlier and he would
tell and I’m just like no so I got yelled at in a trailer pretty intensely for a while
about that so there's I mean there's been some really really bad you work with a lot
of people that that are that that have egos that don't seem warranted or necessary or
even earned to be honest so a lot of the sets that i've worked on have been are pretty difficult
and and can be very difficult but then you work on great sets with with amazing people
and you you earn a lot of amazing friendships that way too but I i still have some nightmares
from that do you think that coming from another state there were some unspoken rules that
it took a while to learn because I know other states even Northern California there's a
different way people approach people and just learning that that unspoken culture yeah it
took some time the culture of like filmmaking of like film sets and stuff like that yeah
or and and just being in LA and whether to pick somebody a script that you see it's well
at a restaurant or yeah I think where I grew up I was very isolated like I said it was
a very very small town I had one movie theater and one video rental spot and so the culture
in that town was very positive it was very sort of like you can do anything that you
want to do and and you can be anything that you want to be and everybody was very supportive
so you had this sort of community I think I was like one out of two people that wanted
to make movies in that town so there was this sort of culture of like well you're the one
guy that wants to do this so everybody kind of if we do if we need something like that
done we go to you so it was a lot sort of more community oriented and friendly and then
moving out la it's just there's just more people and there's more money and there's
more ideas and there's just it's so it's it's a completely different culture to the pacific
north northwest as far as just people go i've never lived in a place with so many people
that's actually been so isolating it's really interesting how isolating los Los Angeles
can be you there's this the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and you have this 60 mile wide
landscape of Los Angeles that is actually really beautiful and you somehow feel just
so alone when you move out here you feel at least I did in my experience I felt so well
i'm by myself and I got to figure out how to do this and and and make it work so so
in that regards yeah they're two very different cultures and it is different culture film
set wise too I worked in a couple film sets up in up in Portland [Oregon] and there is
a there is a sort of a a different vibe being small fish or I’m sorry being big fish in
a smaller pond up north tends to drive more egos I think whereas in my experience down
here there's a lot of fish but it's a huge pond and though there are very egotistical
people there are a lot of really really good people who just want to continue to do what
they love so I had a very, very different experience on film sets down here versus versus
up there how important is it for you to quit a day job so that you can put all your time
into filmmaking or is that not something that's important to you that's yeah I think it's
really important I think it's easy to get it's easy to get comfortable excuse me especially
in a job like a rental house it's very easy to sort of sit there and go well i'm getting
paid I get to work with cameras I get to do for the most part be around the things that
I love and meet some really amazing people but I think it's really really important that
if you can to just focus on what you love and really really work really really hard
at it and put a lot of time into it and I think a day job is great people you at the
end of the day we all have to pay bills and we all we have to live so I don't think there
should be any level of of pride where you say well i'm not going to take this job i'm
better than that or i'm better than this I think that anything that's going to allow
you to continue to do what you do.
Hold on to that because for me it was very much working at a rental house still allowed
me to make movies and work on the weekends and meet people in the film industry and make
really really great connections with people but having not worked there now being here
full time and doing working on my company full time in our movie full-time it's the
most rewarding thing that I've ever done in my life so far so it's definitely important
to not lose sight of of what you love but I get it it's you you have to pay your bills
and it's and it's tough and and sometimes people I know a lot of people work jobs they
don't want to work and we've all been there so was it also helpful with the rental house
that if something went wrong with the equipment you could kind of file that away and say okay
next time I need to yeah just I remember this guy brought this back because this happened
or oh yeah definitely I mean when you work in a roundhouse there are you learn so much
about the technology and and these things are it is a technical process and and there
are people there that are just these these gurus who know the ins and outs of every little
thing and and I was very fortunate to be able to work under them and learn the ins and outs
of tons of different camera systems and and as well as I grew up on film so I learned
a lot of the majority of my camera knowledge was film knowledge because I learned sort
of that film was kind of the way to go and and and and so that was my base understanding
so digital cameras was like this completely different world to me but having spent time
there and working with them you do learn a lot and so there was a lot of things where
you go well this camera doesn't really work that well in low light or this camera we had
this problem with with this specific lens that we were using let's try different lens
next time and so there's a lot of trouble it very much allows for for troubleshooting
and learning and educating you know.
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