Film Courage: Do you think that most Hollywood filmmakers started out as
quote-unquote working-class filmmakers? Or do you think that
there was something that was different in their journey?
Evan Kidd, Filmmaker/Podcaster: Yeah it's hard to say. I’m certainly not a Hollywood filmmaker so
it's hard to know exactly but from what I’ve gathered over the years watching many interviews,
going to film festivals, meeting some filmmakers that I love, I’ve understood there's two paths
to do it. There's the hardest path which is almost like playing the lottery which
is essentially making sure you are in the right place at the right time with the right people
and you have a bunch of connections and you have a bunch of people around you who know how to make
this happen and you're also privileged enough to have all those connections fall into place
so that's tough because 99 of people can't quite get there but I think a lot of times
the other route which is kind of I guess the way i'd like to go which is maybe the the road
less traveled which I feel like is just making many smaller films over a period of time and
trying to make an impact with that and seeing what can happen and seeing what is available to
you with the resources you have around you so I would certainly kind of look at it that way
but it is certainly interesting because I think a lot of times people think the hollywood way
is the only way and I think with with time people are seeing that it's not
well since you've done music videos you've probably seen bands or artists whatever in
the music industry that probably maybe they didn't set out to be big names but then somehow
their career took them that way I wonder if that's just the way it happens it's just people that
just really have a desire to tell something whether it's through music or film
and then ends up taking them there yeah I got to work with a rapper out of baton rouge
named caleb brown who recently got signed to rostr records a couple years back and that was
Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa's label and I kind of got a little peek behind the curtain of how a big
label runs and it was really interesting because they in their instance were really kind and they
let him do a lot of his own stuff and they got to really trust their artist which I think is rare
the little bit of understanding I could gather and that's certainly different because it's the
music industry was that a lot of labels don't run that way and so it was it was interesting
to kind of get a glimpse of that and then kind of apply it to what I do which is the film industry
which also does not always run that way because I think a lot of times
if you do get into the big league so to speak you sometimes have to compromise some of your morals
or your values or the types of films you want to make you may have to make that rent check so you
just do something that kind of takes you off the path that you're hoping to go and sometimes you
end up down that path for a while and you kind of forget the original path and so I always try to as
best as possible stay connected to the the source message of what resonates with me as an artist
and it seems like so many artists whatever the genre start out as more
the introverted kid in their bedroom doodling or creating music or doing a little film set
and they're not really looking to be part of that big group they just love doing that
and then if they're really good it somehow takes them out into the big group and then they're like
wait a minute I don't know if I want to be here I like doing it on my own that's where I feel safe
yeah yeah it's certainly really interesting because I i kind of feel that on a personal
level for myself like I love going to big crews and when I was doing music videos like we we did
a giant crew for one and it was weird because it was like I don't touch that camera like that
that's his job is like it would be weird if I went over and touched that camera and like for me
coming from north carolina like sometimes we would pass the camera around to like see different
people's ideas and like that's just not the way it works on a professional set and that's okay and
that's by design and certainly like my films now I don't do that but it's just interesting kind of
like life happens fast but sometimes you blink and you find yourself on those bigger sets
and it's certainly a very cool experience but then sometimes people say oh once i'm there i'm
never going back one of the things I did while I was making that music video was I was making that
couple hundred dollar tv show in louisiana home remedy and two days after I did that big shoot
I drove a couple hours down across Louisiana for a shoot on the tv show and it was just me and two
people with a canon 60. and so it was like I just wanted to make that story and that wasn't
the story that was going to pay my bills the music video was but it was something to me that I didn't
feel like just because I got here didn't mean I couldn't go back to my roots when I wanted to so
we heard you almost didn't go to film school Evan is that true I thought about a couple different
options I ended up going to film school because I loved the professors who I met I went to a
very small film school that's within a larger art department at East Carolina University in
North Carolina and I loved the the faculty who were there because they they truly were very
realistic with me about the odds of filmmaking which you would think would scare people off but
to me actually I appreciated the the earnestness and the honesty and the sincerity that they said
there they basically said we'll teach you how to make a film but it's not going to guarantee that
you're going to go to be Spielberg and I had just gone through a bunch of college tours at the time
with people saying hey do you want to be the next Spielberg do you want to be the next this and
and it felt gimmicky and you could kind of feel a little bit of the pull and I mean of course
someone's going to be the next whatever right that's just how the world works but
the odds are that it's probably not going to be you so instead of billing it as do you want to be
the next insert famous person here it was built to me as do you want to know how to do this to almost
like learning a craft like welding or something like that and to me that was more interesting so
they they pitched that and they also pitched like more practical ways to use filmmaking shooting
corporate videos music videos weddings things like that like I think a lot of times film schools
try to like shove that part under the rug a little bit and they say well that's not glamorous we're
only going to teach you the the cool stuff but but they kind of opened the whole toolbox and
I certainly appreciated that and I think i've taken a little bit of that with me along the way
it seems like so much of anything that's I mean did you watch the last dance yeah so if you if you
look at some of it it's incredibly glamorous and you see but then the the viewer was allowed to go
behind the scenes to some parts that were very very painful and then some parts that weren't
that glamorous but we don't really think about that so I think that it seems like for a lot of
professions like these the creme de la creme we don't really see that a lot of it isn't glamorous
and a lot of it's tedious and so I think it's great that your professor or professors were
a little more realistic with you and yeah didn't try to make it seem because I think then
people get blindsided and then yeah they have dashed expectations they do yeah and
I think that's why there's a lot of burnout in the film industry and that's why people
turn to things and there's a lot of mental health issues people don't talk about and there's just
a lot of things that I think don't need to be there if we don't set the expectation at Steven
Spielberg if we maybe set the expectation at you're learning a craft you're learning how to
do this so you can tell the stories you want to tell certainly doesn't mean anyone's going
to watch but I think it's a lot of times being realistic with it and also saying you can get
these stories out of your head and put them out and hopefully with time people will see that and
people will take notice and and I appreciate the like you said the earnestness of that.
Question For The Viewers:
Which Hollywood director has the best success story?