Film Courage: Jesse, how did you convince your
parents that making a movie was better than going to college?
Jesse Harris, Filmmaker: Well, it took a lot of convincing for sure I think that I
my whole life I was just always kind of doing my own thing making films from an early age and
I it was never one that I really liked learning in a classroom setting and I kind of knew that
I was probably gonna do it they probably knew that I was going to do it either way with or
without their help and so they could they could kind of get behind and try to help me with this
or I would just be going off and doing it either way and so I think they kind of knew I was really
self-driven and and had kind of that in me and and that's just what I thought was best for for
me to learn kind of how to expand my career but I had to put together a budget and proposal and
kind of explain to them how to do this and that I would hire actual adult filmmakers
I guess and it would be an actual kind of learning experience it would basically be
my film school just a totally different version of it and yeah it I think once they actually saw
it coming together they realized it really was a pretty amazing thing to to have pulled off even to
and the fact that it ended up getting a small distributor and and had this release and I think
that it was kind of a once in a lifetime kind of experience just that and so much
came from it both for me personally and professionally and
it was I don't necessarily think that that's what everyone should do but for me it was the right
thing and and really worked out I think were your parents teachers no my dad was like a carpenter
my mom was a small business consultant so none of them had any connection to film or creativity
anything like that but yeah when it was all said and done how much did it cost to make that movie
my first feature I think cost about sixty thousand dollars like I tried to figure out like how could
I make this the smallest amount of money possible but still make it look and feel like a real movie
and then how much could I raise I basically how I funded it was I got friends and family to kind
of give money kind of the Kickstarter model but like this was in 2003 2004 even before really
that existed but that same idea and and then I basically went to my parents and said hey would
you consider giving the money that I would have used you would have maybe put into helping me
with college to make this movie instead so kind of putting it all that together plus lots of other
kind of in-kind things was able to make this movie at the age of 17 that this was in again 2003 when
we shot it I was a senior in high school or just about to be and so if you watch it now it probably
wouldn't feel that legit but but back then it definitely felt and looked like a real movie and
was definitely impressive for us I was so young to have fold off I guess yeah how much convincing did
that take for them to put in your quote-unquote college fund into this film I think it definitely
took a lot of convincing yeah at first they didn't necessarily think that was the best idea but I
they kind of knew I was gonna do it one way or the other and it I just had always been been like that
the film they knew that like I instead of like having other passions projects I didn't really do
Sports I I didn't like have a lot of other things outside of it like this was my passion was making
films and I spent all my time working on it and writing and creating stuff and so they just knew
that that's what I wanted to do and that's what I was going to do and so I think they saw they could
they could actually help me do that and rather than trying to hold me back or force me to to go
down a certain model I could do this and I would learn something from it either way even if it was
a complete disaster I would learn how to have made a film and how to almost run a a business
in a sense right because you have to manage the budget and hire people and all that stuff and
my mom was a kind of a business consultant for helping people start their own small businesses
so she was she was almost a de facto producer even though she didn't know anything about it but she
was able to kind of give me all these insight into actually how to pull that off and everything and
yeah it was definitely an adventure so they knew that the Jesse train was leaving and
if they wanted to get on they could get on but it was going to happen totally yeah okay yeah
when it was all said and done were they did they sit you down and say we're glad we did
this and this is pretty cool definitely no I think the first time I put together
like a little trailer while we were editing the movie and they saw it and I think they were kind
of blown away because they hadn't really seen much while I was filming and making the movie
they were supporting by like helping do some craft service and stuff but they barely even
came to the set like they kind of let me do my own thing and so when they saw it yeah I think
they were kind of completely blown away because it was such a different elevation beyond what I had
done before which was much more of a home movie style kind of thing and so yeah I know they were
really impressed and I think realized it was no matter what would happen with it it was it would
have been worth it for kind of the experience I'd learned all the different aspects of kind
of pulling this together what I had learned and and the experience I'd gotten from it
so you still had to go back to morning classes or whatever even after you shot it and you're
still in high school as a senior yeah totally so I shot it between the summer of my Junior
and Senior year and so then I basically was editing it after school during my senior year
again I hired like a real editor let's say like not just my friend like someone who was
a grown-up I guess because I was like 17 18 years old who had done a couple films
and so he would basically edit it during the day and I would go to his house after I left
school in the afternoon and we would work out a seed and then I'd do that the next day and
yeah so while my friends were going to like I don't know what after school they would always ask
me to hang out and be like sorry I can't I gotta go into my movie and they didn't really realize
what I was actually working on and what I was doing but uh yeah it was definitely a a different
kind of senior year but it was awesome and this was all before DSLRs too correct so yeah we Shot
the movie on it was called like DVC Pro 50 so this was almost like before HD was even like HD cam was
just starting to come out this was like this was this weird time period in the early 2000s where
cameras were still kind of figuring themselves out yeah this was before DSLR this was like a kind of
a very weird time of of transition I guess for me personally like I started editing on like
taped tape with like VHS tapes that was kind of my generation LH and then By the time by
the time we started making the feature where I was editing on with Final Cut I guess at the time and
but yeah it was it was it was the area where you still had to like make a DVD to be able to like
watch it at your house or whatever so yeah the movie was living life correct yeah a movie was
called living life it was it was about a teenage boy who gets cancer and kind of what he does with
his life after that kind of a coming-of-age movie it would feel like a Hallmark or kind
of like Lifetime movie now it's not I don't really know why I made this movie it hasn't
it had no personal connection at the time to it I think I'd become really interested in just the
fact that films could make you feel something and I was trying to kind of tap into some emotion and
I think at the time too there was there were so many films that were kind of dealing with that
subject of like loss or dying and I think that was my kind of how a lot of filmmakers copy something
when they're starting out rather than copying the exact story I was kind of copying this mood that
I wanted to create and the mood was was I guess to make people sad or make people feel something
and so that's kind of where that idea came from it's not the film I would have I would make now
and it's not the film I think I should have made but I was able to kind of weave in elements for
my life and kind of this kind of teenage angst kind of vibe I guess of figuring that self out
but because the main character was my same age but the other more serious parts of this
the film didn't have any I didn't have something I could relate to in that sense so I think that part
is probably the weaker part of the film because it's not it's not the authentic part and that's
but I think that was one of the great learning experiences of making it was just kind of
realizing whatever you write it really has to come from some part it has to come from you and and you
got to find that kind of personal connection to really make it feel authentic and real and
so I think I think that's really what I what I took away from making it is just kind of whatever
I was going to write next or the story I was going to make next had to have something that was even
stronger of a kind of personal connection even if it's the characters themselves writing more
of myself into them or something like that and I think that first film because I was so young
I wrote it probably started writing when I was 15 or 16 years old just didn't have that because I
didn't understand at the time that's really what you had to do what were some of the mistakes that
you made on the film looking back I think the main mistakes would be one is just the script not
being strong enough and not having the the real personal connection that I could authentically
kind of tell that story in the best way possible and then I think the other aspect was just under
utilizing kind of the actors and realizing because up until this point I'd use my friends and friends
of friends my parents friends to be my actors right and this was my first time working with
professional actors and so that was really overwhelming and and didn't really know how
to kind of fully get everything out of them I think and so I think if I had done it again I
would have made another short or something first maybe with with professional actors or kind of
I don't know it's it's hard to say because it's I when I went to go make this movie I never thought
okay this is going to be some huge success I never thought it would even get distributed
it was really supposed to be kind of my way of going to film school and learning and that's
what it was it's just if I'm thinking of it as like the critical side of like how could
it have been the best movie that's probably what I should have done but in a sense it was It was
kind of this like film school learning experience all wrapped into into making a movie I guess it
would probably be the best way you could actually become a filmmaker it just would be probably the
most expensive and wasteful way if you if you didn't have it all figured out I guess too but
yeah you tell a similar story to other filmmakers who have let's say student loans from Film School
do they comment do they say anything so yeah I've met a lot of young filmmakers in my day
both as a filmmaker and then I ran this film festival for young directors for many years and
so I've met every kind of filmmaker for once they went to really expensive fancy film schools to
didn't go to any film school and I think the the thing is that there's no perfect or right way for
everyone it's like everyone learns differently for me I just never in general with school I didn't
like being in a classroom and having to kind of sit and learn I want to just get in there and grab
the camera and do it because that's how I learned it from the very beginning as a little kid and so
I think for me I realized just film school it's not I looked at some film scores I thought about
it it's not like I was like anti-film school it just I also really wanted to just make a movie and
start doing it and so I kind of realized I maybe couldn't do both I couldn't do one or the other
and so if I had the opportunity to make a feature I should go do that but that being said I think
there's a huge amount of advantages to film School number one probably the people you meet at it
and the relationships you can build that you can kind of carry on for the rest of your career and
and just even in your social life and of course you can always learning more about filmmaking is
never going to hurt you right so even if you don't think you need or don't want it it can all it's
always going to open up something else and and then probably inspire you in some other way so
definitely not anti-film school but I think that if you really want to be a director I wouldn't
necessarily go to the most expensive Film School put all your money into that there are other ways
to learn and maybe save some of that money to go make it a short or something at least afterwards
so you're I hate to use this term a self-starter it sounds like a something on your resume but it
sounds like you like to just be in the action you like to do things yourself 100 yeah I
ever since a young age I was always very like entrepreneurial I guess
because even when I before I was making movies I was like
as a kid I had like a newspaper and then I was I was actually a magician for a while as a kid
like like a legit one that would do parties and stuff like that cool I did I did some acting but
more like I put on the plays in a lot of ways so I was always just kind of trying to entertain people
and kind of put together experiences I guess I was also a very shy kid and so I wasn't it
was kind of this opposite side of my personality where I would be very shy but then when I could
actually put together some like experience I would kind of turn on or whatever but yeah I
always I always just liked creating things and making people feel something whether that was
from putting on a play or making a little short film or whatever and I think I just realized
because unless I just figured out how to do it myself no one was going to show me because
especially back then it's like you I didn't even own a camera myself when I was a kid we I borrowed
my neighbor's old VHS camera like that's how I made my first little movies and so it's just
so different back then where you couldn't just pick up an iPhone and start making it you had to
you just had to kind of figure it out so I think that's where a lot of that came from was just kind
of like having a force having to figure out how to make this and and pull it off and and I think too
just for my personalities when I decide I'm gonna do something I just go all in and so whether it's
the film or whatever I'm going to do it's like if I decide I'm going to do that then yeah I'm
gonna have to dive in and figure it out and take on every aspect of it to kind of piece it together
and I bet there's so many elements that cross over between being a magician and film
because your sleight of hand of so many things for sure and that was actually one aspect I worked
into that first feature there was this little Side Story with him learning magic from his grandfather
that had been kind of separated from the family and teaching and doing magic at the hospital where
he was being treated which sounds like kind of a sappy store but actually I was doing that at
that same time I was a magician I would go to these hospitals sometimes and do magic and so
I was able to kind of take that kind of story from my own life and yeah I think I I think
magic and film is very similar because it's it's both kind of creating this illusion or whatever
and I just love nothing more than being able to whether it was doing a magic trick back
then which I don't do anymore or film magic trick or whatever but making somebody feel
something that that's really where I I guess I can get off or whatever you want to call it like
basically witnessing someone have a reaction to something you've you've created I just think is
so amazing and so if you can do that in whatever form it's just it's so so exciting to me so yeah.