Category: Television

Michelle Thrush: 2023 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist

Posted on by James Hutchison
Photograph of Michelle Thrush

On September 16th, 2023, friends, family, and members of the Alberta arts community gathered in Medicine Hat to celebrate this year’s recipients of The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards. This year’s recipients include playwright and theatre artist Mieko Ouchi, film and theatre performer Michelle Thrush and film animators Wendy Tilby & Amanda Forbis.

Chair of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards Arlene Strom said, “Albertans can be proud of the contributions of these Distinguished Artists who have pushed the boundaries of art to reflect Indigenous identity and expression, present a more inclusive and diverse view of Alberta’s history, and highlight the art of film animation in Alberta and worldwide. Each has contributed immeasurably to the development of the province’s artists, arts communities and expanding art disciplines.”

L to R, Arlene Strom, Chair LG Arts Awards Foundation Board, Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbes, Her Honour Salma Lakhani, Mieko Ouchi, Michelle Thrush, Photo credit Randy Feere
L to R, Arlene Strom, Chair LG Arts Awards Foundation Board, Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbes, Her Honour Salma Lakhani, Mieko Ouchi, Michelle Thrush, Photo credit Randy Feere

Her Honour, the Honourable Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta said, “The women receiving the Distinguished Artist Award this year have offered important contributions to the arts in Canada. We have all been granted the opportunity, through their work, to learn and grow in our understanding of the human condition. Artists such as these are essential to the lifeblood of our communities, and we are truly fortunate to have them as cultural leaders in their respective disciplines, in our province and our country as a whole.”

I contacted Mieko Ouchi as well as Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis to talk with them about their work and creative process. You can read those interviews by following the links above. I also spoke with Nehiyaw performing artist Michelle Thrush a multiple award-winning actor whose acting credits include Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, North of 60, Blackstone, Prey, and Bones of Crows. She is also a director, producer, community builder, and one of the founding members and current Artistic Director of the ground-breaking Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society. In our conversation we talked about her career, about her one-woman show Inner Elder, and what it means to be recognized for her work by receiving The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Award.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Michelle, when you look back over the course of your career and the body of your work as an artist in what ways has it been an intentional journey and in what ways has it been more a road of discovery?

MICHELLE THRUSH

That’s an interesting question because back when I was a kid there were not Indigenous people on television or anywhere really. We weren’t a part of the shows I watched like Little House on the Prairie when I was a kid or if we were it was Italians playing us. It was something that wasn’t in our psyche and so in my little brown girl brain I never thought that I could be an actress or work in the arts.

But I grew up loving pretending and loving imagination and I was always trying to get my friends together and direct shows and put on plays. And then when I was sixteen or seventeen, I met a man named Gordon Tootoosis who along with Tantoo Cardinal, Gary Farmer, Grahame Greene, Augee Schellenberg, Margo Kane, and of course Chief Dan George were all doing little bit roles here and there on film and that was the beginning for Indigenous people. I’d see them and think whoa there’s a real native person and they’d have a line in a movie like Running Brave where Robbie Benson who is Jewish played the actual star of Running Brave who was a Lakota.

And Gordon who was just a beautiful indigenous actor really encouraged me to follow my dreams and he said, “Michelle it’s important that we tell our stories from a place of honesty.” My big goal in life at that time was to be a social worker. And I ended up throwing that aside and just going, “Okay, I’m going to move to Vancouver from Calgary at nineteen and I’m going to try and get an agent and I’m just going to hope and pray that auditions come up.”

So, I did all that. Moved to Vancouver. And it took a few years of working in restaurants before I started to get a few little auditions. And I often say in 1992 Dances With Wolves came out and that’s when things began to open up for us as actors, and I ended up getting into a TV series called North of Sixty, and that was the beginning. And things just kind of fell into place after that.

Michelle Thrush as Aruka in 20th Century Studios’ PREY, exclusively on Hulu. Photo by David Bukach. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

JAMES

It’s interesting you mentioned you were looking at being a social worker and I wonder if there are connections between that career and acting. Because social work and sociology look at relationships between people and between people and society and I think an actor has to sensitive towards those kinds of things.

MICHELLE

I think the connection for me was I grew up with two chronic alcoholic parents. And I didn’t realize the trauma that my family had been through because as a kid – and it’s really hard for me to talk about this – but as a child I had so much shame when it came to being an Indigenous person because I related it to the pain and the trauma of my parents and of my grandparents and of my aunts and uncles and everybody else in my family who was alcoholic. And as a child that imagination part for me was about creating these other scenarios that didn’t include violence and all that stuff that comes along with trauma which is a big part of my one-woman show Inner Elder.

Michelle Thrush in her One-Woman Show Inner Elder, Photo Ben Laird

So, when I was a kid, I knew it wasn’t proper that my parents didn’t know how to be parents. I knew it wasn’t proper that they would drink for days and us kids would fend for ourselves. In my brain, I thought if I become a social worker I can create change in this world for children. I can do something that’s going to make sure other Indigenous children don’t have to go through what I went through.

And then I realized through meeting Gordon and getting involved in acting that the power we have as artists can change the world and we wouldn’t have to deal with all the red tape it would take to be a social worker. It was like fast-tracking the ability to create a shift in people’s thinking.

Back then, of course, we didn’t have Truth and Reconciliation. We didn’t realize our families were suffering from this huge history. I just thought that my parents were messed up and I felt a lot of shame because I swore to God that every white kid at my school went home, and their moms would hand them cookies as they walked through the front door, and they had these perfect homes and alcohol didn’t touch white people. That’s how I thought when I was a kid. I thought it was something that was part of who we were as Indigenous people. But then you know obviously I learned that alcoholism touches everybody.

So, that connection between acting and social work was a very strong connection because there was the ability to really affect people’s lives using the arts as opposed to going in and trying to work with the family of Indigenous children. And almost all my work still leans in that direction, you know, trying to create healing. And I always say, “We aren’t in it for Shakespeare. We don’t do what we do to recite Shakespeare. We do what we do to create healing and to contribute to the goodness of our communities and our children.”

Eric Schweig, Darla Contois and Michelle Thrush in the Canadian Drama Television Series Little Bird

JAMES

You mentioned healing and change and you’re one of the founding members and the current Artistic Director of Making Treaty 7 Cultural Society and on your website, it says – “Making Treaty 7 is dedicated to Indigenous artistic expression and the transfer of Indigenous knowledge through story.” So, what are some of the things you feel you’ve accomplished so far and what are some of the plans, goals, and hopes for the future?

MICHELLE

Making Treaty 7 has had this really long history and I’ll just explain a bit of the history about how we began. Michael Greene who was one of the founding members of One Yellow Rabbit and is a beautiful Icon in theatre here in Calgary was a good friend of mine for many years and a huge supporter of the work I did in theatre with Indigenous story. And he was always trying to figure out ways to bring more Indigenous presence into the High Performance Rodeo and whatever else was going on in Calgary.

So, back in 2012 he became the curator of something called Calgary 2012 which was when Calgary became the artistic capital of Canada for a year. He ran that and we put together a committee of about ten of us – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – so we could have an Indigenous presence and we ended up forming a template for what we wanted to do. Part of that was exploring the land and the history here in Southern Alberta and how the land connects us to story. And not a lot of people including us – I’m Cree – my family is from Maple Creek Saskatchewan Treaty 4 but I grew up here in Treaty 7 and I have family who are married into the Blackfoot Confederacy, but we didn’t know much about the treaty.

The Making Treaty 7 production of O’kosi with Garret C. Smith, Mary Rose Cohen, Michelle Thrush, Janine Owlchild, and Dustin Frank. PHOTO: Hidden Story Productions.

So, I didn’t know anything about the treaty and the Blackfoot artists that we brought in didn’t know a lot about the treaty which was signed in September 1877 in Siksika. So, it was a huge learning journey for us, and Micheal ended up writing these big grants and bringing together over a hundred elders from Southern Alberta. And we asked what do you know about Treaty 7? And a lot of their parents and their grandparents were at the Treaty signing and so they opened up this huge vessel for us. And as artists we spent the whole weekend just listening to all these elders talk about the Treaty and the true intention of Treaty 7. And they talked about what life was like leading up to the signing, what life was like on those ten days, and what life was like after the Treaty was signed. What were the repercussions? What happened with the Indian Act. All these things.

And they just filled us up with all this incredible knowledge and we went out to Banff Centre for two weeks. And Micheal asked myself and Blake Brooker to be the directors of the show and I was an actor and a writer on it as well. And we came up with the very first Making Treaty 7 and we had to perform it for the Elders first and get their permission which we did. And it became this huge spectacle of incredible entertainment which brought in all the voices that call Southern Alberta home but was an Indigenously led process.

And since then we’ve been expanding on that and as the Artistic Director my goal is to wake up the stories that belong here. That are a part of this land. And to decolonize theatre and create a safe space for Indigenous people to tell stories of the land and I’m very proud because Making Treaty 7 is doing some really beautiful work.

Bernard Starlight and Quelemia Sparrow in The Making Treaty 7 production of Tara Began’s The Ministry of Grace. Photo Alanna Bluebird

JAMES

You mentioned your own show. You touched on it and I wanted to ask you a little bit about that. It’s called Inner Elder. I saw it when you did it at Lunchbox Theatre and really enjoyed it and thought it was an amazing piece of theatre. And in it you transform into an Elder in the play and it’s moving. It’s funny. What was the genesis of the story and what are some of the highlights of performing that piece?

MICHELLE

So, more than thirty years ago this character started coming through me and she was an old woman and she loved comedy. Her name is Kookum Martha and she was very much a clown in a lot of ways. And so I started to do comedy and she started to be known as an MC of various Indigenous conferences and concerts in Canada. And I hosted the Inspire Awards on CBC a few years back and we did some things with Kookum on there. And in 2018 Ann Connors was the curator of the High Performance Rodeo and she had seen my Kookum character and Anne’s like, “Why don’t you create a big show and we’ll fund you and we’ll present you for the Rodeo.”

Michelle Thrush as Kookum Martha in Inner Elder at the High Performance Rodeo Photo Elyse Bouvier

And so, I was like how can I do a show in a way that honours the clown of Kookum as well as telling my own story in a way that doesn’t make me a victim. That allows me to sort of flip the script on what it means to grow up in an alcoholic environment and then winning the Gemini for playing a chronic alcoholic on Blackstone which is a show I starred on for many years. And I created a show about learning how to take what’s given to us in life and then turning it into something that works for us.

And when I get into the zone with Kookum she can get wild on stage and I’m like, “Oh my God, did I just hear her say that?” And I tell people when they hire me to do my comedy with Kookum I am not responsible for any marriages that break up because she goes after the white guys all the time. She picks on them and they fall in love with her. It’s a fun character. And I’m a true believer that as artists we channel our energy through us and it’s not about us – it’s about being vulnerable enough to bring that energy through us.

JAMES

That’s part of the magic of theatre I suppose that moment that you’re so fully in the story and the performance that it’s almost not really you.

MICHELLE

Yeah, it’s magic. And it happens in film too. I swear to God on that episode of Blackstone I did where I won the Gemini I stood there on my mark before I heard action and I prayed and called in my grandmothers, and they took over my body and I felt like I was allowing them to work me through that scene. And low and behold I won a Gemini and a whole bunch of other awards but it’s that trust to be able to really zone in taking the focus off of yourself and putting it on the story and then just allowing that energy to come through you. It’s about being vulnerable to the moment of creation.

Tantoo Cardinal as Wilma Stoney and Michelle Thrush as Gail Stoney in Blackstone

JAMES

You know one of the things art can do is help us understand our place in the universe but I’m sort of curious as an artist do you think art provides actual answers or do you think art operates more to provoke us to come up with answers and ask questions.

MICHELLE

I think both. I often say as Indigenous artists that we’re frontline workers. We shine light into places that are dark. And the work that we do is not just about a love story or whatever. The work we do whether it’s in film or in theatre is tough and it sometimes creates huge amounts of triggers for people because what we focus on is bringing to light things that people don’t want to talk about.

And the work that I’ve done through the years and all of us as Indigenous Artists have done through the years is really truly groundbreaking work I think because that’s how you bring healing. I often say if you have a wound and you just continue to cover it all the time with Band-Aids it will never heal. You have to be able to bring the light to allow that wound to heal and I feel that’s what we do as artists – we bring light.

Bones of Crows, Day 2 Ayasew Ooskana Pictures with Michelle Thrush
Bones of Crows, Day 2 Ayasew Ooskana Pictures

JAMES

And I think you need multiple stories right? You need many stories. Like you mentioned initially Indigenous actors were getting little bit parts and now we’re seeing shows like Bones of Crows. That’s an epic story. I watched that and I thought it really is an outline for a five-season series. Because it’s massive. Each episode could be ten episodes. But having that story now expands what you can tell in the future, I think.

MICHELLE

Exactly because again, it brought light to something that previously wasn’t lit up. Like that whole history most Canadians don’t understand any of it. Our own people are just beginning to understand what happened in reality and when you do bring light you bring life and then you’re right it just spreads out and it creates more conversations and it gives people permission to be able to discuss those things that were taboo twenty years ago. It’s about expanding consciousness really you know as artists.

I was proud of Bones of Crows. Marie Clements is a dear, dear, friend of mine from years ago. I’ve worked on many of her things and it took her five years to get Bones of Crows to camera. It took a huge team to convince CBC and to get all the funding and it’s a fully Indigenously created, directed, written, acted, performance.

JAMES

So, Artificial Intelligence has exploded onto the scene this year and it’s going to be disruptive in science and art and everything and I am just sitting here going well – this is good – this is bad – so I’ve been asking a few artists and a few friends what are their thoughts about AI. What sort of an impact do you think it’s going to have?

MICHELLE

I don’t know. I feel like I’ve got my head in the sand and I’m trying to avoid talking about AI because it really bugs me. I have so many friends that are all pro AI and how it’s going to change everything and I’m just like, “No, I just want real humans. I have a hard enough time checking out at Safeway with computers” I’m so old school in that way and so I’m sort of in denial about AI and I don’t have a lot to say about it.

JAMES

It’s hard to know what the impacts are going to be.

MICHELLE

It is. Even the SAG strike had a lot to do with AI. And who knows man. They can do a video now of you and change what you’re saying and that scares me.

JAMES

It’s getting difficult to be able to distinguish between the fake and the real. And that can be scary. So, I guess we’ll have to talk about this in five years?

MICHELLE

Exactly.

2023 Distinguished Artist Michell Thrush with family and friends, Photo credit Randy Feere
2023 Distinguished Artist Michelle Thrush with family and friends, Photo credit Randy Feere

JAMES

So, you’re one of the recipients this year of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards and I was wondering what was that evening like for you where everyone gathered to honour the recipients. What sort of evening was it and what does it mean to you to be recognized for the award?

MICHELLE

It was a fun weekend. It was a whole weekend it wasn’t just one evening. The funnest part of it was they did it in Medicine Hat this year and my family comes from Maple Creek which is just forty-five minutes down the number one highway on the Saskatchewan side. So, when I found out I was receiving this amazing award and that it was in Medicine Hat I called everybody – “Everybody’s got to come to this.” So, the highlight of receiving that award was having two or three rows of my family – Indigenous faces out there with all these government officials. And it’s not often that we feel comfortable or welcomed into these types of spaces, right?

JAMES

Right.

MICHELLE

Even just in theatre alone and that’s a big part of my whole agenda is trying to find ways to make sure that Indigenous people feel comfortable in the theatre. It’s the same thing for these types of awards. My cousin got the Chief to come and they did a ceremony with me when I went up on the stage. It’s a beautiful ceremony where they come up to you on both sides and they just wrap you in this blanket. And they did that with a star quilt which is a beautiful handmade style of blanket. And to me that was such a beautiful gesture of honour. I’m glad obviously I got the Lieutenant Governor Award and the gold pin and all that wonderful stuff but to have my family there and to be recognized in that way was also an honour.

L to R: Lori Davis, Michelle Thrush, Chief Rossa Wahobin, Nakaneet First Nation, Chief Rossa Wahobin presented Michelle with a Star Quilt in recognition of her achievements, Photo credit Randy Feere
L to R: Lori Davis, Michelle Thrush, Chief Rossa Wahobin, Nakaneet First Nation, Chief Rossa Wahobin presented Michelle with a Star Quilt in recognition of her achievements, Photo credit Randy Feere

JAMES

How does it feel to be offering that mentorship now to others because Indigenous artists and young people today can look to you and see somebody who has a successful career?

MICHELLE

I try to stay away from this whole role model thing with Indigenous people. I don’t believe in putting anybody on a pedestal no matter who they are. I think we are all amazing contributors to each others light. But I do understand because when Blackstone came out my whole life shifted. I felt like a lot of my privacy was shifted with my own people because going to Pow Wows and stuff people are always coming up and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, your character on that show was my mom or my auntie or my grandmother and then they would tell me this whole story of you know alcoholism in their family and how my character gave them permission to be able to discuss that.” And so again as an artist, it’s shining that light onto previous taboo topics and giving people permission to speak about it without shame and to share that load.

JAMES

How do you stay resilient then? Because that sounds like sometimes a heavy burden.

MICHELLE

I don’t know if it’s a burden at all. I think it’s just really a part of our development in this world. There are so many amazing beautiful things happening for Indigenous people right now. Like Reservation Dogs is on and we’ve got people in the NHL. And I remember I was on George Stroumboulopoulos back in the day – The Strombo Show – and I remember mentioning Wab Kinew who was rising up in the political scene and saying you know this is a young man who inspires me and now he’s Premier of Manitoba. And it’s just expanding continuously, and I get hope from seeing our young people. There are so many young people right now that are so resilient, and they are pushing boundaries that I never thought about when I was a teenager or when I was in my early twenties. I see these young people resurrecting language and being proud of who they are and that’s what keeps me going really is just knowing that we’ve got so many incredible young people.

Interview with Producer/Director Matt Boda: Absurd Hero Productions – Get It Made X

Posted on by James Hutchison

Producer/Director Matt Boda – Absurd Hero Productions

“Where preparation and opportunity meet is what makes luck seem so magical. I think if you prepare yourself for an opportunity, such as selling a movie script, then you can attract that scenario by actively working toward making yourself prepared and making it not so much about luck anymore and making it more about fate.” 

***

Producer/Director Matthew Boda has ambitions of taking his company, Absurd Hero Productions, into the big leagues and producing film and television across multiple genres. I connected with Matt through the Austin Film Festival where my comedy Masquerade had been a finalist in the playwriting category in 2018. After chatting with Matt about that script we got to talking about his love of film and television and I was immediately impressed by his boundless energy and enthusiasm for telling stories and so we set up a time to continue our conversation. I connected with Matt over ZOOM at the start of May to find out more about his personal vision for Absurd Hero Productions and his plan to bring new stories and screenwriters into production through his Get It Made X initiative.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Tell me a little bit about your logo for Absurd Hero productions. What does it mean and what does it symbolizes?

MATT BODA

It’s from the myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is, you know, a Greek character being punished forever and eternally having to push a boulder up the side of a mountain only to achieve the task and then have the boulder roll back down the mountain and he has to do it all again. Over and over and over. And it becomes an absurd task. There’s no meaning. There’s no reason to push the boulder up the mountain. There is no benefit, but he does it anyway.

It’s also a super hard thing to do. To push that boulder up a mountain every single day. So, it takes a hero’s spirit to be able to accomplish the task and do it anyway, in spite of its meaninglessness. 

And essentially, Albert Camus who is an existential philosopher wrote his own version of the myth of Sisyphus and likened the absurd hero to modern man. Life inherently has no meaning except for the meaning that we give it. 

So, knowing all that philosophy I went out to do one of the most difficult things that there is, and that’s to create a production company from zero not knowing anyone. Not having any direct contacts. Not coming from money. To do an absurd task. To try and become a filmmaker and make a production company and be involved at the highest level of making content that lasts forever and that’s super beneficial to the people that watch it and it felt right to me to do it under the brand name of an Absurd Hero.

JAMES

I have a quote for you by filmmaker Ted Kotcheff. He directed The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz which featured Richard Dreyfuss, First Blood with Sylvester Stalone, Weekend at Bernie’s, a lot of different films and he’s done a lot of television. He said, “Everything about filmmaking tries to distract you from that first, fine, rapturous vision, you have of the film.” I’m wondering how much you agree with that, and how do you keep that spark alive to make you see a film through from idea to screen?

MATT

Well, I agree with it completely because essentially what happens is the vision comes into the mind of the creator. Whatever way you believe it gets there – whether it’s a muse, or it’s God, or its creative energy, or whatever – something inspires the idea in the first place. 

For me, it comes in a flash. I have a vision. I see the whole movie in a moment in my mind’s eye, and it fills me with the desire and motivation to do the work to pull that out of my mind, and put it into the real world, and see what it will look like.

So, saying that everything after that is designed to get in the way of the original vision is completely true, because you have to compromise with the reality of what you can create and your fantasy of what you had envisioned. 

So, it’s like, “Okay I guess I can’t have him on top of the Titanic.” “Well, what if he’s in a little rowboat on the side of a dock on a lake?” “Okay, well does it embody the same theme that you were trying to express for the character on the deck of the Titanic?” “Yeah, it actually does.” “Okay then, let’s put him in the skiff.” “Cool. Problem solved.” That’s the compromise between fantasy and reality that any filmmaker has to go through in order to see their vision go from inception to completion.

JAMES

One of the projects you have in development is called The Container. Where did the idea come from for that project, and how did that develop, particularly in light of the times we’re living in, and how current and significant the subject matter is.

MATT

That project is making its rounds. I’m super proud of it. It scored really well on the Blacklist. Everyone that reads it gives it their praise, and I’m super grateful for that. 

That idea came in a flash from my mind’s eye and that’s usually born from needing to find a solution to a problem. In the beginning when I first started making films my ideas were visions about myself and my own life experiences, and so I started to make art about my life experiences, and I wasn’t getting the kind of response that I wanted to have with the work. It was too personal.

It was me all over everything. Me the director. Me the producer. Me the actor. It felt like a one-man-band in a way that alienates the audience. It makes them feel like they can’t identify with the story because all they see is you trying to work out your own problems on the screen. And I had fallen into that trap a couple of times because I had run with someone telling me to “write what you know.” Which for me was a mistake, because it made me dive into this selfish realm that a lot of people get into where they think they need to show that they can do everything, as opposed to embodying the true spirit of filmmaking which is completely collaborative. 

So, I was stressed out after a big movie that I had personally financed called Blood Sweat and Years, that even though it was shot well and had great music, just fell flat, and I was in need of a new idea. And I was actually in line to go to a movie in the middle of the day and my mind was hijacked, and what I saw was a little girl looking through a crack in a shipping container at the waves and the ocean and when she looked back into the container I saw all these people. They were all Chinese people and they were stuck in the shipping container, and I saw this whole movie in my head and it all ended in this terrible tragedy, and this little girl was the only one who lived to tell about it. In my mind’s eye that’s what I saw. So I immediately went home, and I found out through a little research – and thank God for Google you can go directly to the source – I started finding out that it was true. That before China became the giant manufacturing mogul it is now Chinese people used to flee the country because there were no opportunities in China, and they used to do it via shipping containers coming through ports in America like Long Beach. And I read all these articles, so I started to formulate it around China, and then I realized that all that stuff was actually twenty years old. So, I shifted and I did a bunch of research and I created this framework that took this really neutral approach to writing the movie, that’s about a group of North African migrants stuck in a shipping container. 

It’s eighty-eight pages long, and it’s like a thrill ride that ends with a wallop. It punches you in the gut. It’s a humanitarian film in the same vein of Cary Fukunaga’s film Beasts of No Nation on Netflix or Hotel Rwanda. That’s how The Container came to be.

JAMES

But it would not have existed, I think, unless you had worked, originally on Blood Sweat and Years, because the creative journey of that film involves you doing the previous film and learning from it. So, now how much do you draw upon your personal life? How do you balance that mix of taking from your past experiences to tell a story that isn’t necessarily about you individually, but might reflect some of the themes, feelings, ideas, and experiences you’ve been through?

MATT

It’s really simple. Now, I imagine being someone else. Just like an actor. I imagine what I would do in that person’s situation, but I let them do it just like the actor lets the character do it. So you know, let’s say I was from Eritrea, and I was living on a thousand calories a day, and I had scrounged up every cent I had to try and escape, and I just think what would I do in that situation, but I don’t imagine my face as the person accomplishing it. I imagined the face of a little girl, or the gentleman, you know, that needed something that I’ve never needed in my life but if I did, how would I go about doing it. I put other faces on it and that removes me from the equation so it’s not a self-centred approach. It’s universal.

JAMES

A film from twenty or forty years ago reflects the time they were born in, and yet some films even though they might have been made fifty or sixty years ago, still feel like they have a universal appeal or a universal story. What do you think it is in great films that makes some of them feel timeless?

MATT

It’s definitely making the audience identify with a core theme of the story. So, for instance, in The Container, it poses the question, “As you sit there and complain about what you’re going to eat tonight and how fast your internet is – imagine this: “What would you do if you were in this container and you’d paid a thousand bucks that took you eight months to save and you had your daughter with you and this was your last chance to get out of the country. You know, the country that made your life a living hell. What would you do if you were someone else?” And it takes the audience out of who they are and it makes them reflect on what they have. So, the audience has to identify in a very personal way with what’s happening in your subject matter and what’s happening in your concept, or it’s going to be forgettable.

JAMES

With film you’ve got two hours. In series television like Game of Thrones you have seventy hours. I think the difference in the amount of storytime you have means that film has to be much more concentrated. Much more to the point. Do you think films work best when they have a single protagonist that you’re seeing the story through?

MATT

I think they’re two different mediums that both approach story in a different way. For film, it’s much more focused. It’s like, “What do you want the audience to get out of this one movie, because they’re only going to watch it that one time and then it’s over and the world your telling begins and ends in that movie?” 

Whereas the purpose of a TV show is for people to fall in love with the actors, and they get plot and structure and story through the whole thing but the most rewarding part is being fed this story that feels so real in this episodic way so you can spend so much more time with a character, as opposed to learning a theme.

You know, films to me are themes. Like Fight Club has all these themes you can dissect forever whereas in Game of Thrones I love Tyrian, and I love Sansa. They’re like my sister and my uncle and you know they’re my family because I went through all this hardship with them, and I know what they went through. I know their story and their stories are just like me knowing my best friend’s story who you know maybe he was a drug addict and his dad died. The thing about the episodic story is you love the person, whereas in a film you love the idea and you love the people that are expressing that idea.

Matt on set – Absurd Hero Productions

JAMES

Right, well let’s talk about ideas. What kind of ideas do you enjoy exploring what kinds of stories attract your creative energy?

MATT

Well, you know, nowadays, I’ve just been super focused on executive producer roles where I champion multiple projects. So, I’ve got all these fires burning now and I created this program, Get it Made X, which is essentially a union for non-union writers. 

So, any writer that’s accepted to the program comes into the fold with all the rest of our members, and they all compete for funds that we put into the program as well as they pay membership dues. So, all of that all gets put into a pot. And they compete to make proof of concept films with that money and we make multiple projects so right now I have five of them. 

And I can talk about each one of those projects the same way that I talk about The Container. Because what we do is reverse engineer long-form materials. So, if somebody has a script they love and its scoring well in the screenplay world what we do is have them write a five-page version. Maybe the most pivotal scene that really showcases what the world of the film or the show or whatever it is would be about. And we go that extra mile because I have a production company. I own all the cameras. I have 5000 square feet of office space and everything you’ll need as well as all of the contacts and the relationships and the infrastructure because I’m in Los Angeles and I’ve been doing this for twelve years. 

So, we go right to the source and make these films and then we put these packages together with known entities and then we go to the studios. Because I have contacts at the studios, but they won’t read words on a page from an unknown writer. They just won’t do it. But what they will do is watch a five-minute film that’s well produced.

So, I’m like, “Hey what are you guys looking for?” “Oh, we’re always looking for easy horror stuff.” ” Okay, well I’ve got this thing about a demon baby and a crazy girl next door concept.” “Ok, send me the demon baby thing.” Boom, I text him a link that goes to a proof of concept movie, and he watches it and at the end he goes, “Hey, do you have the full script?” And then we send the book and the full script and all the people that are attached to the project. “Oh, you got the guy from Weeds as the main actor. Or, “Oh you got the guy from Brooklyn Nine Nine to direct it.” Now all the studio has to do is inject funds into a group of artists that are already mobilized, and a product will emerge. That’s what we’ve been doing now, and it’s just awesome. 

JAMES

So, what then is your vision for Absurd Hero Productions in the future? What is your goal.

MATT

What I imagined us to be is like Bad Robot. Bad Robot makes film and television shows across all genres. And if I have the right number of members in Get It Made X, I’ll be able to turn out twelve films across all genres, a year. So, my vault will be full – just filled to the brim with ideas that are packaged on paper and have known talent that have said that they will be a part of the project.

JAMES

Getting a film made is a tough business, so I was wondering how much do you think luck plays a part in a person’s success?

MATT

Where preparation and opportunity meet is what makes luck seem so magical. I think if you prepare yourself for an opportunity, such as selling a movie script, then you can attract that scenario by actively working toward making yourself prepared and making it not so much about luck anymore and making it more about fate. 

JAMES

You’re prepared to take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves.

MATT

And luck is opportunity in disguise. You know what I’m saying? If you’re prepared for the opportunity and you get it, it’s going to feel like luck, but no it wasn’t really luck it’s because you were ready to take on that opportunity.

Matt – Early Days in LA

JAMES

You said you’ve been doing this for 12 years in LA. What brought you to LA? How did you get there?

MATT

I lived in Florida, and I started in Miami. I was in a rock band until I was 25 and I got way too caught up in that scene in terms of just all it has to offer in terms of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. 

So, I had to rebuild my belief system mentally from the ground up about what I expected out of life and what my life was going to be now that the rock band was over. I made a lot of decisions in terms of, you know, not allowing chemical dependency to become this everyday thing in my life. I had to shed that whole older beginning of being in a rock band, and of being rebellious, and being the lead singer, and being the center of attention.

And that’s how I ended up in LA when I was 25. You know, new brain power and new motivation, and that’s when I started from the ground up. And I rode a bike. I didn’t have a car. I rode a bike and went to any film place, and I literally said I’d work for free for a week to show you guys who I am and my attitude and to see if you guys want to hire me. 

And it was no, no, no, no and then a lighting rental house said yes, and they hired me, and I learned lighting, and I met people. I got into the union for camera and lighting, and I spent the next eight years working on movies and television and being a lighting technician, and I did camera a bunch too.

JAMES

But I think the first 25 years of your life has been really informative for you in terms of your journey and who you have become.

MATT

Yeah, I just wish I didn’t waste so much time. You know what I’m saying. You can get off the elevator at any floor. For me, I decided to go to the sub-basement for some reason.

JAMES

How important is forgiving yourself for those years to having a more positive and better future now?

MATT

As an artist, you know, having internal conflicts is the reason why I feel I need to have a voice. I feel like the only way to dissipate these internal pressures for me is through art.

Matt on Set – Absurd Hero Productions

JAMES

What filmmakers and films do you find inspiring? Who speaks to you? Who do you get excited about? 

MATT

I collect 11 x 17 movie and TV posters. Right now I’m looking at posters for Game of Thrones, The Tudors, Neon Genesis which is an anime from Japan, Silver Linings Playbook by David O. Russell, Cary Fukunaga – Beasts of No Nation all the way to stuff like Blue is the Warmest Colour, which is a crazy indie that came out of France.

But my favourite stuff is historical fiction. Like The Last Kingdom which is about the Danish coming over to England when England was multiple nations in the eighth and ninth century during the reign of King Alfred the Great. And I’ve watched that series, like three times and it’s got four seasons now and I’ve watched each season three full times and they’re ten hours each. Same thing with Game of Thrones, you know, every single night I’m watching a piece of something, you know, all the way to shows like Billions, or Homelands.

JAMES

So, having lived a different life when you were younger and being your age now what would you say to your younger self? What sort of advice would you give to your younger self?

MATT

You know pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. I took the crazy route and then wallowed in my suffering so a lot of my joy was robbed from me.

I guess I would just say, “Just go easy on yourself. Don’t beat yourself up so much. You know, dude just keep going. Who cares? Does it really matter that much? Just try and don’t give up, because if you give up – it’s definitely not gonna happen.”

The worst part is that for the vast majority it never happens for them. They write three or four scripts and then they don’t write any more. And that’s it. It’s done. They’ve written a bunch of scripts that maybe placed in a few contests, but they never got made. But Get It Made X is going to be a way for people that are in the non-union realm to compete with everybody that’s in the union realm without having to wait to win the lottery – so to speak – and we want to do that for as many people as possible.

***

Download PDF version of Interview with Producer Director Matt Boda
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview with Barry Tuff – Rogers Media: Reputation is Everything

Posted on by James Hutchison

Barry Tuff, Rogers Media – Photograph James Hutchison

“I remember, there actually was a sort of a watershed year for me where I realized I must have arrived on some level because I had an unbelievable year of new business achievement and was rewarded for it. And I looked at it, and I realized that they were all referrals. Every single new business account was a referral. And I said, “That’s it. I believe I have arrived on some level. People trust me. They’re, okay to refer me.”

Barry Tuff, Rogers Media

You won’t stay in business long if you don’t get customers through your door or get customers purchasing your products and services online. And while social media and digital have opened up new avenues for reaching potential clients television and radio still attract a large audience and offer tremendous marketing opportunities.  For several years I worked for Citytv writing and producing commercials and one of the people I worked with in sales was Barry Tuff. Barry is one of those sales guys who cares deeply about his clients and just as deeply about the people working at the station to help deliver an effective advertising campaign. I sat down with Barry to talk with him about his career in media, our predictions for the Stanley Cup, and his love of music.

JAMES HUTCHISON

So, we’re going to chat a little bit about life in media. Your life in media specifically.

BARRY TUFF

It’s been a long life.

JAMES

Where did you first start, and what year was it?

BARRY

In 1976 I started working for a company called Hook Signs which became Hook Outdoor the monopoly billboard company in Alberta. I was there for about two or three years. Years later, it was bought out by Jimmy Pattison and is now one of the largest outdoor companies in the world, but when I started there it was a beautiful experience because it was a small family run company. And your goal was to become a director someday and be able to share in those profits. After that, I left and tried out a few different things that didn’t work out very well and then I got into radio.

JAMES

Where was your first radio job?

BARRY

I went to work for CKXL in 1980.

JAMES

The CKXL of today is not the CKXL of 1980.

BARRY

Not at all. It was a top 40 radio station. The morning show had a 30 share and a share is the percentage of radio listeners tuned into a given station at a given time. And the personalities on that radio station were celebrities. It was incredible to be part of that. We had the XL sunspot sticker and it was on just about every car in the city and we had people running around giving out money if your sunspot was spotted and they pulled you over. We had the fun bus and the fun bus would be going up to the mountains all the time with winners in it. It was a party bus. So, there was lots of money and lots of ways to exploit it. And there wasn’t a hell of a lot of competition. We had CFAC which was a country station. We had CHQR which was easy listening and CFCN which was about the same.

JAMES

Radio was massive in those days.

BARRY

It was massive. We had a client that had these pots and pans they wanted to sell out of a farmers’ market that was located on Blackfoot Trail, and they spent a couple thousand dollars to buy some radio spots on CKXL to sell this truckload of pots and pans. Of course, these were the best pots and pans in the world at an incredibly discounted price. I think it was 35 bucks in about 1982. I went to check it out and I couldn’t get close to it. The traffic jam was incredible. There were literally people parked on the boulevard running up with their money in their hands to get a hold of these pots and pans. That kind of stuff would happen all the time. So, you knew people were listening, and they were responding, and it was nice to be a part of that. Of course, you reflect on that now because the world today is so fragmented.

JAMES

And now you’re working for Citytv but when you started here it was still A-Channel which was owned by Craig Broadcasting.

BARRY

It was A-Channel, the last of the independents. And we survived with our hard work and ingenuity and you know, being a good alternative and providing great value and great service to our clients. And then A-Channel was sold to CHUM out of Toronto, and A-Channel became Citytv, and then CHUM was sold to CTV, and CTV couldn’t keep all the assets.

JAMES

Because at the time the CRTC said you can’t have two television stations owned by the same company in the same city and CTV already owned CFCN here in Calgary.

BARRY

And then Ted Rogers who was always known as a bit of a maverick said, “Here’s a cheque. Go get Citytv. I want it.” And so, we went from the little station that could to an iconic Canadian brand – Citytv, and then Rogers bought us and they’re a company with really deep pockets, and that really put us on the map.

JAMES

You’ve done local sales for a long time in radio and television and worked with a lot of local clients in this market. What are some of the things you would tell a client today that they should be looking at in terms of their use of media as part of their marketing message?

BARRY

I think consistency is essential.

JAMES

When you say consistency what do you mean?

BARRY

You want to be on-air as often as you can and as much as you can. You really need to stay front and center at all times. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a huge budget. You can narrowly cast your net and just buy Breakfast Television for example and be there all the time, and by doing that you can build your business and build your brand. You have to be there in good times and in bad times, it’s insurance, and you’re going to gain market share because others aren’t there consistently, and so when the good times come you’re going to do really, really well.

JAMES

You’re talking about keeping that top of mind awareness in the consumer’s mind because people do forget.

BARRY

Yes, they do.

JAMES

If you look at national brands they always dedicate budget to brand awareness in conjunction with their sales message. And the sales are more successful because the branding message keeps them in the consumer’s mind, and there’s statistical evidence to prove that the brand advertising impacts positively the sales advertising, correct?

BARRY

Yeah, well, it triggers associative memory or your reticular activation system, you know, by which when you’re in the market for something all you see is that advertising, right? And when you’re not in the market for something it retreats. You don’t notice it. And as a salesperson, I can not emphasize enough the importance of being prepared and asking the right questions when you meet a new client. You should know all about them, and you should do all your research. That’s one thing that’s changed. I remember spending time in the basement of the public library downtown looking at microfiche and annual reports before going out to a client. That was an afternoon. Now it’s pretty easy to get that information from their website.

JAMES

But you still need to hear from them.

BARRY

You still need to find out what their pain points are, what their goals are, what their challenges are, and where they aspire to be. And often, they’re confused, you know, you need to help them focus because there are lots of choices now. We do lots of digital. Rogers Media has a full line of products that we can geofence and geotarget, and we’re fully integrated with our other media divisions. We have digital and television, but we also have our radio group in Calgary which includes CHFM, 660 News, Jack FM and Sportsnet 960. And the vision for media companies these days is that they can provide all your solutions with just one call.

And a lot of clients in a tough economy want extra value and one way to do that is to develop partnerships and promotions. And we’ve got lots of ways to do that. We’ve got segments on Breakfast Television they can sponsor, we’ve got live eyes, we’ve got a great promotions department so there’s contesting. And that way you can add layers to a 15 or 30-second ad campaign. We do lots and lots of that. And one of the most gratifying things we do is working with charities on that basis and developing partnerships.

JAMES

What are some of the local charities that you’ve worked with?

BARRY

We have worked with organizations like The Mustard Seed, Inn from the Cold, and Safe Haven. Those are just three of them. Rogers supports charities and they’re good corporate citizens. They encourage their employees to volunteer, and Rogers gives every employee one day off a year during work time to volunteer if they choose to. And then we have a weekend in June where everyone in the company is encouraged to go out and volunteer. And this year we went out and volunteered at the YMCA’s Camp Riveredge, and we helped the grounds crew clean up and get things ready for their season. And we’ve also volunteered at the Mustard Seed and at the Calgary Food Bank. And we partner on events like the Calgary Marathon and this year we produced a series of vignettes. They were profiles in courage really and told people’s stories about how they started running and how it changed their lives and we hope that those stories might inspire someone to try something they might not normally try. And radio was there, and Andrew Schultz from Breakfast Television was at the finish line, and Ted Henley from Breakfast Television starts the race and announces the runners as they cross the finish line.

JAMES

What are some of the clients you’ve had for the longest?

BARRY

We’ve worked with Toyota for 20 years and when you work with a client that long you really get to know each other. And the key is to never take each other for granted. Just like a marriage. Because you cannot rest on your laurels and assume that’s going to be there from one year to the next. So, you have to foster that relationship constantly. We’ve worked with Broadway Across Canada for many, many years. I remember the first time they came through with a Broadway production I thought, “Well, this is great. It’ll come and it’ll go.” Well, I think we’ve worked with them for probably 15 years now. We partner with trade shows and festivals. A lot of individual events. The Circus comes to town once a year, and Disney on Ice comes to town once a year, and the Monster Jam and on and on and on.

JAMES

Let’s talk a little bit about the new season and one of the new shows you have on your schedule is Four Weddings and a Funeral. What can you tell me about that one?

BARRY

It’s based on the 1994 movie that starred Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell. It’s produced by Mindy Kaling. She was in the office and she’s a comedian, she’s had a pretty popular show recently, but now she’s branched off into the movies and she’s behind the scenes of this one as a producer. It’s about relationships and how complex they are and we hope it resonates with people. It will air Thursday nights at 10 o’clock.

JAMES

And then you’ve got a new situation comedy coming up called Mixedish.

BARRY

Mixedish is the prequel to Blackish. It’s about a mixed-race family that lived on a commune and then moved to the suburbs and the children have to navigate a school culture where they’re not perceived as either black or white. So that’s got some real potential and it’ll run from 9:00 to 9:30 on Tuesdays and Blackish will run 9:30 to 10. So, same production company and same writers and if it does half as well as Blackish we’ll be pretty happy.

JAMES

There’s a midseason replacement that looks interesting called Council of Dads.

BARRY

It’s about a fellow that’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer and he’s very principled and he wants to make sure that his philosophies about life are passed on to his kids after he’s gone. So, he puts together a council of his friends who are also dads to step in after he’s gone and guide his children. And when we showed the trailer to our ad agencies we had a disclaimer saying that this one may bring a tear to your eye because of what it’s about, and we had people reaching for the tissues. It should have some impact, and it’s a great message.

JAMES

And on your Saturday nights – what have you got programmed there?

BARRY

This will be the fifth season of our owning the NHL broadcast rights and between the City stations, Sportsnet and our partnership with Hockey Night In Canada on CBC we’ll produce and broadcast 500 games plus every game in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And of course, the best part is that because it’s sports anything can happen. And this year we had some Canadian teams, including the Flames, in the first round.

JAMES

It would have been nice to have a few more rounds.

BARRY

It would have been nice to have a few more rounds, but that’s sports and every season there’s always going to be some great memorable moments, and there’s a large audience who are big fans that will show up and watch.

JAMES

Quick question for you then. As a Calgarian I know you won’t be biased on this, but what’s your prediction for who will the Stanley Cup next year?

BARRY

(Laughs.) I can not make that prediction.

JAMES

I can. Calgary Flames, man. Go Flames Go all the way.

BARRY

Yeah, it’s the Flames turn.

JAMES

That’s right.

BARRY

It’s been a long time. It’s the Flames turn.

JAMES

So, you’ve had a long career in sales.

BARRY

Forty-three years.

JAMES

So, looking back on that forty-three years, what do you think it is that makes a salesman good at their job? What are the qualities you think you need to be a top salesperson?

BARRY

I think you need a work ethic, for sure. You need discipline. You need to look after you so you can look after other people. And you need to be informed. And you have to be interested in things and inquisitive, and you have to have empathy, above all, because it’s not about you. It’s about the client and any client that you go see their first question is going to be, “So what’s in it for me?” And you have to be very cognizant of that. So, first you have to find out who they are, where they’re at and where they want to be, and then make a proper recommendation based on education and experience. And if anybody is interested in selling you have to study selling from the masters. There are books. There are seminars. There are YouTube videos. You have to become a student for life because even when you are at the top of your game you’re never done.

JAMES

There’s never a, “You Made It,” party.

BARRY

There is no finish line. I was just talking to somebody this morning and I asked him, “How’s the year going so far?” And he said, “Well, I had my best year ever last year and you know what that means for this year?” It’s hard to overachieve when you’ve had your best year ever because you become the victim of your own success so you’re always chasing something.

JAMES

Plus, we should say that when you’ve had your best year ever your sales manager looks at you and goes, “How are we going to improve on that and deliver an extra 10% this year?”

BARRY

Yes.

JAMES

So, what do you think people misunderstand about the sales profession? What do they get wrong?

BARRY

I think it’s those terrible clichés. It’s the huckster. It’s the pitch person. It’s the snake oil salesman. And sometimes when you walk into a new business and even though you’re not like any of those and you’re professional you can often get judged based on the last few that were in the door before you. So, when you meet new clients, you’re always having to earn the right and always having to earn their trust.

JAMES

So, what I’m hearing from you is that part of being a successful salesperson is establishing, maintaining, and growing your reputation.

BARRY

Reputation is everything. I remember, there actually was a sort of a watershed year for me where I realized I must have arrived on some level because I had an unbelievable year of new business achievement and was rewarded for it. And I looked at it, and I realized that they were all referrals. Every single new business account was a referral. And I said, “That’s it. I believe I have arrived on some level. People trust me. They’re, okay to refer me.”

JAMES

Because that’s putting their own reputation on the line.

BARRY

Yes, it is. And you can feel it. Reputation is everything.

JAMES

Reputation and integrity.

BARRY

Hand in hand. And, above all, you always want to seek ways to be inspired so that you can inspire other people.

JAMES

Okay. Well, then speaking of being inspired let’s talk about another interest of yours. You’re a musician?

BARRY

Yes, I am.

JAMES

How long have you been a musician?

BARRY

For as long as I can remember. I started playing drums probably at the age of 11. And I think I got together with other musicians and jammed for the first time probably when I was about 15 years old. And then starting in the 80s there were these six-night cabarets and we put together a great band and we played all over, it was a tremendous band.

JAMES

What were you called?

BARRY

The band was called Body Talk and we had a massive P.A. and light system and it was a good-looking band and we dressed well and we had sound effects. We did cover material, but it wasn’t necessarily the most popular covers, but it went over very well and one of our first gigs was opening for Chubby Checker. And Chubby’s a good guy and he was playing with a bunch of New York musicians who were on the road with Chubby just trying to keep the dream alive.

And then we became an A-Circuit party band called Cross Section and we had a beautiful girl that sang with us. It was a real show band and we played for companies that would have these lavish parties and they’d hire us. Mostly one-night corporate stuff which was way better money than playing six nights in a cabaret. We finally figured that out. And since then I’ve been in some country trios and I played in a gospel band for a few years at a church.

JAMES

So, music has been a cornerstone of your life and I’m wondering what is it you get out of music? What does it provide?

BARRY

It’s a high, it just is a tremendous high when those lights come on. And I ended up playing with a very talented musician who drove us to rehearse past our abilities. And I hate to rehearse but he said, “If you are overprepared on your best night you’re going to blow everybody’s mind, and on your worst night you’re going to be really good.” And he was right.

JAMES

Who was that?

BARRY

Frank Windsor. He’s a commodities broker in town, and he’s an incredible musician. Just incredible. And, that was a good lesson. And it’s a lesson that you can certainly apply to just about every area of life. You have to be willing to put in the work in order to be prepared and do your best.

Matt Dy: Director of Script Competitions Austin Film Festival

Posted on by James Hutchison

If you have ambitions of pursuing a career as a screenwriter or television showrunner then I’d highly recommend you attend the Austin Film Festival. I attended the 2018 Austin Film Festival Writer’s Conference and found it to be a very rewarding and exciting opportunity to connect with industry professionals as well as up-and-coming writers. This interview with Matt Dy, the Director of Competitions about the Austin Film Festival will give you a comprehensive overview of what the festival is about and why you should enter the competition.

Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Austin Film Festival Barbara Morgan talks with the 2017 AFF Awardees: Walter Hill, Keenen Ivory Wayans, and Kenneth Lonergan.

We all have favourite stories – favourite films – favourite television shows and books and plays – because these stories somehow reach us. They make us laugh, or cry, or reflect more deeply about life, or simply give us a momentary escape from our troubles.

That’s why I’m really excited to announce that my play Masquerade is a finalist in the stage play competition at this years Austin Film Festival – which is a festival that’s dedicated to story. Masquerade is about an empty nest couple, Sarah and Glenn, that have drifted apart. They were talking divorce and selling the house until they discovered a book called: A Good Marriage is Just a Fantasy by Dr. Ravi Shasta. Basically, it’s a book about exploring your sexual fantasies with your partner. Unfortunately, sometimes what is real and what is fantasy can become blurred and what was intended to bring a couple closer together can sometimes drive them apart. 

The Austin Film Festival is a celebration of film and television that focuses on story and the people who write the screenplays and teleplays. The festival features industry professionals as well as up and coming writers. I’ll be flying down to Austin to participate in the festival as well the staged reading of my play. I gave Matt Dy, the Director of Competitions for The Austin Film Festival, a call to talk to him about how the festival began and what participants can expect.

Gabbi Lindgren, Script Competitions Coordinator & Matt Dy, Director of Script Competitions – Austin Film Festival

JAMES HUTCHISON

The Austin Film Festival was founded in 1993 by Barbara Morgan, who still serves as Festival Director, for the purpose of furthering the art and craft and business of screenwriting and filmmaking. So, I’m curious over the last twenty-five-year history of the festival how have those founding goals been developed?

MATT DY

The Festival was also co-founded by Marsha Milam who is still involved in a limited capacity, but Barbara Morgan is sole Executive Director for the Festival now. The two of them started the festival because they felt there was a need for a community like this. There really wasn’t a writer’s festival let alone very many screenplay competitions at the time. There were maybe a handful and now there are hundreds of them in existence, but we’re one of the original ones which is a really nice thing to be able to say.

The thing that still remains intact over the twenty-five-year history of the festival is our goal and mission to champion the screenwriter. We’re now open to playwrights and eventually we may become more of a hub for all forms of story because we’re also expanding into fiction podcasting and we have a digital series component as well – content for the web – so there’s a lot of different formats that we’ve embraced over the years but the mission to champion the writer is still the same.

First Day of the Austin Film Festival in 2017 – a room full of storytellers.

JAMES

You know when I think of successful screenwriters they might have different success stories but I’m wondering if there might be a couple of qualities that sets the successful screenwriter apart and I’m thinking one of those qualities is having a dedication to the craft. In what way do you think a dedication to the craft benefits a writer’s career and development?

MATT

That is absolutely essential and it’s easier said than done. I’m a writer as well and I tend not to take my own advice – to write every day you know – you hear of people who have nine to five jobs and they’re married, and they have kids, and maybe they have a second job, and they still make time to write. So my thing is to not make excuses anymore and just do it. It is about dedication. It is about finding time to write because, as a writer, you want to treat the writing as if it’s going to be your job. You need to set deadlines and goals and that’s why competitions are a great thing for writers because you work towards a deadline to get your script in for the competition.

It’s also teaching you about persistence. You’re a finalist in our Stage Play Competition. You’re in the top three out of 655 plays that were submitted but a lot of people that didn’t make it as far as you have may actually have a really good play and we may have overlooked it because – it’s a little bit of the luck of the draw – trying to find a good match for the reader that might respond to it. It’s a human process, and it’s incredibly subjective, so you’re going to get different results from different competitions, and so it’s also about being persistent and moving on and entering the next competition 

JAMES

Enter other ones or give it a rewrite and enter again.

MATT

Yeah, and you’ll find that exists in every creative field. And if you pick any popular film or stage play that has gotten produced – if you talk to those writers they will tell you consistently that they had so many doors closed on them – so many people told them this would never get produced or shouldn’t be produced and yet they still got it produced.  And so the writer’s process is to write every day and stay persistent, stay focused, and write the story you want to tell.

Writer, director, actor Dennis Hopper at the Austin Film Festival in 1997.

JAMES

You said you’re a writer yourself so I’m just wondering from your own perspective – because you’re surrounded by writers – what does keep someone going? I mean those rejection letters are piling up and you work for years for little money…what is that keeps writers going? Why do they keep writing stories?

MATT

Passion. Love. A lot of playwrights are incredibly passionate – they love their work – they do it for the love of the art – and I think a lot of screenwriters feel the same way. It’s a dream and if you don’t have a dream it’s hard to find the motivation to get up each day and work on that passion project

JAMES

I wonder if part of it might be realizing that when you sit down at your desk to begin the research, the writing, the outlining or just diving into writing your script you might be starting a ten or fifteen or twenty-year journey in order to realize that project.

MATT

Absolutely. Everybody has their own process. There are some writers who end up having one project that they spend their entire lives working on, but there are other writers who work on many different projects all at the same time because they know their one pet project may not be the one that gets them discovered.

JAMES

The festival has a number of writing competitions. You’ve got the feature-length drama. You’ve got the comedy feature. Horror. Sci-fi. So you’ve got lots of different categories, but I’m wondering, regardless of the genre, do you notice anything that the winning scripts seem to possess? Something in them that makes this writing stand out.

MATT

I think if I had to pin it on one thing it would be stories that have that unique voice – that unique perspective. Those stories end up winning or advancing in the competition. It’s always their unique spin on a familiar story. A different perspective so that when you’re reading it you go, “Oh that’s brilliant. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Each writer is going to have their own perspective on the world and so their version of a story is going to be different than someone else’s version of the story, and you can tell when they’re writing something for themselves for the passion and for the love of their story rather than when they’re trying to write something for the masses that they think would sell.

Writer/Director Robert Altman – M.A.S.H., McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, and The Player talks with screenwriter and actor Buck Henry – The Graduate, Get Smart, and Catch 22 at the Austin Film Festival.

JAMES

You bring up an interesting point because I just watched Get Out which was a huge hit last year and so I’m wondering when you have a hit like that – a film that, you know, is well made, does well at the box office, gets awards – does the success of that film, in the marketplace, influence the types of scripts you see being entered into the festival?

MATT

Oh yeah, not just the marketplace but also the climate – and what’s happening politically and what’s been happening in the industry with movements for diversity. All these different ancillary things that are happening in the world obviously effect what people are writing and submitting to the competition. You can definitely feel that when you’re reading scripts, and you’ll find that there are many people who are commenting on the current President and many of the other things that are happening in the Zeitgeist because we write to talk about and make sense of the world we live in.

Of course, there are going to be people who are going to try and anticipate what is marketable and usually if they try to emulate what’s popular right now they’re too late because those projects were long in gestation and they’re striking a cord now. As a writer, you should just continue to write what you’re passionate about and then something might happen to make your script a timely subject. There was a playwright here from last year in the playwriting competition who happened to write a play about immigration on a border town in Texas. It was a play she had written a long time ago that never got produced but she pulled that back out of her drawer because she knew this is the time for it.

JAMES

Well, let’s talk a little bit about the festival. There are two components. There’s the film festival and there’s the conference and the conference is filled with industry professionals and established as well as up and coming writers. What’s the conference part of the festival about?

MATT

I like to call it summer camp for screenwriters except it’s only four days. It sort of has that Kumbaya feel when you first arrive. It’s palatable – at least for me. You know you can stereotype writers and say they’re all an isolated bunch who are very introverted who don’t like to converse or be communal, but I find that even the most introverted screenwriter, deep down, really wants to connect, and I think when they realize that wow, I’m not the only one who feels that way, and they come to a conference where it’s a bunch of introverts and a lot of thinkers and creative types who are just like them then the walls start to come down. And we try to make it easy for them to get to know each other and just converse and make friends. Usually without fail that’s what happens.

Samuel Weller, Allison Norlian, Sean Collins-Smith, and Emily McGregor at one of the many mix and mingle functions at the 2017 Austin Film Festival

MATT

I also think a lot of people come to the conference with the goal of getting their script sold and produced or getting an agent or manager but that rarely ever happens at the festival. I like to think of the festival as an incubator where things just take time to develop. Like you’re planting the seeds. You’re making connections with people you wouldn’t normally be able to meet. If you place in the competition you’re going through a special track of panels with people who are just like you – quality writers, talented people with great ideas, so you’re in a very talented room with people that you’re going to several events with and you never know you might find your next collaborator or somebody who would love to read your work and would introduce you to somebody that they know in the industry and so usually those are where most of the success stories come from.

JAMES

As a participant in the conference there are panels there are readings what kind of things are happening?

MATT

Everything that happens at the conference is about the creative and business sides of story, so if you want to learn about other people’s writing process and how you can apply that to your own writing you can do that, or if you’re really wanting to understand how it works in the TV writers room we usually have that covered. We have pitching opportunities, we have script reading workshops, we have an indie filmmaker track as well if you’re a filmmaker and want to learn more about microbudget filmmaking. We have a playwriting track. We have a panel that covers writing for webisodes. We have a script to screen series where writers will show a few clips from their film or show and show the process of what they wrote and how that translated to the screen. We have a conversation series with people who just talk about their career in general and usually, those are the bigger people and in particular our awardees like Tony Gilroy

Barbara Morgan co-founder and Executive Director of The Austin Film Festival hosts In Conversation with Kenneth Lonergan the writer/director of Manchester by the Sea.

JAMES

Why don’t we talk a little bit about that since you brought it up? As part of the festival, you honour screenwriters and filmmakers, and the very first person that was honoured at the festival was Horton Foote who wrote Tender Mercies and adapted To Kill a Mockingbird for the screen, and then last year you had Kenneth Lonergan at the festival who wrote and directed Manchester by the Sea. Who are you honouring this year and why?

MATT

I mentioned Tony Gilroy who is a screenwriter and filmmaker. He’s somebody that we’ve tried to get for a very long time. We try and find people that have a rich history of contributing to storytelling and also have an ability to be accessible to our audience because that’s something we also pride ourselves in is that you have an opportunity to meet Tony Gilroy and talk with him or meet somebody like Vince Gilligan the creator and showrunner for Breaking Bad who took the time to meet everybody when he was here for the festival.

Tony Gilroy is the writer/director of the Oscar Nominated thriller Michael Clayton starring George Clooney. He also wrote the first three Bourne films and co-wrote and directed the fourth film in the franchise. More recently he is the co-writer of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the writer/producer of the political thriller Beirut starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike.

MATT

Another awardee we have this year is Daniel Petrie, Jr. who we’re giving our Heart of Film Award and we invited him because he’s been involved with the festival for such a long time and he really loves our festival and he’s very giving and he comes almost every year and we even gave his production company a category the Enderby Entertainment award because his company produced a finalist script from I think 2008 or 9 from our competition and it premiered here at the festival, and they’ve worked with many writers that they’ve met here at the festival. And so usually we try to find in an awardee who has left a mark on the industry and is somebody who can share words of wisdom for the next generation of creators. 

Daniel Petrie, Jr. will receive the Heart of Film Award for his many contributions to the film and television industry and his service to the screenwriting community. Dan’s screenwriting credits include the Oscar-nominated Beverly Hills Cop as well as The Big Easy, Shoot to Kill, and Turner and Hooch. Dan is also a two-term past president of the Writers Guild of America West and a long time panelist and supporter of the Austin Film Festival.

JAMES

And you’re also honouring Roger Corman. How many careers has he helped launch?

MATT

Yes, I know that’s another reason it was very clear why we chose him because when you find out all the careers he’s started you wonder why he hasn’t received more credit. It was clear for us that he needed to be an awardee.

Roger Corman has been credited with discovering such talent as Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Diane Ladd, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, and James Cameron. He is the director of over 500 films including Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000, and The Pit and the Pendulum. Corman’s company New World Pictures was also a distributor of foreign cinema including the work of Francois Truffaut, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini.

JAMES

And then you’ve got Larry Wilmore.

MATT

Yes, and he’s somebody else who has been so great as well. Somebody who has been great talking with our attendees and very giving and very accessible as well. 

Emmy Award winning Larry Wilmore has been a television producer, actor, comedian and writer for more than 25 years. Wilmore created the Bernie Mac Show which ran for five seasons on FOX and recently helped launch ABC’s Black-ish. On camera, Wilmore was the “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and was the host of his own show The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore for two years on Comedy Central.

JAMES

So, my play Masquerade is a finalist in this year’s Stage Play Competition and I’m really excited to be attending the festival, but I was curious about why you decided to add a stage play category to the film festival?

MATT

It was our Executive Director who had the idea to do it because we work with many playwrights, and we find that many screenwriters and tv writers aren’t just screenwriters and tv writers they also have plays and a lot of these people have been asking us to start a playwriting competition. A lot of playwrights living in New York City, for example, find it hard to make any money as a playwright so a lot of them make their money in TV. The Americans, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black those writer’s rooms took place in New York and a lot of them consisted of playwrights. We started the screenplay competition in 1994 because there was a need for something like that and so we thought this would be a great way for playwrights who want to make that transition into film and television to utilize the resources that we already have in place. And also to give recognition to your own play because the placement and the exposure your play gets from the festival could help get it produced because every playwright still wants to have their play produced.   

JAMES

Let’s talk about the other aspect of the festival – so you’ve got the conference part but it’s also a film festival and the film festival runs for an additional four or five days after the conference ends. What are some of the highlights coming up this year as far as films go?

Closing Night Film at the 2018 Austin Film Festival is The Front Runner starring Hugh Jackman. Based on the real-life story of politician Gary Hart whose 1988 run for the Democratic Presidential Nomination was sidelined by reports of an extramarital affair with Donna Rice.

MATT

What I love about our film festival is that our mission to honour the writer still exists. All the awards that are handed out for the different categories in the film competition are handed out to the writers of the film. Not the director or the producer. You know when you watch award shows or you’re at a film festival and they announce the best picture they usually hand out the awards to the director and the producing team.  Unless it’s a writer/director but usually the writer isn’t involved with directing or producing they just wrote the script. But at our festival, the writer is the one who actually receives the award. We put a stronger emphasis on the quality of the writing than the marketability or the production values of the films that are chosen to be in the festival. So story really is the thing that we look for the most.

Greta Gerwig the writer and director of the Oscar-nominated film Lady Bird attends the 2017 Austin Film Festival screening of her film.

MATT

The thing that’s nice about our festival is that we’re after Toronto after Venice – after all the bigger film festivals that have those Oscar contenders – and so we have a lot of those big films that end up getting nominated for Oscars. Last year, I think, we might have had nine or ten of them. We had Lady Bird, Three Billboards, I Tonya, Mudbound, and Call Me By Your Name.

JAMES

That was quite the lineup.

MATT

And while a lot of people are going to be gravitating towards the bigger marquee films that we have this year like The Favourite or Boy Erased or Widows you don’t want to miss out on all the other films that are playing within the film festival competition because those are films that you might not be able to see anywhere else anytime soon.

JAMES

So, as I mentioned this is my first time going to the conference. What basic tips or advice can you tell me about coming to the festival that I should know and would help prep me or anybody else who is going?

MATT

Well, get familiar with our list of panelists that are attending the festival and the conference. Find out if your screenwriting heroes are going to be here because they’re going to be out during the festival. They’re going to be at the Driskill bar and they’re going to be at the partner parties and their badge is just going to say their name. It won’t tell you any of their credits or if they’re a panelist. So you never know who you’re going to be standing next to and if you recognize them you can respectfully introduce yourself like, “Hi I’m a finalist in the playwriting competition.” And there aren’t very many finalists. There’s about fifty of you and that’s a huge difference from the ten thousand five hundred scripts that were submitted this year. And your badge will say finalist and you should wear that badge proudly and introduce yourself, “I’m James, I’m a finalist in the playwriting competition.”  And that is something that will hopefully open doors. “Oh, you’re a finalist. Okay, tell me about your play.” And of course what’s also going to happen next is, “Well what else are you working on?” And so be prepared to talk about other work that you’ve written and of course be ready to talk about your play.

2017 Panelists Amy Berg, Eric Heisserer, Megan Amram, and Raamla Mohamed attend the Writers Guild of America West Welcome Party

MATT

You’d be surprised how many writers come here and they have a fantastic piece of work but they don’t know how to talk about it to people. So, just be prepared for that elevator pitch but I wouldn’t necessarily call it pitching at the festival because nobody really likes to be pitched to. A lot of these agents and managers and producers who are here are here to have a good time and to meet writers and contribute to the festival. They don’t want to be treated as if the only reason you’re talking to them is so you can send them your script – there’s so many people that are after them that they just want to be treated like a human being.

JAMES

Well, treat them like you would want to be treated if you were in their position.

MATT

Yeah, exactly and as a manager, it’s all about the relationship and so if that’s how you’re going into it they’re probably going to think I’m not sure I want a relationship with this person. And don’t forget about your fellow writers that are sitting right next to you because you know everybody comes here wanting to try and meet the panelist or agents and managers but it’s a chance for you to meet other writers like yourself and develop your network and friendships and your professional relationships.

JAMES

I was thinking about the legacy of the festival. And I have to say I really like what you guys are doing with the Austin Film Festival – On Story. Tell me a little bit about how that started and what you guys are doing with that part of the festival.

MATT

So, Barb our Executive Director had always envisioned that we would have a TV show and so she had the foresight to record all of our panels during the festival and to keep a record of it so that we could utilize it in some way one day. And we also had a lot of people who attended our festival asking if we had any recordings so there was a demand for it. And so we went through our archives and created a quality product that PBS loved and picked up and our marketing team has gotten us in almost all the markets for PBS and now On Story has expanded into a book and a radio show on PRI and we have a podcast as well. So On Story has really become its own brand and people really love it. 

JAMES

I watched a couple of them on YouTube and shared them through Facebook, and Twitter and Instagram. I watched Carl Reiner talking about the early days of working on the Dick Van Dyck Show and it was really interesting, and I watched Kenneth Lonergan who you had here last year and I thought it’s nice to have those things available.

Vince Gilligan creator of Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul at the 2013 Austin Film Festival

MATT

And we’re proud to say we’re an Emmy award winner as well. We won an Emmy for our episode featuring Vince Gilligan whom I had mentioned earlier and actually, we’re nominated this year for an Emmy for our episode featuring Eric Heisserer the writer for Arrival. 

JAMES

I’ll have to hunt those down and watch them. Are there any legendary stories from the festival that you can share?

MATT

Oh God. Legendary stories. Well from the first year the winning script in our competition actually got optioned and produced rather quickly. It was called Excess Baggage and it was written by Max D. Adams. It had Alicia Silverstone and Benicio Del Toro in it.

I believe the first screenwriters’ conference for AFF happened at Willie Nelson’s old opera house, but it was run down, and it was rainy but somehow it brought people together, and you know we said magic happened there. I wasn’t around for it but this is what our director Barbara Morgan has said repeatedly over and over again – that magic happened there despite all the chaos because everybody was there because they believed in story and telling their stories. And a lot of big influential people from Columbia Pictures were there as well and they felt the magic too, and I think that helped encourage them to become more involved with us and to see us as a legitimate resource for writers, and they optioned that first script and produced it and that’s really what put us on the map.

Austin Film Festival 2017 Awards Lunch (L to R) Walter Hill, Extraordinary Contribution to Film, Keenen Ivory Wayans – Extraordinary Contribution to Television, Kenneth Lonergan, Distinguished Screenwriter

MATT

And you know what feels legendary for me each year is the Awards Luncheon and hopefully you’ll see that and feel that too when you’re here because the awards luncheon is where we celebrate the winners in the competition and win or lose it’s still a really great event because on that stage we are awarding up and coming writers from our competition and we’re also honouring the established writers like the Tony Gilroys, the Larry Wilmores, Roger Corman, Dan Petrie and so they’re all on the same stage together. And what’s so beautiful is that one of those awardees, almost without fail, will comment on what they’ve seen from the up and coming writers. They’re deeply moved by the time they get up on stage because they’re also not sure what to expect at our festival.  So, when they see we’re really championing the writer and they’re hearing all the winner’s stories and we even have a young filmmakers award so they end up seeing young kids going up there and accepting awards too it makes an impact.  And these kids are in awe of what they are seeing – you know these teenagers are seeing people from different backgrounds and ages winning our script competition and our film competition and then they’re seeing highly established people as well and so that’s really inspiring for the next generation of young people who are going to continue to create and write and tell stories. And for me, that feels legendary because everybody always comes away feeling so invigorated and inspired.

***

The Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference runs from October 25th to November 1st. You can check out all the details regarding the Festival at their website online.

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AFF is pleased to announce the 2018 Script Competition Finalists and Winners. 51 scripts were chosen for the Final Round with one winner to be determined in each of the 13 categories. The winners were announced during this year’s Conference at the Awards Luncheon held on Saturday, October 27 at the Austin Club. (Winners in Bold.)

COMEDY FEATURE SCREENPLAY
Presented by Sony Pictures Animation

Sex APPeal by Tate Elizabeth Hanyok
Darryn the Bold and the Sword of Boldness by Justin Best
Meet Cute by Noga Pnueli
My Date Is Kate by Carlin Adelson
Orientation by Eve Symington

 ***

 DRAMA FEATURE SCREENPLAY
Presented by Writers Guild of America, East

Horsehead Girls by Wenonah Wilms
The Death of Colm Canter by Revati Dhomse & Hector Lowe
Dig Two Graves by Jared Schincariol
The Huntress by Abdullah Alhendyani
The Innocent and the Vicious by Dominique Genest & Nick Kreiss

 ***

SCI-FI FEATURE SCREENPLAY
Open to science fiction, fantasy, horror, surrealism, myth/legend and fantastical storytelling.

Our Own Devices by Paul Vance
Darryn the Bold and the Sword of Boldness by Justin Best
No Man’s Land by Jeffrey R. Field & Michelle Davidson

 ***

HORROR FEATURE SCREENPLAY
Open to thrillers, dark suspense, sci-fi, and macabre themes.

The Patience of Vultures by Greg Sisco
Blood of Israel by Davey Morrison
Shaky Shivers by Andrew McAllister & Aaron Strongoni

***

ENDERBY ENTERTAINMENT AWARD
For feature scripts in all genres with an original concept and distinctive voice that can be produced for under $10 million. The production company was founded by Rick Dugdale and Daniel Petrie, Jr.

Project Horizon by Charles Morris
Grit N’ Glitter by Seth Michael Donsky
 The Patience of Vultures by Greg Sisco
Put Your Hands In by Warner James Wood
 Surfmen by Christopher Rhoads

***

AMC DRAMA TELEPLAY PILOT
All Semifinalists will be reviewed exclusively by AMC who will determine the Finalists and eventual Winner.

Worth by Stuti Malhotra
Double Time Dames by Davia Carter
Liberty Falls by Robert Attenweiler
Lifers Anonymous by Sean Collins-Smith
Mindset by Ethan Solli & Ziba Sadeghinejad
Ticker by Connie O’Donahue & Jeremy Nielsen

 ***

COMEDY TELEPLAY PILOT

What Will Jessie Do? by Kevin Luperchio
Band of Mothers by Sabrina Brennan
Bastards by Erin Muroski
The Last Abortion Clinic in Kansas by Tammy Caplan
Rice, Fish, and La Croix by Naomi Iwamoto

***

DRAMA TELEPLAY SPEC

The Handmaid’s Tale: Rebels by Angela Jorgensen
Billions: Trust by Amanda Parham
The Handmaid’s Tale: The Abduction by Todd Goodlett

***

COMEDY TELEPLAY SPEC

 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Volunteers! by Maggie Gottlieb
Better Things: Goy Vey by Robert Axelrod
 Master of None: Headspace by Honora Talbott

 ***

SHORT SCREENPLAY

Ruby Throat by Sarah Polhaus
Seat 23B by Eliott Behar
 A War on Terror by Peter Haig

***

SCRIPTED DIGITAL SERIES
Presented by Stage 13

Epizootic by Daniel Young
Halcyon by Jonathan Marx
hello, world\ by Michelle Sarkany

***

STAGE PLAY

Particular Disposition by Benjamin Fulk
 Masquerade by James Hutchison
Disposable Necessities by Neil McGowan

***

FICTION PODCAST

The Rest Stop at the End of the Universe by Samuel Suksiri
Alethea by Katrina Day & Phillip R. Polefrone
Forces by Len Sousa
Welles D-11 by Simon Nicholas

***

JOSEPHSON ENTERTAINMENT SCREENWRITING FELLOWSHIP FINALISTS
In addition to this year’s Script Competition Finalists, we are proud to announce the Finalists for the inaugural Josephson Entertainment Screenwriting Fellowship. This new opportunity will provide a one-on-one mentorship with producer Barry Josephson and his team in Los Angeles for the writers of one feature screenplay and one teleplay pilot. 

***

Feature Screenplays

The Death of Colm Canter by Revati Dhomse & Hector Lowe
Darryn the Bold and the Sword of Boldness by Justin Best
Meet Cute by Noga Pnueli
The Patience of Vultures by Greg Sisco
Sex APPeal by Tate Elizabeth Hanyok

***

Teleplay Pilots

Lifers Anonymous by Sean Collins-Smith
Band of Mothers by Sabrina Brennan
Mindset by Ethan Solli & Ziba Sadeghinejad
Ticker by Connie O’Donahue & Jeremy Nielsen
Worth by Stuti Malhotra

***

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Revised on November 26, 2018.

Interview with Barb Mitchell – Do What You Love

Posted on by James Hutchison

You might know Barb Mitchell as the cohost of Calgary’s first morning show for Global back in the early nineties. Or you might remember her as Miss Calgary back in the early eighties. Or more recently you might have seen her on television as a judgmental church lady in the gritty Depression-era drama Damnation. I sat down with Barb, just after this year’s Calgary Stampede, to talk with her about her experiences as a broadcaster and her career as a stage and television actor.

JAMES HUTCHISON

So, your first experience on stage was playing Piglet from Winnie the Pooh in Junior High – certainly one of the more complex characters in the hundred-acre wood.

BARB MITCHELL

Yes, I did a deep dive into Piglet.

JAMES

Was there anything from that performance that ignited your love for the stage?

BARB

Well, I loved my drama teacher, Miss Main. She was incredible and fun, and we got to escape and experiment and I loved it – so when they didn’t have enough kids turn out for the play and she asked me to be in it I jumped in and did it.

Barb takes a “deep dive into Piglet” from the Hundred Acre Wood

JAMES

It’s nice to be in demand.

BARB

Yeah.

Continue reading “Interview with Barb Mitchell – Do What You Love”