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Indiewood
A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers
In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.
Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.
Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.
"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."
Indiewood
Breaking into Hollywood: Allie Rae Treharne on Authentic Characters & Indie Film Evolution
What does it take to break into Hollywood as both an actor and producer? Allie Rae Treharne shares her journey from Utah to Los Angeles, discussing her role on "Atypical," her pivot from advertising to producing the Pulitzer runner-up play "Detroit," and her unique approach to adapting plays into contemporary short films. Rae opens up about her screenwriting endeavors and the evolving landscape of independent film and theater.
We explore how entertainment preferences between partners influence writing styles, contrasting realistic and escapist content. Rae shares insights on casting, the importance of nuanced character development, and the need for deeper, more complex female characters in indie films. This conversation is packed with valuable lessons for anyone interested in screenwriting and independent filmmaking, offering a fresh perspective on storytelling in today’s industry.
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A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers
More on:
IG: @indiewoodpod
YT: Cinematography for Actors
In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.
Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.
Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.
"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."
welcome back to the indie wood podcast once again. This is season four, episode three, and I'm sitting here with my current guest, uh alire terharn. Uh Rae is an actor and a producer and a theater maker. I think that's what we've kind of settled on. She has had quite a journey from Utah to Los Angeles, where she found her way from advertising to starring in the last two seasons of the show Atypical. Oh, I did not star in it.
Speaker 2:Well, you were a star of the yeah well, what's the proper term? Then Recurring guest Casted, casted I guest, starred you guest starred, guest starred. Yeah, I guest starred in the.
Speaker 1:I was a reoccurring guest star in the show Atypical, Then moved to produce a play about a sorry, a play titled Detroit. That was a Pulitzer runner-up. You said yeah, and then that got into the Hollywood Fringe Theater Festival and then there's a lot more other things that we're going to talk about later, that your life is kind of evolving into, which is awesome. But I think in this episode we wanted to touch on the foundational thing for both theater and film, which is screenwriting, and you've done a little bit of writing to kind of adapt the plays that you've done into some kind of a short, short form video content. I don't want to. Not short form video content, short film content.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me a little bit about your experience with writing and do you like it? Because I know some people are like I love it, I want to write, but I can't. Or some people are like I want to do it but also can't, or everything in between, you know or some people can. The issue is not to yeah. Where do you find yourself in the spectrum of screenwriting?
Speaker 2:I suspect that I am. My main issue right now is just the imposter syndrome of being like I can't because I suspect that I I think I might be better at it than I than I think I will say everybody has at least one screenplay in them. That's a fact like wow, I can't wait to see what mine is.
Speaker 1:You can sit down and be like literally anybody truck driver. Uh, the ceo of a large company you know, everybody can sit down and be like I can write this movie and and they do, and it's great and it might be something that you could make, but everybody's got one, two maybe. That's up for you to decide. Yeah, how do you feel about the act of writing? And I guess when you wrote the, you wrote some scripts for those adaptations you made, right From theater to film.
Speaker 2:I wrote one short script that was an adaptation from a play and I think, like the the adaptation thing is really helpful and I I do think that like I am sort of interested in, like I do see myself, sooner than writing an original screenplay, I can see myself adapting like an older play that I really love into something that's just like very contemporary and like more personal to me. But I think I I like that idea of of doing that, but also that could just be because, like I'm terrified of putting out my own it's scary ideas and it just feels way.
Speaker 1:I think I like the idea of having the tether, the handholds of like a pool of a play that that exists, like just you know, seems like I want that guidance or something, but I definitely have ambitions to write a screenplay as you should, as you should in the world, uh, we live in now, where I think independent film and independent theater is going to blow up, or is blowing up really. I think so because the studios.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is kind of a segue off the screenwriting path, but uh, I think studios are going to contract in a way where they've spent all this money trying to make streaming work and now they have to make money with the streaming that they've tried to make work, if that makes any sense. And so now there's going to be a contraction where they're not going to spend 80 million dollars in a series. You're going to make over 10, maybe even five. Maybe there's going to be less shows, you know, or or less expensive shows, but maybe more of them. People just are now having to figure out how to make money. Sorry, studios now having to figure out how to make money. Sorry, studios are trying to figure out how to make money with the current format that they have, which before they were just burning money left and right, to be first.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, times are changing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my observation at least, and maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:I hope so. I love that. I think that's really optimistic. I have to be optimistic, I love that.
Speaker 1:I think that's like really optimistic. I have to be optimistic. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't do anything else Well give us something to look forward to after the past few years. Exactly Just like you know, I'm sort of like, well, it's all burning down anyway.
Speaker 1:Let's make our own stuff. I'll let the first man yeah and then.
Speaker 2:so then there's room to like do stuff that's fun and creative and original and takes risk and lets more people in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can make movies for under $10 million, under $5 million, that are successful, that then go on to make sure everyone gets paid. They're just maybe not going to be that big in scope and we'll see how things unfold, but I think the next five years are going to be really fun for independent film Fun.
Speaker 2:I can't wait If that doesn't happen in five years, I'm going to come back and fight you.
Speaker 1:Hey, so five years ago you said I'll start training.
Speaker 3:Start stretching, yeah.
Speaker 1:Start doing Pilates as an actor, though you use screenplays a lot.
Speaker 2:I do, I love reading you use screenplays a lot.
Speaker 1:I do. I love reading. So, as a as a writer, as someone who's written a screenplay, and as an as an actor who's worked with screenplays quite extensively, how do you feel writing is different?
Speaker 2:than acting.
Speaker 1:Yeah then like reading it off the page and transforming it into a character well with writing.
Speaker 2:You've kind of done the like original devising of the idea right, even though you get that from somewhere else, but like you're the one who put it on, you're the one who made like the playground, the structure, the jungle gym, like for the actor to play in. So it's like obviously very fundamental, and I think the people you choose to like play with your words are also fundamental. But I think both of them require building and devising and creativity and imagination. But it's like the writing has to be there first. Of course, there's always improv and like other forms of performance that don't necessarily require a script, but as far as scripted work goes, it seems to be like the foundational build of everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to think of it as more of like exploration of, I don't want to say, trauma but, experience, you know.
Speaker 1:And then as you kind of craft it it becomes more foundational. Say, trauma, but experience you know. And then as you kind of craft it it becomes more foundational. I think we use entertainment vastly differently from you. Know the person next to us, like my partner. He likes to watch things that are sad and realistic. I hate that because I think life is kind of sad and realistic so I like to be more escapist.
Speaker 2:I like to watch, you know, sci-fi and things that are fantasy. Yeah, you seem to like genre-forward material, something that's an escape. I'm an escapist when it comes to that sort of thing, and so that's the stuff that I write yeah, yeah, since you like like to write more escapist things, things that are more maybe high-end, you know into high concept, yeah, high concept.
Speaker 2:So your writing is like more aspirational, more escapist yeah so does that mean, like when you're writing is, like the casting you have in mind, more aspirational and escapist, or do you kind of ground it in, like the people that are immediately around you?
Speaker 1:you know, it's weird to think about like who I want to be in the film when I'm writing it, because sometimes it feels aspirational, sometimes it feels realistic, depending on who you, who you're working with, like am I writing it just for me and then, down the road, maybe I'll send it to a producer or am I actively working with a producer? You know, and I had a project a while ago where I wrote, uh, my own version of a superhero drama I guess would be the right word thriller and it was about a mother who was gonna go after the world's only superhero because he killed her daughter. And it's about the mother. And you know, when I sat down with the production company, like who do you see in this? Like here's a list of actors and you know, I think part of it was also buttering me up a little bit, but it was exciting. And they were like, oh, what about? Like you know, this A-list actress or this A-list actress, i'm'm like no, like I know they're hot right now, but it doesn't fit.
Speaker 1:And I was like, how about Maria Bello? And they're like, really Like, why? I'm like, can she carry a film like this? And I'm like, yeah, because this character feels so much like her, you know, because I saw her in I believe the show was called In Plain Sight, and I think as had her character in the back of my mind and like that visual aspect Cause I was like, oh, she's a cop in the in the movie, my movie and she kind of leaves the forest and goes vigilante, and I think it just depends on the scenario, but whatever gets you to write a layered character.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's, I think, would do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like maybe the through line is like it's about specificity Instead of you know, like I think if you ground it, yeah, in specificity, it could be a range of people, yeah, from the most like recognizable household name to your neighbor who's not even an actor and you're like just that person.
Speaker 1:It's about characters, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think for me, like when casting falls, like when I don't, when it doesn't hit for me is when for me it doesn't feel specific and like it's not rooted in like the character, it seems to be rooted in a different choice. That's like not a creative choice. That's about the script. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think when you write characters, a lot of the magic happens in their character relationships with other characters in the script. But also, I think a really important thing is their first introduction, and this was a whole big thing a couple years ago. I don't know if it's still happening, but people would go on twitter and be like here's uh, a woman, uh, a female character being introduced, and it's like hot, but doesn't know it.
Speaker 1:You know like oh yeah, like the breakdowns yeah, awful stereotypes, but those aren't just breakdowns, those are like in the script sometimes sure yeah and it leads to very one-dimensional characters who are throwaways, who are, like you know, the fire for the male character to, kind of like, move forward.
Speaker 2:Yep, I get auditions for that a lot, even today.
Speaker 3:Not as much as I used to. Let's go ahead. It's changing, not as much as I used to.
Speaker 2:But I will say, like some of the biggest, the ones that have been the most like offensive. Yeah, have been uh, indie films?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's because there is as much as this is an indie film podcast. I have to be honest that, like in the indie film world, there's a lot of there are a lot of bad that yes, well, I mean I think there's misogyny just everywhere, but I think it's there's just a lot of bad takes like a bad opinion, like a bad version of something of a trope and they're like, yeah, no, it's this character that's on the 90s.
Speaker 1:You know, I watched a show um a while ago I'm not gonna name it because I enjoyed it at one point and like I watched it again and I'm like, oh my god, how did this make it on the air? You know, it's like a college show about, like you know, frat guys, and I was like this is bad. I was like embarrassed, alone sitting in my room like why did I like this?
Speaker 1:yeah, um but yeah, the I think a good character always stems from the specificity of not only their intention for the story but their they're. The details of that make them them in the story. So, like I, I wrote this short a while ago and it was about scientists and they're they're your physicist, you know, and and for. For me, when I introduced the character who was a supporting character, and she was a female, female character it wasn't about like their visual or how they are as a woman, but how they are as a scientist.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that also kind of because you can work with that.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, and I think characters yes, characters who have autonomy are so much more interesting and for some reason and I do think it has gotten so much better, at least in my experience, you know, I've seen a difference, except, which even makes you know, the occasional audition that comes through of an indie film that is so incredibly egregious. It makes it even more disturbing to me because I'm just like how, why, where did you come from? Um, but, uh, I I think like, yeah, a character that's autonomous and that is making decisions or has reasoning behind what they're doing and they're not just like a prop that's being thrown around to you know, emphasize, like the male protagonist journey.
Speaker 2:I mean like this is really specific, but like the amount of like unnamed sex workers that I've auditioned for and that I know women who've auditioned for and that people audition for in general. To me it's like why wouldn't you give that person a name like they have I? I had an audition for a sex worker for a big indie film with a big writer and the audition pages were maybe like I. I think it was like eight to 10 pages of auditions and she didn't have a name and it was just like it was like prostitute number one or something which also.
Speaker 2:It's like stop using the word prostitute and like give them a name because it's a person and also stop using sex workers as like props, who don't know where they are, don't know what they're doing, don't know why they're doing it, just want you know. Are just like these malleable, like just props. It's just so, I'm just so tired of it. Yeah, name your sex worker characters.
Speaker 1:There's also been a regression. Yeah, because in the 90s well, maybe I don't know when was Independence Day. Oh, the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, not Independence Day. Oh, the movie yeah yeah, yeah, not Independence Day July 4th yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel like it was late 90s right, it was, but 96,. There we go. In that movie, will Smith's wife was a stripper, cool, and throughout the movie she became this badass that broke down trucks Not broke, broke into trucks to save people, you know, while having a kid on her shoulder and like saving a dog, and then saves, you know, the, the, the first lady, and I'm like cool, like she's more than just a stripper. You know the movie.
Speaker 3:Totally.
Speaker 2:I feel like something with indie film in particular, people seem to love like the sex worker trope and they seem I think it just seems to be like a really convenient thing for situations like to happen. And so they often like, yeah, they're just that, they're just a trope, or like a prop, and I'm like, yeah, like write in sex workers, but like give them like a voice and give your actor a voice and give your actor like intelligent things to say, like it is so offensive to send that material to hundreds of women and ask them to audition for your script. And it just blows my mind that people are still writing roles like that for women and just sending it out into the ether. It blows my mind and I don't know just. I think we deserve more actresses, deserve better treatment.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And I think, in the end, you know, apart from that being misogynistic and just bad writing in general, it's no, yeah, it's bad writing, I think. I think that that's it my, my biggest takeaway. I have a couple of takeaways from from grad school, but one of my biggest takeaways is every character you write, no matter how small, no matter how big, has to be a reflection of your main character. They can't be a prop that changes the direction of your character. They have to be a mirror. But in order for them to be a mirror, they have to be fully fleshed out. So, even if you write a sex worker, why is that sex worker important to this main character? Why is that sex worker, you know, important to this main character?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How are they either validating their original theme or their original kind of take on life, or how are they changing it? How are they fighting against it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are they fighting for? Because everyone is fighting for something.
Speaker 1:Exactly, even if they don't know it.
Speaker 2:But for some reason the women always, so often, don't have anything, going on like we don't need anything. We're not, we don't want anything.
Speaker 1:This is bad writing, yeah, but it's also. I think people just don't know how to write women if they're not women, right?
Speaker 2:which also I'm. I just like I don't know what to tell them about that, because I think you should just write a person, yeah yeah, I, I said this on a pod uh earlier.
Speaker 1:I was like I, because I write a lot of, uh, female characters and a lot of leads, uh in my movies are female characters but it's me just kind of unpacking my relationship with my mom. You know, like she's she's an amazing human being, you know and and and she's done so much for me. But it's like I've had to not unpack, but like understand, and so I'm just always trying to understand her and in that experience I write stories, characters. You know, uh, that that are also reflections of myself. And you know, the the superhero thing was just about my mom. Like I'm, like I put myself in her shoes and and and kind of thought about moments that happened in our life that were difficult, and I was like how would she react in that moment? And when you read something, when you read a character description, uh, in a script, what it was, I don't want to say what's the worst and what's the best, but like what do you want the most as an actor from that character description? To give your sure life?
Speaker 1:I mean besides a name yeah, oh, I remember I was gonna say, but I'll continue. Yeah, besides a name, besides a name.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just on a really basic level, even though this might seem obvious, but it still seems to be a thing like not like it's leading with something that's not a physical description outside of like. I do think you should be specific with like race, ethnicity, gender. I think all of that is like really informative, obviously it's not like I'm gonna colorblind, like no, like that's important, so like, for sure, be specific.
Speaker 2:But sometimes a description is like it's. It's. It's like painting a physical picture of somebody that this writer I think usually male like wants to exist instead of like describing like a human it's a fantasy, yeah yeah, and so anytime something feels like it's kind of a fantastical yeah, just like a fantasy of like a woman, um, or it's just not specific.
Speaker 2:You know, like back when I lived in utah I was getting a lot more auditions that were just like mean girl, blonde cheerleader and it's like I don't get that stuff as much anymore simply because that's out of my like age range, but also I I just think like when I moved to LA it was so nice to there was just so so much more abundance of like characters that were just like.
Speaker 2:I mean it blew my mind at first cause I was so just unexposed to that, but just, you know, things that are like about what the character like wants. I think that's a good thing to do in the, in the character description, every character.
Speaker 1:Or like what their biggest flaw is. Yeah, every character is the hero of their own movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Even the villain, even supporting actors. So they should have wants, they should be tested and they should have needs.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Minimum. And just because they don't have a full arc, let's say, for example, your villain wants to save the world by killing everybody. You know, killing all the humans, that's bad, but that's their heroic arc, and so if they don't succeed, that doesn't mean that it's a bad arc, it's just that it's not their movie.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean it's yeah yeah, I love that just to kind of go back on your um statement about indie films, like why are so many indie films? Why do they have those like tropey, kind of like unnamed sex worker?
Speaker 2:yeah, just like vibes yeah like a woman is written and it's just. She's just a vibe, she's not real she's window dressing, which is you know?
Speaker 1:you know what? Get a mannequin and put it in the corner, because that's literally she doesn't.
Speaker 2:She barely has any lines like yeah, yeah, I have a brain so I this is only for me.
Speaker 1:For me and just to kind of set this up, I think in the indie film world it just opens a lot more room for tropes. You know, like we are in some way maybe not as experienced as people from the studio system or that are you know? I want to say taught in a university and high level, but I've seen tropes out of a university level script, you know, like ucla or usc and um, I think my I've set rules for myself to try and avoid that and, like for me I I don't think I'll ever write sex worker characters.
Speaker 1:You know, for me I refuse to write the. The two rules that I have is I'll never write anything about rape or drug abuse or addiction.
Speaker 2:Oh, just because for me, well, and you just close yourself off to like 99, right?
Speaker 1:oh, I'll, never I'll never write yeah and and for me. I think this is just for me, and maybe I, I, I don't know I feel like it's an easy thing to write into a script for conflict um addiction just those like really difficult, like traumatic things. If you write it into a character or into a moment without actually unpacking what it is, you're just using it as, like you know, trauma porn fodder, sure you know no, that's actually really interesting.
Speaker 2:I get what you're saying and that's also interesting because, like that, so Detroit, the play that we talked about in the last episode, the, the crux of it is, you know, beyond just this, but the character that I played and her husband there.
Speaker 2:They struggle there. They struggle with addiction and and they were just they're fresh out of a major substance abuse rehab and it goes into like other things and stuff. But the play like, for some reason, something about theater and like how dialogue it is and how just kind of like slice of life. Um, this play is and stuff. It's like I feel like this character can get away with saying certain things that on a stage just hits in a different way that when we adapted it to film it actually kind of seemed like I don't know if, like you, would write that same, like I don't know if that conflict is presenting the same way in film.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that line is hitting the same. I'm not sure. I guess you know I'm not saying that these things aren't stories that need to be told, because they definitely do need to be told. That need to be told because they definitely do need to be told. I might not be the best person to tell these stories, not that I haven't had experiences, unfortunately, with these things. But like I just maybe it's the escapist in me. I choose not to Sure, because I want to tell stories where people escape in a good way. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, but it's made me have those limitations of a force me to be more creative Creativity, more creative creativity, constraint. And so I think the the moral of the story is you put constraints on yourself because it forces you to be creative and stop doing tropes.
Speaker 1:Sure, name your characters, no matter what they are.
Speaker 2:Name your women.
Speaker 1:Yeah, name women please give them names. Yeah, um well, I, I, uh, I think we have to wrap up, but uh, I'm, I'm excited that you're getting into writing because I think it's also informative of it informs other things that you do in the craft. Yeah, I think it'll make you a better actor, better producer, better editor. Ooh, I remember someone once saying a story or a film is edited three times Once when you write the script, once when you're shooting it and once in the editing room.
Speaker 2:I've heard that as well. Yeah, which?
Speaker 1:is a good segue into our next episode, which we'll talk about editing, which I think will be fun, because you just edited your first short yes, yeah. Okay, I want to hear more about that. Anyways, thank you for coming on for another episode of the Andy Wood Podcast. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:See you next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us at the CFA Studio for another series of the Andy Wood Podcast. You can find the podcast wherever you find your podcasts or on YouTube at the Cinematography for Actors YouTube channel. See you next week.
Speaker 3:From the CFA Network. Cinematography for Actors is bridging the gap through education and community building. Find out about us and listen to our other podcast at cinematographyforactorscom. Cinematography for Actors Institute is a 501c3 non-profit. For more information on fiscal sponsorship donations because we're tax exempt now, so it's a tax write-off and upcoming education, you can email us at contact at cinematographyforactorscom. Thanks.