Indiewood

Managing Creative and Career Momentum: What Happens When the Spotlight Dims?

• Cinematography for Actors • Season 9 • Episode 4

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Every creative career has its ebb and flow, but what happens when your momentum is repeatedly interrupted by forces beyond your control? Actor, producer, and writer Sarah Randall Hunt, currently appearing in the hit series 1923, joins the Indiewood Podcast to share hard-won wisdom about maintaining creative resilience in an industry that's weathered a pandemic, multiple strikes, and devastating wildfires.

Drawing from her journey transitioning from New York theater to Los Angeles film and television, she reveals the mental frameworks that helped her survive career dry spells and setbacks to ultimately build sustainable momentum.

Join us for our final episode with Sarah, as we explore resilience, addressing your inner world before attempting to rebuild external momentum, and how to reconnect with your creative spirit during difficult times.

If you’re looking to craft a sustainable artistic life that weathers industry storms while preserving your creative spirit, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

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A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers

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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."

Yaro:

Welcome to the Indiewood podcast, a podcast for independent film and the many hats filmmakers have to wear in order to get those films made. The person you're hearing cracking up on mic is the guest that's been with me all month. Uh, an incredible actor, a very talented actor and writer and producer and, uh, my partner in life, Sarah Randall Hunt that's me.

Yaro:

Yeah, I'll pay you later we've been talking about your career, uh, your work as a multi-hyphenate, uh, producing your own stuff, producing a, a web series that we shot together, that we co-wrote together, producing other short films, producing theater, but then also being a writer. We were writing a feature with a friend of yours which we'll have to talk about. We haven't talked about that. We keep bringing it up. I know, oh yeah, there's so much other stuff to talk about, but you've had a wonderful career and it's only growing and it's only just popping off, and you're currently on a big show right now and the new season's going to premiere and you're in that.

Sarah:

You can't talk about it. You can't talk about it, don't talk about it, but you're in it.

Yaro:

You did a lot of cool stuff in it. So you're in a show called 1923. We've talked about it a little bit, about your experience on the show did as an actor and how you communicated with people, um, but getting here hasn't always been easy. I wanted to talk about momentum because I feel like we're in parts in our in places in our career where we feel like we have momentum, we're doing things, we're getting things done, and you're in a show I'm writing with a production company like things are happening and it's cool, and we've built up this momentum after strikes and after a pandemic, and this is after having had momentum that had been interrupted by the pandemic and by two strikes, and this is something we've both worked on for you know the decade or so of our careers, and I wanted to talk to you about momentum, because you've been an inspiration with like having so many things in your life and then moving to los angeles and kind of starting over to a different medium.

Yaro:

Because you did theater in new york and now you're in los angeles doing film and television and then, like you were doing, you know, films and tv, and then momentum stops and then you build it up again and then the pandemic hit and you had great, let's do the momentum thing again. And then you build it up again, the strikes happen, and then you know.

Sarah:

So how do you the fires? Yeah?

Yaro:

oh my God, and the fires.

Sarah:

That just happened, but it's still not totally over.

Yaro:

Yeah, well, the fires are over.

Sarah:

Well, the cleanup is going to be a thing.

Yaro:

The cleanup is going to be a while. Yeah, how do you maintain momentum?

Sarah:

That's question one. Question two is okay. How do you get momentum back after you lose? Yeah well, it's not like boxing quote, it's like it's not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up again.

Yaro:

It's not even the quote I mean, no, it is. But that's like how do you? How did you do it? Because some people they don't get back up, they're like I'm leaving the industry for you know what like goodest of those people, like live your best frickin life.

Sarah:

like. I think we have this whole that for some reason, artists are like oh my god, this is my purpose, it's the only thing that gives my life meaning. I have to keep doing it, even though it hurts so bad. And then it's like but like that whole thing on the previous episode, that that gives my life meaning, I have to keep doing it even though it hurts so bad. And then it's like but like that whole thing on the previous episode that I was talking about, where it's like but your entire life you are crafting. Oh no, it wasn't Gay Hendricks, it was somebody else. Ah, I don't remember the person. Anyway, but you're not just climbing a summit, you are crafting yourself as an entire being over the course of your entire life. So there is no there, there, you're just going to keep working on it and refining the thing that you are.

Sarah:

So I think one pressure is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself, especially if you're on the downside of what feels like, you know, a cavernous time or like a like you're trying to get yourself back up again. The first thing you need to do is just be so gentle and loving with yourself, and so I'm. I'm rambling here a little bit. I just mean to say that it is okay to want your life to be good, and whatever that means. You have to do it for yourself.

Yaro:

Because you only have one, and this is something we've discussed a little bit, and I think we've been really lucky and really conscientious of the thing that supports the art, and we talked about this on previous episodes with you. Even A-list actors don't only do TV, they own other things, they only do other things, they have other investments, and so for us, I think it's been really helpful that we've also invested our time into things that may be more financially stable but then gives us the opportunity to be creatives yeah and not like not on the side, I'm talking about like a parallel career.

Yaro:

Parallel, we do have parallel careers. Yeah, I do a little bit of journalism and I do a little creative and creative writing you got this podcast.

Sarah:

I was gonna say creative marketing.

Yaro:

But like, yeah, did you freelance marketing? Yeah, there's a whole freelance writing career that I have that pays bills, so that the other half of the day I can write, yeah, and I can craft, you know, like the pitch deck, or I can do the shot list for the film I'm directing, and the same thing goes for you yeah, and I'm, like I mentioned in a previous episode, I'm a project manager.

Sarah:

I'm also. I work for a company. Are you a project manager? Yes, I'm literally. Well, I, I, I have a title.

Yaro:

There's a title, Okay Well okay.

Sarah:

So I work with this company that is a team of actors and I'm running operations for it. It's called act of communication and they use acting skills to help witnesses and lawyers be better at trial, and it's not about teaching them to act. It's actually about teaching them to be authentic and to be themselves to their full capacity, which is truly what acting is. Acting is telling the truth, and the truth is really hard and yeah, so I'm super passionate about the work that I do with that, and it runs in conjunction with my passion that I have for acting and filmmaking and screenwriting and the volunteer work that I do with places like Peace Over Violence.

Sarah:

Like I think what we're getting at here is I was kind of rambling around it before but like you have to have a full life and you are not just an artist. You are also a sister, a brother, a son or a daughter, you're an aunt or an uncle, you're a sibling, you're a parent. You have to have a full life and the fuller your life is, the better your art will be. Yeah, and the truth is is that shit is gonna suck sometimes and like our environment is, um, pretty tough right now in entertainment, we've we've taken several blows between all of the outside things that have happened with COVID and the, the pandemic and the strikes and the wildfires in in Los Angeles, um, and I think fortitude has to do with not just getting up when you fall down, but also taking a moment to just recover and to take care of yourself and to like lick your wounds and then like fear it feel your feels and like not be in a rush.

Sarah:

Are you in my 20s? I was like my hair was on, like I was just like running the next thing. I was always in a hurry and like my teacher even said he was like you're always in a hurry where?

Yaro:

Where are you?

Sarah:

going and I'm like I got places to be and it's like okay, yes, and Like, if you don't notice the view on the way, what was the point of all of it If you don't have friendships, if you don't have? So all that to say is like I had a huge gap in my career in my 30s. That was like a really important time for me to be working, when I was really coming into my own and I had like the driest of dry spells. And this is on that cusp of like me moving to Los Angeles. I had worked a little bit and then I had a period that was a dry spell, while my confidence was also suffering of like, oh, I really don't know how to act on camera. I just really don't.

Sarah:

And it's funny how that paralleled the results, right, um, which I think that was a lot about mindset for me, and I think I had to go through it because on the other end of it, I, um, I worked through a lot and I earned my strengths with myself, which I think was the most important important thing. And on the other end of it, I wouldn't say I'm like cocky about my, but I feel confident in what I can accomplish when I come together with other people and, um, and I think that, yeah, I there was a lot of stuff like we met romantically and then like that was the best thing that had happened to me in a little while and then I had some other really terrible personal things happen and then the pandemic hit.

Sarah:

It was like one thing after another. So I think resiliency isn't necessarily just like keep it on, keep it on. It's more of that like hand slappy thing. That's that the true thing that you do when stuff gets hard is go inside and take care of that first. Find stability, find ground literal or just metaphorical that you can root to. I literally like, and in my hardest moments I have a friend who's very spiritual. She's like go hug a, and let me tell you it feels great Forest bathing, they're calling it now.

Yaro:

Forest bathing Forest, bathing, I remember when I was growing up, someone hugged trees and then she talked to grass.

Sarah:

That grows in an environmentalist? Yeah, probably, or something else, who knows?

Yaro:

I like what you said about resilience, because I think resilience plays a lot into gaining momentum again. You know, uh, I just to kind of impart parts of my career, yeah, where, like, I like how to script those option like it was. It was, you know, we were talking with producers to get it built up with a comic book company, uh, as um an origin story for a villain like boom, the pandemic hit. Yeah, and I think if I didn't have the resilience to be confident myself, my creative career, my stability, like financial stability, and also like, uh, just just emotional stability, yeah, I don't think I would have come back to writing. Yeah, because I I lost all this momentum. Yeah, I was. I I invested so much time into grad school, into my writing, and then it was just gone, and not that the pandemic was over, people came back, there was just nothing, and so I had to start from scratch.

Yaro:

Yeah, but now without rep which was really tough, yeah, and having resiliency in craft, self self financially, was so important. And I think for folks who are like, oh, I have you know X amount of money, I'm going to be here for a year. If I don't make it in a year, I'm doing something else, that puts one a lot of pressure on you, too much pressure, and it kills momentum instantly, because you're always thinking about that end point. Yeah, and what if it takes two endpoint? Yeah, and what if it takes two years?

Sarah:

you just didn't know what if it would take 15 and you quit at 14. Yeah, my acting teacher used to always say don't give up until the miracle happens. Don't give up right before the miracle happens. That's what he actually would say, and I just love that, and the truth is I just at the end of the day, this is a job yeah it's not who you are as a person. It is an extension of who you are as a person everything we do is an extension of who we are as people.

Sarah:

Right, the way you do anything is the way you do literally everything. Um, but how? And it is super meaningful work, and I truly believe that art can change the world, which is why I want to be an artist, you know, and I think it can change the world for the better. I think it create, create human connection. I think it can create humor for us to get through really crappy times. I think, um, it's hope, creation is hope, and I think, regardless of like whether you need to take a pause on your stuff, go home for a little bit, you are always an artist, whether or not you have that external validation or not, it is a. I think there's a different fabric that artistic people are made up of, and that is just who you are. But you and your job are not equal. You are not the same thing and you have to nurture who you are as a person.

Sarah:

And, as I mentioned in the first episode, my relationship to myself was something. I had to do a lot of work in therapy and then, beyond therapy, it wasn't even. It was deeper than that. I had understood why I talked to myself that way, but then I needed to like goose myself up to not do that anymore, and so I'm still working on having a consistent meditation thing. But, like journaling, the artist way was super helpful for me.

Sarah:

I highly recommend anyone who's looking for some kind of peace or comfort, you know, to turn to the artist's way and you kind of never know what direction your life is going to take. And if you don't take beats to have space in your career which are normal and healthy, that even in regular times I bet if you talk to an actor or a writer or director who was working like in the 90s or in the 50s, they would say the same thing that I mean like even just using the world war ii happened right before all of that crap. And then you know like there's always going to be stuff outside of your control happening. You have to be able to be fed, housed, watered, sunlightedlighted. You're a plant, loved you are a plant.

CFA:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Loved, whether that be yourself or other people. Both it's preferable.

Yaro:

And I think somebody listening is going to be like, oh so you just mean get another job. And if you want to look at it, there's like really bare bones. Yeah, I guess on some level, sure, that's what it means, but I think it combines everything we've talked about with you on this pod and all the episodes before. It's a combination of all those things. So we had an actor who was on a web series, who, him and his wife, own a wine bar. Yeah, there's an actor that I know in Seattle, who I worked with back in 2005, who was in an indie film out there. He runs a screenwriting competition and he's partnered with a huge festival here in Los Angeles. He's still acting, not as a side gig, that's his job. He just has this other job. And I guess what I'm trying to say is don't put pressure on the creative arts to be your sole provider. Spread out, you are other things.

Sarah:

Yeah, you can do and I also reject I I so passionately reject the idea of a tortured and poor artist. I don't know there's so I don't. I don't know where that started, but we're not doing it in new york. No, no, it's. It's older than that. It's very, very old. But I think like, and uh, elizabeth gilbert has an incredible book called big magic. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

Sarah:

Um, that's very inspirational, um, and she talks about um, keep your day job yeah because and she kept her day job um for long into I think I have to it's been a minute since I read the book, but I think like beyond her first writing success until she absolutely couldn't keep it anymore because it wasn't her all or nothing like like her own personal writing pursuits were complimented and supported by and this like gentle, wonderful, playful thing that was like the inner child work I was kind of like hinting at earlier, like that was still sacred and protected because it could be plenty of time. And then outside of that she knew she could feed herself, house herself, water herself go out to dinner with some friends.

Sarah:

Maybe once in a while.

Yaro:

If you feel like you can go out to dinner and let's say dinner is like 50 bucks and you can put down your card, put down cash or whatever kind of currency you have and not feel like that hurts, that can go so far to helping your soul yeah.

Sarah:

So it's counterintuitive, because you think I think a lot of people too are like I'm gonna save up 20 grand or whatever, move to los angeles and just never get a day job. It's like, well okay, like that would be amazing.

Sarah:

There are people this happens to I don't want to negate that, but I. But what I do want to say is that if you're in it for the long haul, you have to look at it like the marathon, right, not a sprint, and I do want to say that like it doesn't mean you have to look at it like the marathon right, not a sprint.

Yaro:

And I do want to say that like it doesn't mean you have to come here and like, get a restaurant job or a coffee shop, like for me, for example, as a writer, I've segued into marketing and journalism and I'm writing a novel, like I'm doing other things that are still creative, yeah, and are still wonderfully expressive and somehow beneficial. I'm not writing technical documents for the medicine company. That's a terrible analogy.

Sarah:

I'm sure that pays really well.

Yaro:

It is fun for a lot of people who are illogical like that, but for you as actors as well. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get a job that just pays you a bill. Do things with your acting that are important.

Sarah:

Yeah, and I don't know one creative person who has one creative interest. I don't know a single one, every single. I know somebody who's a painter and also a writer. I know one who's a writer, photographer, producer, actress. I know another.

Sarah:

It's just, it's all an extension of like, life enjoyment and like, and if it's not, it doesn't have to always be enjoyable, but I think like it can be purposeful, um, but I think I think we're so hard on ourselves by and large as a group and I think there's got to be a lot of grace for the state of the entertainment industry, who knows what's going to happen with the wildfires and how all that happened and all of the families that were impacted by that, and like, my heart goes out to the people who lost their homes and unbelievable lost their homes, and unbelievable like the amount of love and support and like technical acumen of the firefighters and first responders and all of the people who came together to fix this problem.

Sarah:

But like we've got some stuff to do too to recover from that. Not only and prior to that. You know we have a new tax credit in california, um, but there's a lot of stuff moving overseas and so what's going to happen and you know the truth is stuff's going to keep happening. So you got to kind of stay in your lane, be moisturized, keep moving, yeah.

Yaro:

Stay in your lane, stay moisturized. Yeah, keep doing your art. That's all you can really do.

Sarah:

That's all you can really do, like I get sometimes. I get like super keyed up about things and really passionate about big ideas and it's like, okay, that's great, but like where am I putting?

Sarah:

that energy yeah am I just diffusing it or just sitting here and going on instagram being like, what is all of this? Or am I just gonna be like, okay, let me put, put it into some art and that's the thing like the highest vibrational energy is creation yeah, well, speaking of creation, yeah, and when you have momentum again, like for example recently, you um I returned to a big show, uh, 1923.

Yaro:

We won't talk about it because it's gonna premiere soon. You should go watch it.

Yaro:

It's awesome, um sarah's in it maybe uh, but I I wanted to ask you, when someone gets a show like this, uh-huh, you know what is the best? No, maybe not the best way, I don't know if that's the right language, but what is a good way to capitalize on the momentum, not only like financially, but also mentally and creatively and spiritually. Like, how do you take something like this and go let me just use this as a, as a swing to knock this bottle?

Sarah:

yeah, I will say, when you talk to yourself and things are down is exactly the way you talk to yourself when you're walking into something good happening. So you got to talk to yourself really positively and it's really normal to get. There's this concept called the upper limit problem. Look, gay Hendricks, you need to pay me residuals for how much I'm talking about, because, let me tell you, it's amazing, but I'm talking about it a lot but an upper limit problem that people have and the concept of it is basically we all have this idea of the thing that we think is the maximum we deserve, right? So when I would think, check yourself for that, make sure that you are not creating limitations for yourself given the good news that's happening, and accept all of the good news coming your way. That's the first thing.

Sarah:

The second thing is is don't be thinking about the thing that's happening. Be thinking about I almost like when I was, when I've been prepping for stuff in the last year, I've been like, okay, I can't think too much about how excited I am about this, because that might stress me out, so I have to put my head down and go okay, like none of that's my responsibility. My responsibility is to show up on set and do a good job, a job that I feel proud of, and that's the only thing I have any control over, right? I don't have any control about how anybody else feels about it. I just have to feel good about my preparation and how I showed up for myself and other people, and then again stay in your lane because, like, just keep doing that exact thing, I would say, because you have to keep auditioning.

Sarah:

You have to think like, okay, so something has happened and good news. You have to let good news into. I think we don't, um, celebrate good news enough. I think, just, I think we need to, like, you know, anytime something good's happening, you have to like, dance about it. You know, um, but yeah, and then I think, um, think about what's next, you know, and put your energy into that instead of fantasizing about the ways it could go wrong or the way it could. Because the thing that I have really learned in my personal journey is that thoughts expand into things and if you are not thinking joyfully and positively and hopefully, you're going to manifest that nasty thought that you had Think about it too much.

Yaro:

And we're not saying that like, oh, you think about a million dollars and poof, a million dollars is going to magically appear in front of you. But you are setting yourself up. If you think negatively about yourself, you are creating a path for yourself that will lead to some negative things, and the opposite is true. Set yourself up for positivity and keep thinking about the next step, the next project, the next collaboration. Bring that energy to the people you meet on set. Bring that energy to the people you talk about with this, about this project outside of the thing and stay positive.

Sarah:

And my heart goes out to anybody who's feeling like this is a hard moment, and maybe you just moved to Los Angeles or maybe you just moved to New York, but you know, if you're beginning your career in the midst of all of this like you're doing a great job, just keep going. And I think connection and um, just keep going. And I think connection and keeping your mindset clean and yourself taken care of is the only thing you can really focus on. Community, truly, like I love. Somebody said, like network with people who are coming up in your level. I think that is the best advice to give too, because ultimately, those are going to be the people you make films with and those are the people you're going to see climb the ranks at whatever studio.

Yaro:

um, so yeah, that's a good uh piece of advice to end on. I think great. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for uh. Thank you for talking with us about amazing things and giving us advice. I hope the show goes well. I hope we'll see you on the big screen again soon.

Sarah:

I can't wait to see you all on set.

Yaro:

And we'll see you guys next week for a new guest and a new episode of the Anywood Podcast. How about our podcast?

Sarah:

everybody, thank you. I can't clap but thank, but thank you everybody for having me bye-bye.

Yaro:

Thank you for listening to the anywood podcast. You can find the podcast and anywhere you find your podcasts, or on the cfa youtube channel from the cfa network.

CFA:

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.