Indiewood

Being a Multi-hyphenate Filmmaker: How to Expand Your Creative Toolkit

• Cinematography for Actors

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What happens when an established actor adds "writer" to their creative arsenal? Wayne T. Carr, whom you might recognize from his powerful performances on stage and screen, joins us to explore the exhilarating and sometimes intimidating journey of expanding one's artistic toolkit beyond acting.

Whether you're considering expanding your creative toolkit or need inspiration to release that project sitting on your hard drive, Wayne's journey reminds us that artistic growth often happens when we're brave enough to try something new.

Subscribe to the Indiewood Podcast now and join our community of independent creatives who are making their own paths in the entertainment landscape.

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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."

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the IndieWood podcast, a podcast about independent film and the many hats filmmakers have to wear in order to get those films made. This month, I've been talking to an incredible actor, teacher, father, director. I think we added one more hyphen while we were kind of going through these episodes All-around, incredible, creative, wayne T Carr. Thank you for having me, you're welcome. Thank you for coming back week after week after week. We're not recording these on one go. We were just wearing the same outfit every, every time you come back. Uh, well, we just yeah, that's that, you know.

Speaker 1:

It's funny. You say that because I think this is going to be the the kind of like nugget that we're going to kind of unpack here, because we've talked about your career, we've talked about this idea of legitimizing, uh, your craft and also using your craft and non-creative fields, like you know, being an actor and helping corporations learn how to communicate, because you know what corporations don't do. Teach you how to communicate, right, with your colleague as a human. No, but uh, when we were planning all these episodes, you mentioned that you were writing again. So we're adding another hyphen to your long list of things that you're doing, because you're now writing plays. Well, no, I'm assuming. I'm making that assumption because what you're part of right now is called the Playwrights Union.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Playwrights Union.

Speaker 1:

It's a writing group. Yeah, tell me more about that.

Speaker 2:

And mostly everyone in the writing group. They're straight-up writers. That's what they do. There are a couple of actors in it, but primarily it's a group of like professional writers. They're in writing rooms, they're doing the thing. They're playwrights and the pilot that I wrote during the pandemic in 2020 was the thing that got me into it, Because you have to submit a writing sample.

Speaker 2:

I sent that in and I was just shocked that they were like, yeah, come join the group. I was like, awesome, it was my first time writing for film television, anything really right, and it was good enough to get me in this group of very talented group of people. And so, yeah, that's been. I've been trying to write ever since.

Speaker 1:

And so right now? Well, I guess let's start with this. Why did you want to write? Why did you, as an actor, having had done all these amazing things? Why were you like I'm going to write now? Why did you, as an actor, having done all these amazing?

Speaker 2:

things. Why were you like I'm going to write now. Yeah, it's the thing that we were talking about before, where it's like you know, if you have an idea, if you get it out, trust me, other ideas are going to come. Yeah, other things, it's going to fuel a creative, you know, flood right. And so I had ideas and thoughts in my head as the pandemic was happening, as the industry shut down, as the world shut down, and I had to get it out, and I was like I can act by myself. I can read a play, I can wait. I have this idea for a TV show. I've never really written a TV show, so I just started reading books and I was like save the cat. And you know, like, oh, stephen King wrote this, okay, let me read them. You know. And I just started to teach myself, you know, and I wrote this thing. And again, I remember being on the set of the Tragedy of Macbeth and handing my script over to Frances McDormand. I was like I can't believe you're going to read my.

Speaker 3:

This is such a I mean like until this day.

Speaker 2:

It's like a highlight of my career. It has nothing to do with money, has nothing to do with any. I was able to hand over my writing to her and she read it. Also sent it to her manager to read and her manager, who didn't know me from anything just because they're together, sent me pages of notes and I was like this is great, this is incredible. And that's when I discovered that the hard part about writing for me is rewrites.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that's a big kind of crux for a lot of folks. But also, I think I always say this learning how to write is easy. I say two things Learning how to write is easy and everyone's got one script in them. Everyone's got that story they're dying to tell because it's just part of their core. They're a truck driver, so they can tell the story of the road. They're in the military. Everyone has one story, no matter who you are. Two stories that's when you become a writer. When you have two, you're like okay, now I'm a writer. And then it's this idea of rewriting and I think that's what throws a lot of people off and why people give up is you write this thing, you write a first draft and you look back on it and you go okay, I have to change some things.

Speaker 1:

and then you have to take a knife to it and you have to gut it, yeah, and it can't be too precious and it's a child you've birthed with your imagination. Don't think. Don't think of it like that. Yeah, don't think of it like a child.

Speaker 2:

Nobody wants to go ahead and cut up a child, right like, so you, you, you have to look at it as a living, breathing organism that has to grow and has to change. This is, this is literally me. I, I'm, I'm telling myself this. I don't know what will work for other people, but that's what I learned from my experience. I was like, oh okay, this grand idea that I had, I can't make it a baby, and that's what it was. It can't be my baby. I have to allow it to grow, similar to my almost four-year-old child. I can't save her from everything. I can't prevent her from getting into little things or hurting herself, which I wish I could. I don't ever want her to bump her head or get a scratch.

Speaker 2:

I can't save her from everything. I have to let her grow, similar to the artistic life and writing. You have to allow it to evolve and grow and change.

Speaker 1:

There was a I forget where it might have been on the pod, it might have been somewhere else where this artistic concept of you have a piece of marble and then the art is within it. You just have to crack the marble off. I think the same can be said for a page. You have a blank page. On this page exists the exact words that need to be said. Yeah, you just have to find them in that space of white, you know, I mean, and yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 1:

To throw it back to you many patinkin and episode two, episode two, yeah, or episode three. Sometimes you gotta make it up and put in whatever you want to put in. But when you were writing these things for the Playwrights Union, you mentioned something about like I'm doing these things, but now I want to give them more life, I want them to be more outside of myself, outside of this circle, and you mentioned kind of like putting them on YouTube or putting them. You mentioned putting them on YouTube, yes, and so tell me about this thought process of like you have these things you've written, why YouTube? Why not make it into a short or a feature or a TV show and see why, specifically, kind of a smaller scale distribution?

Speaker 2:

exhibition format. Yeah, I feel like you know I can share my ideas or my thoughts with people and you might say, oh my gosh, no, turn that into a feature. And you might be right. What I've learned over my career thus far is that if I wait for the right thing, if I wait for the right time, if I wait for, I will continue to do that. I will wait If I have an idea and I go. I just want to get this out. It may not be the smartest thing, it may not be the wisest thing, it may not make the smartest thing. It may not be the wisest thing. It may not make me any money, it may not give me any clout.

Speaker 1:

You might spend money.

Speaker 2:

I might spend money, I might whatever. Yeah, just the thought and the process of writing the things that I'm working on, writing the things that I'm writing and creating these little mini-sodes that I was telling you about the other day. I'm writing and creating these little mini-sodes that I was telling you about the other day.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's unpack that more. So tell me about these mini-sodes that you have and like really kind of, I was like no, no, stop Save it for the pod. So in the Playwrights Union, you, yeah, we have challenges.

Speaker 2:

right, we have these challenges several times a year, they'll go okay. This is the March challenge. Here's what we're doing. We're writing a brand new pilot, nothing that you've written before. Brand new pilot. So we had a challenge in the fall and I started writing an idea that I had in my head that were it was just kind of like sitting there and I didn't, um know what to do with it, and so the thing that like made me snap out of uh, kind of like just waiting and thinking, was like to go okay, here's what I know and here's what I don't know. And the things that I don't know are the things that can probably actually get it, you know, produced somewhere or shown on a big screen or whatever.

Speaker 1:

So what did you find that you did know and what did you find that you didn't know?

Speaker 2:

I know that I can pick up my phone. I can say some dialogue that I've written and I can put it on social media. I can put it on a YouTube channel. I know that I can put it on social media.

Speaker 3:

I can put it on a YouTube channel.

Speaker 2:

I know that I can do that right now. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe you can teach me this and you should teach me this. I don't know how to create something and write something and sell it to.

Speaker 3:

Amazon.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, yeah, I don't know how to do that, it's it it's such a weird answer because the way I think about the film industry and, um, this brings it back to kind of the corporate world that we were talking about in episode two. Imagine the, the corporate world, as a, a tree and on top of the tree house, and that's where your, your career, is right and you know, to get there you have to climb the physical ladder, corporate ladder, right, you get in the mail room, you get an entry-level position, you get promoted, and maybe this isn't true anymore because, like the, the, the employment world is weirdly not what it used to be. Yes, but back in the day you were like, oh you, just you. You get hired by a company, you climb the ranks and you retire at 65, and then you just live off your money and die.

Speaker 1:

I think that scared me the most and I was like I'm being an artist, I don't want to do that, yeah, but for me, I think, when I look at the film industry, or just film and arts in general, is you have the tree, you have the tree house, but there's no ladder. How do you climb that tree? However you want, sure, and so you know? Uh, when you think about writing, let's say, um, a feature film. Like a small indie feature film set in one location three actors, affordable, story's, great, it's fun and exciting. Like this is gonna be what people want to see. How do you sell that? How do you climb a tree right? Like that story with Francis McDormand where you were like, oh, I just get in the manager and then the notes and then like it's, it's building these relationships. That could be something like what you experienced. Or could be something like what you experienced, or could be something like what I experienced where I wrote a script.

Speaker 1:

I put it on this platform that you know, an exec read because it got I got well rated, and that we had a meeting and now, like we were working on a script together, you know, like kind of tree, yeah, you know, there's the screenplay, we're working on a script together. You know, like time to treat, yeah, you know, there's the screenplay competition route. You go, you do, well, you know. Then reach out to managers or a manager reaches out to you. The script production companies. It gets picked up somewhere. Granted, these are, like you know, shooting for the moon without a trajectory and hoping to land there, you know. So I guess the idea is, I guess any script is like without a trajectory and hoping to land there. So I guess the idea is, I guess any script is like launching a rocket and trying to get to the moon and it depends on are you working with NASA or your dad? You know what I mean. Like are you building a little rocket with your dad and trying to shoot it to the moon?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Or are you working with NASA? But that's a place to start and I think that's where my brain is when it comes to writing, which is a new thing that I'm trying to do over the past.

Speaker 1:

But it's, all about relationships Five years, Four years right Almost five.

Speaker 2:

Almost five.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know it's five now, because pandemic started in March. Yes, but yeah, it's all relationships, it's how you thrive within your community of creatives, you know?

Speaker 2:

Or like you said no, so the thing that I was going to say is I wrote the pilot 2020. I shared it with Francis right. Just she was like what are you working on?

Speaker 2:

I was just typing on set just doing the thing and I showed it and she was like, oh my gosh, can I read it? I'm getting into producing. And I was like sure she did it. And she was like, oh, interesting, I'm going to hand it over to, I think, the idea that I'm working on, or that I started to work on in the fall, and I've taken a little pause for myself. I just need to create it.

Speaker 1:

And this is where I was going to land is that's like the indie studio, the indie system, the studio system, the Hollywood system, the, you know, like this is a business system of making stuff.

Speaker 1:

There's also this other like and people call it the creator, creator landscape or something the creator economy, economy I forget what the term that they're using is which is like put on youtube, do the on instagram, on tiktok, because people have shows on tiktok where, like, they just cut the vertical out and you're like it's a show, and I think there was one that I vaguely saw come across my radar which was about like vampires and wolves, and it was like the why, you know, like weird fanfic novel that got made into a thing and and you can make it yourself, like you can just be like I'm going to put a phone in the corner and I'm going to say lines into it and then that's literally like the simplest way you can do that. But that, I think, isn't a new thing, because I feel like you know the French new wave, film wave, what's the term I'm looking for, what's the word I'm looking for, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Like movement the movement of the French New Wave film movement. That felt like something that's happening now with this social media, youtube thing, where people just are getting together in their apartment. I have a camera, turn it on. I have some lines let's make a rom-com, let's make a tragedy, let's make a whatever. Bringing it back to your stuff, these mini-sows that you wrote, why not make it on your own? Why not? The thing is, do you want to make this show for money? Do you want to have a big hit on cbs again?

Speaker 2:

like the thing that I would say to to anyone watching or anyone looking for inspiration the thing that's working for me, that's helping me to continue to write, to continue to be creative is.

Speaker 2:

I'm not even thinking about it that grandly. The only thing I'm thinking about is what could I do? I could could make these seven-minute mini-sodes and put them on my social media and then shoot them with my phone and create my own dialogue and just have a thing that I created. No money comes, it doesn't matter, but I get it down. Once you have it down and I think Quentin Tarantino said this in one of his interviews that I just really loved, and so many writers have said this in my studies thus far and learning of how writers think Just do it, you put it down and then, once you have it down in whatever form rough first draft form then you have something to show someone, yeah, then you have something to have. You know I can say, hey, can you read this?

Speaker 1:

And you start refining it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then somebody who's smarter than I am might go. You know what Make this a feature film. It's going to be good, like okay, cool, great, and then I can build from there. But I have to learn how to build from there, and I can't worry about that now, because then I close off here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And what do they say? Perfection is the enemy of good. If it's good, good movies get made all the time. It's when you start seeking that perfection in whatever you're creating, that's when you get in trouble because it's like, okay, well, you're just going to perfect it to death and then you're going to be 80 and you're going to be, oh, I wish I made that film, like you're still working on it. Yeah, um, but I'm glad you brought up, because I brought up the youtube thing. But when we were in in prep for this episode, you you said, like I want to put it on youtube, yeah, and so I wanted to unpack exhibition.

Speaker 1:

Right, if you make something on your own, what do you do with it so people can see it? And and I guess this is like you know, sometimes you can make something and it could just live on your hard drive. Yep, and it and it could live, they could thrive there and it could be. That's the place for it. But I think something truly exists, like on an artistic level, when it has an audience yes paintings, they need to be seen.

Speaker 1:

Dance needs to be like experienced. Uh, theater, you need to be there. Butts in seats, like a movie only functions if eyeballs see it. Music, the same thing, ears need to hear it.

Speaker 2:

And so I think, yeah, put stuff out there, yeah how many times have you heard some writer, filmmaker, artist in general say I've had this in my file?

Speaker 1:

cabinet why?

Speaker 2:

This has been on a hard drive for 10 years and finally it's getting made. You know, like so many people have like just created things or started to, and then come back to it or finally someone has caught up to it and go, oh, let's do this thing, and you're like, yeah, I wrote that 10 years ago. That happens, you know, it's not always the ideal time for that thing to kind of like happen, but for that artist, who ever created it whether it's a painting or a writing or music, et cetera they needed to do it at that time. They did it, and so the thing that's not scary to me is just putting it up. Yeah, that's not scary to me, just like writing something and creating it on the cheap and just go, okay, cool, what's scary for you, then? What's scary is is, is it's. I would say the scary part is, I don't know what.

Speaker 2:

I don't know and I'm okay with that in in a general sense, but when I start to get into my head, I want to write this script, I want to create this play, I want to do whatever and I want it to go to Broadway or I want it to win an Oscar or I want it like my brain goes well, I don't know what. I don't know that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because that feels the tree feels too high, it's, it's a big tree to climb, and what I've learned from my experience thus far is I don't need to look all the way up, I just need to go. Yeah, it's that first run. Yeah, and then you've got to keep climbing.

Speaker 1:

Well, speaking of kind of making your own stuff and putting it on something, releasing it into the wild, as I like to call it. Well, speaking of kind of making your own stuff and putting it on on something, we're just releasing it into the wild, as I like to call it. You know there are certain things you could do for exhibition. For example, a short film run a theater, you know, or a screening room, show it to some friends, you know, put on social media and like, like, like you do with like one one person shows. You know I'm doing a one person show. Come see me, you, and then you just sit there for two hours seeing a person just scream into the audience, the ether. And then you have things like YouTube and Instagram, social media.

Speaker 1:

And I think when you start thinking about exhibition as platforms, I think that's where you get into trouble. I think if you start thinking of exhibition as a frame, that's when things can get a bit more creative. Youtube is its own thing and it's just it's. I think there's a whole series that could be set on YouTube because it's evolved and you're also at the mercy of, you know, a conglomerate. And you know, when you start thinking about like the algorithm, my monetization. Know, when you start thinking about like the algorithm, my monetization, then you start like I think it's like a drug. We start chasing the algorithm, yeah, and then you become a youtuber and then it gets a little scary.

Speaker 2:

I think everybody should when, when they get home if you become a youtuber, you know that's okay, that's fine, like you know, like if it happens, it happens. But if you are the type of creative that I am when it comes to the writing world, which is new to me if I write something and I film it with the people here in this space and then I put it on my YouTube channel, and I share it with my friends. I'm giddy about the thought of it, and sometimes it's all you need. That's all I need.

Speaker 1:

I'm giddy about the thought of it and sometimes it's all you need. That's all I need. I was going to say that every person should go and see. Go to Kevin James' YouTube channel. I don't know if you watch the YouTube channel.

Speaker 2:

It was hilarious.

Speaker 1:

And watch his series about the sound guy. Whoever did the green screen work on that. It was incredible the matching that they because he just puts he acts as a sound guy and he puts himself in scenes of big movies. It's hilarious. My favorite was the Rocky one.

Speaker 2:

Oh, this was yeah, sylvester Stallone was giving that great speech and he's just like really into it.

Speaker 1:

I have to watch that again because I don't remember that one. But yeah, that is. It got millions of views and it's a creative thing, but he just did it during the pandemic for himself and shared it with his friends who just happened to be fans, and millions of them. So when you think about, let's say, these minisodes bringing it back to kind of you when you're thinking about these minisodes and what to do with them, Think of it as a frame.

Speaker 1:

Youtube is like a 16 by 9 frame. It can be more widescreen, you can fit more width into it, and that changes it because it feels more cinematic, it can feel more epic, I guess would be the right word to say. Let's say, you choose Instagram. It's a whole separate channel. That's apart from you, but it's just these scenes that you're doing. Your frame changes because now it's a whole separate channel. That's apart from you, but it's just these scenes that you're doing. Your frame changes because now it's vertical. Yeah, you can turn it sideways. People do that. I don't. I hate it if you make me turn my phone to the side watching your content. I will skip past it, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:

Good to know it's the frame, is what it's supposed to be, right, and and? And that is different too, because then you're more intimate, it's more here, and I'm kind of framing my face with my hands, or it could be something where it's a piece of dialogue and you can start cutting people's faces differently in a frame, because sometimes you frame somebody up in a piece of dialogue and maybe their head's cut off from the top, but now, because you're vertical, that changes as well. You know, and in instagram you can still have the length. On tiktok it's a little shorter. I mean, yeah, there's the length. So now you're thinking about a frame and length, and it's less about oh, like which platform should I put it on? But more about like what, what's the, what's the visual framing, and like delivery and exhibition of it.

Speaker 1:

So you're thinking about it as that, because yeah anybody can throw anything on YouTube and it can be great, but what's the artistic kind of intent behind it? And so I think for you, if you start to add in characters and you start to add in length, if it's going to be seven minutes and if it's going to be long, maybe YouTube's the right choice. If it's going to be seven minutes and if it's going to be long, maybe YouTube is the right choice. If it's something a little shorter and it's a bit more intimate, maybe there's two characters instead of ensemble, maybe Instagram, if it's just you, maybe TikTok, maybe, as we're having this conversation, someone's releasing some new platform that's going to be the hit.

Speaker 1:

And, yeah, I think, whatever you choose to do and I think a lot of people should kind of consider this is be careful of thinking about your exhibition as this kind of I don't want to call it monetary thing, but there's a monetary aspect to it like this is how I'm gonna make my living, this is how I'm gonna succeed, and like give it, giving it value, because it's gonna somehow like make your career quote, unquote, um and start thinking about.

Speaker 1:

Start thinking about it as another extension of the artistic expression it's exhibition right when people released on theaters, they did, you know, different aspect ratios because of formats and because of TV and because they were just trying to compete with TV and radio and and like that's how we got these big frames and these big widescreen frames, because TV was, you know, like a square and people are like, oh no, we got to do something different. How is your exhibition making your art different? Forget money, forget views, forget whatever, forget the algorithm. Like you said, I just want my friends to see it and sometimes that's all you need to start, because then down the road, someone sees it, another person sees it, it blows up it. Doesn't you write something more? It's just a part of that cog of your creative life.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah yeah, my, my, uh, a former student of mine, she's now a dear friend. She was, uh, she picked me up from the airport yesterday, yesterday, oh, my gosh yesterday you just got off stage and back home, yes and uh she was. You know, she's a young actress and she was talking to me about. She was like I've been auditioning for these verticals and I was like verticals, literally.

Speaker 2:

She was like yeah, in China they had this big thing where there are these apps that you can watch this content on and you get paid a decent amount of money to be a part of these verticals, but they're short format and I was like, oh my gosh really, and but they're short format and I was like, oh my gosh really. And so it was just interesting to hear her talk about that and it's something that's new to me. I don't know what that is or how I feel, so I've started last night actually diving into what that means and what that is and, as you were saying, with the frame, which is really intriguing to me, if you're doing shooting something vertical, like filmmakers like yourself, I'm like I'm curious what you can create on a vertical, because it changes things. The one clip that I saw was it was like a Western or whatever, and so there was a cowboy up here and a cowboy down here, but it was just the hat.

Speaker 1:

And I was like that looks really amazing. See, as we're talking, I'm getting inspired because I was just like let's do something together and the thing that came to mind was like it's a series about conversation in doorways and it's called Doorways and that's, your frame is doorway. Yeah, because, look, the possibilities are limitless Absolutely. And I think on that, that note, we have to end and kind of tell people to you know, focus, not focus, but explore possibilities outside of this, like need for success and so.

Speaker 2:

so no, I would say to add to that, though whatever motivates you because there are certain people who are like this could be my big break and if that keeps you active, if that keeps you going, I say, go for it. If you're like, oh, I want to win that Oscar, I want to win Best Picture, great. If it keeps you active, it doesn't help me. I need to get to one branch and I need to not think whatever, and I can't think the grand scheme of things or whatever. I just have to take it bit by bit and get to the thing. That's what keeps me active, that's what keeps me going.

Speaker 1:

I'm really glad you said that because I want to pack that in episode four. What happens when you look that high, when you're motivated by that, that target, and you don't hit it, and you consistently don't hit it because it's too high. Maybe you'll hit it eventually and maybe you'll get there, but how do you kind of keep motivated when you miss? Yeah, and I think we'll unpack that next week, let's do it. Yeah, wayne. Thank you so much for chatting, for coming on the pod. Thank you for everyone who listened. I hope you got inspired to go make some shorts, yep do it your way exactly, uh, and then I will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening. 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.

Speaker 3:

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 nonprofit. 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.