We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joey J. Haley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Joey , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

As an artist and a queer person, there is no thriving or even surviving without risks. Both of these facets of my identity require somewhat constant risk-taking because there is no road map. There is no blueprint to show you the right way to success and security. Unless you come from money or connections, you find yourself forging your own path which means taking leaps of faith. Life is one risk after another; to quote David Bowie, “Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” My journey from dance to finding a parallel career path with Steadicam and directing has been quite exciting, to say the least, and not without its fair share of risks. The first director of photography (DP) I ever worked with got me onto the Steadicam path. I was on Nantucket on a study abroad program that was a learning film set, summer island in the middle of winter, and completely intimidated the day before my first ever day on set. I was making myself coffee when the DP came up behind me, waiting for his turn. In my state of anxiety I mumbled “sorry I’ll get out of your way”, accidently filled my coffee cup to the brim and swerved around him. He stops me in my tracks and says “you didn’t spill a drop of that; you need to become a Steadi op”. At this point in my technical learning, I didn’t even know what a camera battery looked like; let alone anything specialty about the camera world. A couple months later I sought out my first Steadicam workshop. At the time the workshop was $800 and the most I ever spent on anything (from the POV of a college student). This was risk #1: On top of my financial risk at the time, I trusted that someone saw me enough to highly encourage a career path and understand what I needed in a career of film.
A few years later I was living in New York, having graduated college, and I continued on my Steadi operating journey. I posted an extremely green question in an Steadicam Facebook group; I knew it was green but I couldn’t ask my steadicam friends (Because I didn’t have any at the time) and I got a shocking amount of backlash and rudeness. I chalked it up to the pandemic lack-of-work annoyance but through the noise, an established DP and operator DM’ed me and ended up mentoring me, even going so far as to let me use his Steadicam and TRINITY rigs for practice. Through his help, I was able to meet top-of-the-line Steadi ops in NYC who helped me get those first few jobs. All from taking the risk of putting myself out there and opening myself up to what would come to me.
As I said before, life is one risk after another. At this point, I had been living in New York and nomading up and down the east coast but by the end of 2020, I was getting North East cabin fever and realized that if I was going to eventually move to LA, I might as well move now. So me and my roommates packed our things and drove cross country in the middle of a pandemic to give it a shot. Per reaping the rewards of past risk-taking, I got connected to a legend of an operator; I reached out to him, he walked me through his gear, and offered to rent it out to me. It was made clear to me since NYC that operators don’t just rent out their rigs to anyone. Through him, I got connected to a bunch of different operators through a bigger Steadi workshop (another big financial risk for me at that time- don’t worry, the investment has since paid itself back). It was there I met the head of the America’s Camera Stabilization Systems for ARRI who saw on my page that I’m a TRINITY op. I take it he was impressed because of my youth with no means but networking to operate and he invited me to come to the TRINITY workshop that followed the Steadi workshop I was in. I went to that, and met more amazing people at the top of their craft. All that to say, now not only am I connected with some of the best people and operators out there, I’m seeing the steadicam community grow and change post pandemic and I feel truly connected and in it. And really this particular journey has been one risk after another.
Steadicams all in, from vest to sled to arm, cost at minimum $30,000 used. When I started toying with the idea of owning one, I ended up at the Small Business Administration (SBA) and found a financial advisor to talk me through what this would look like financially. I quickly started to learn just how hard it is to get a loan when you don’t come from an economically privileged background. In the 5 months of getting passed around financial institutions, I met an operator on the Steadicam forum who was selling her rig. Over the course of us interacting about the gear, I noticed her pronouns and name change in our email thread. We bonded over shared trans identities and when I told her I didn’t think I would be able to get the money for the rig she told me she would hold it for me. She said she wanted the gear to go to a gender variant person and offered to finance half of the cost herself, as long as I could make a smaller down payment. This is one of the kindest things anyone has offered me. We didn’t know each other personally and we were across the country from one another but she wanted to see me succeed.
Despite her generosity I was still struggling with banks giving me the run-around and promising loans of a certain amount, then going back on their words. I was talking to two trans cinematographer friends about my struggles when they immediately offered to split the cost of the down payment. Important context here: these conversations happened in the middle of the SAG and WGA strikes in the summer of 2023 when almost nobody was working consistently or knew when they would be again. Overwhelmed, I quickly declined them but they were insistent. Both want to see me succeed and be able to call on me for steadicam work but it was emphasized to me for the purposes of reinforcing the monetary loan that it was going straight to housing and feeding a trans person and not some big cooperation. That giving their money to her directly is more fulfilling and hopeful than spending money for it to go who-knows-where but the pockets of CEOs. Also for the fact of owning a ‘trans-funded-Steadicam’ and being a part of that is awesome and empowering. They believed in my path and that I was meant to do this work, all the more in that their investment was going straight to a person in our community. I started pursuing used Steadicams because ‘it was a silly thought’ but really the real “risk” was that I was dreaming bigger for myself. They say no one’s path is the same, by all means, I had no idea that my path could look like this. It was (and still is) truly inspiring that when my fear was that I was taking resources away from my community, that in contrast, it really is just recycling and keeping money within the community. My story so far has been about the risks that I’ve taken to get where I am today but it has also been about the risks that my community has been willing to take on me and on my future.
This is where my story and the risks I’ve taken become a two parter: Rewinding back to the SBA and finding a financial advisor. My original intent with going to them was to inquire about grants and financial advice about developing a proof-of-concept of a feature I’ve been in soft development for for years now called The Maze. Obtaining my Steadicam, a near impossible dream financially, has restructured my views on funding and fundraising.
Quick context; I always thought I wanted to DP but I’ve been pushed and encouraged to pursue the directing route for various reasons. I kept obtaining projects in which I would direct and sometimes produce and so, why knock it? Yes, I’m still an operator, and a 1st camera assistant at times but when it comes to Steadicam specifically (my end goal as a technician), I‘ve always found myself talking in depth with the director about characters and story motivation; how can I literally move the story forward. I find myself talking mostly to actors (and befriending them) as I choreograph them through the space, ask them about their characters and figure out how I can translate/amplify their character’s story through the language of the moving camera.
I’ve always thought of funding my projects solely via grants (woof), and that I could never ask my communities who are majorly systematically marginalized and historically underpaid/ financially unfortunate to give to something I’m creating that won’t show promised monetary returns to them. And I don’t trust big script competitions or platforms. But this experience has shown me the reality that the power of community can not and should not be underestimated. That resources can circulate within the community and directly support our work without going through a bigger financial system. It’s made me think that maybe I don’t want huge investors for the sole purpose of financial returns and some control. And that on a larger scale, the ability to create is not only important, it’s extremely powerful and takes a lot of responsibility. As a Steadicam owner, there’s a huge financial and insurance responsibility for owning specialty equipment. As a director- and I’ll quote one of my mentors- I’m holding the door open for people to create in their own ways (from cast to crew) and I’m responsible for keeping the door open- I’m responsible for creating and maintaining jobs. By starting either and all of my prospects, taking that responsibility is a risk.
The Maze, a directorial project I mentioned before, is in development right now which is exciting- and is also fiscally sponsored by From the Heart Productions. It’s a story in which two opposing, potentially violent, political parties find themselves accidentally in the same room; underground, no easy way out. In a mind game of suspicions and survival, who will identify the other party first? Between the two, who’s the real enemy? It’s a movie navigating context, control, and “passing” to cultivate discussions on how compassion and context can cause a systemic revolution and when identifiers become targets instead of learning points. Right now, I plan on funding this between selective grants and crowd funding; it’s crazy and I feel slightly out of my depth but as I’ve quoted Bowie earlier in this interview, “that means you’re just in the right place to do something exciting.”
In the depth of this process, I wrote a short, working title ‘Spies In Corsets’ – that’s now also fiscally sponsored (!!!) super exciting- for queer consumption that’s a story that balances between navigating the queer intricacies of helping someone into a corset and being confronted with ideological differences within personal/intimate relationships. This short explores the topic of radical action versus playing-the-long-game for making a change within systems. I created this short essentially to be a beta test for fundraising (something I haven’t intentionally done before) for what I’ve been calling “big Boy fundraising” for when I launch The Maze campaigns. If my quick descriptions have tickled your brain, the donation pages for my projects are linked somewhere on this page I’m sure.
There’s risk in my project’s success, there’s risk in its failures. There’s a risk in something going wrong or how people perceive me asking for donations. If I can’t stop thinking about my personal goals and how they could extend beyond myself, they must be worth doing, right? So much so that I’m saying it on the internet in an article forever. I try not to lose sight of the importance of taking these risks. No art worth making and nothing that leaves a mark or changes us does so without taking a risk of some sort.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Something I’ve recently been saying a lot is that “I’m a dancer first” in the way that physically expressive (yet calculated) movement is the primary way I move through life and it’s my ‘in’ to whatever I end up doing. That being said, hi, I’m Joey J. Haley; founder of Mustard Boys Productions, award winning filmmaker, director of The Maze, and Steadicam Operator. I believe in fair and equal pay, I believe that art and libraries are two of the most important things holding humanity together, and I believe that through compassion and context, r/evolutions can be had. Invoking perceptual awareness through embodied illusion is a crucial part of my process in my camera operating and in my dance praxis. My orientation in life is queered, thus my focus in creating “the shot” or “the movement” is based in the queer phenomenology of arrivals in capitalistic structures. Through these structures, I intend to alter perception through choreographic illusion. I want to inspire the audience to question themselves and their perception of how a performative apparatus and audiences can arrive into a space together with similar and differentiating prejudices. Similarly, in my camera operating and directing, I love making my audience see what they’ve already been seeing but cast in a different light: a light that isn’t the immediate expectation. I intend to continue to curate a personal praxis through perspective shifting embodiment and light, both theoretical and material, to create awareness in the breakdown of social and political structures in both my operating and moving. I’m from both New Hampshire and Fortaleza, Brazil. I was a self-taught dancer at 10 years-old, in and out of the community of Brazilian street dancers. Once arriving at Mount Holyoke College, I grew my dance praxis through performing for faculty and student choreographers. I then studied abroad in Prague for a semester for film at Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) and studied with a Sarah Lawrence College feature film program in 2018. Went into Steadicam training in the summer of 2019 in NYC with Abel Cine and and later, training for TRINITY in late 2020. A few years later, in 2022, I trained again with the Steadicam Operators Association- training with some of the best- which then led to another in-depth course on the TRINITY at ARRI. One of my proud moments
I operated Steadicam in Lucia di Lammermoor at the LA Opera which was an awesome and heavy learning experience Steadicam wise. Though that was an amazing project to be apart of and that I like to highlight, Steadicam wise, I’m most proud of operating on Dorian Electra’s IDOLIZE. Ironically enough per the title, they are one of my favorite artist/performers because what they do extends beyond themselfs within exploring ‘embodied illusions’. It was a cool full circle moment to go from talking to them after their show in 2019, to now. As for Directing, I’m most proud of sticking with my projects for so long that now I have, not one, but two fiscally sponsored projects! With some awesome folks I’m lucky enough to call my mentors as well as co-workers! And for that I’m truly grateful. As for the mix of the two, and has been a very recent thing that’s been happening is that I’ve been a guest speaker at Mount Holyoke College and University of California Santa Barbara to talk about my career intersecting dance and film. I’m proud to be asked to share my path and that I can offer hope of a life in the arts by other means than following already created paths that may not be the most fulfilling.
We all know the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ and that, more often than not, there is more to what meets the eye. The broad strokes for both projects is navigating how that ‘more’ reveals itself and when it’s less than ideal. The Maze digs into embodied identities and illusions whereas ‘Spies In Corsets’ is very to-the-point within misunderstandings but, in that, how attraction blurs the stakes. I grew up on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and various 80’s/90’s sci-fi/action movies where the biggest take away for my young brain was that I was a part of something bigger because the protagonists are a part of something bigger than themselves. Going past the classic good vs evil and ‘what does that really mean’; I love to explore the complexities of one’s own inner dynamic of knowing there’s something larger than you can fathom but your own wants are in your way.
The Maze is an award winning script and both projects are at various stages of intense development. My general complex and congruent career path has been Steadicam → to set choreographer -> to writer/director. Because of that path, I’ve obtained the skills in which to carry these projects forth. What sets me apart in all this is that I like to think on grand scales with the understanding of the labor that goes into production. I’m most proud of The Maze and I want the audience to take away that it exists, and will eventually exist in feature film form. So much already has been growing from it and I couldn’t be more grateful. We’re fundraising on the We Did It platform. I’m selling upcycled clothes from my immediate community to whoever wants to give these items and clothes a new home …. And the best part of all of that is that all donations and purchases are tax deductible!
I believe that growth and change are constants and my work will continue to evolve as I do and have done leading up to now. All of my projects, big or small, don’t go without intention. I believe that “If art’s not political, it’s privileged”. So, if I were to describe what I do I would say I’m a Steadicam Operator and Director and, less significantly but worth mentioning 1st AC, set choreographer, and dancer.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve had to unlearn the ‘you have to do one thing’ ‘you have to stay on one track’ mindset. Film and dance have always been separate things in my formative years, especially because the resources for either of them were not present. So pursuing either medium meant expending a lot of energy either finding a resource in that specific medium or teaching myself what I want to learn or practice. In rural New Hampshire, on a farm, with no car to drive around and no neighbors or close friends, dance studios were hard to come by with my type of movement. I’d constantly rope my friends into home videos- no film was happening in NH, if it was, it was happening at a secret professional level. In Brazil, the streets are dangerous. As in the literal sidewalk. Especially for a white blue-eyed redhead. Growing up down there I’ve always been surrounded by family members who would shield me and friends after school when we’d sneak out to the mall, they would dress me in their hoodies and bandanas and form a huddle around me. Brazil is saturated with dance in its culture but not in a way that, when I was young at least, was accessible to me and my safety. And the same went for film. You have your real phone and you have your dummy T9 phone for when the robbers come up to you to ask for your belongings at gunpoint. So carrying a camera around was out of the question… even though I did that sometimes anyway, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
I knew from very young that I was going to go to college and double major in film and in dance. I had my calling and my sights were set. I was 8 years old when I watched Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time and I was like “That! I don’t know what exactly but that’s what I want to do, I want to be there and do that”. As for dance, I saw my first Michael Jackson music video when I was 10 and was immediately obsessed ever since. The way he moved his body was the way I wanted to move and I have pursued that quality of movement since. I’m not joking when I think some version of the moonwalk was the first dance move I ever learned. Never did I imagine them together- I’d either film the dancing or dance on camera, but not both…. Wasn’t even a possibility in my mind.
Then came Steadicam. I’d say most folks don’t know what a Steadicam is and what it’s capable of and how to operate one. So the fact that I could have a technical skill that benefits from having the agility and choreographic knowledge of a dancer and the technician skills of a Camera Assistant (AC) was beyond me. Steadicam is my money maker skill (at the moment) and truly, if I didn’t do this, I don’t think any other role on set would suit me other than trying my luck as a backup dancer in videos (and I’m not sure that would fulfill me to the degree Steadicam does). Being able to marry the two halves of my brain has really put peace into the outlook of the rest of my working career as a technician. On top of that, in the interest of melding interests, I recently did a tall ship sail training intensive for two weeks for the sole purpose to learn and become a tall ship specialty operator/director and be able to bridge set crew and sail crew.
Another facet of my interests that I don’t bring up much is music. I was a drummer for 13 years. Within those 13 years, I played percussion in various bands, practiced my grandfather’s WWII baritone sax, picked up the piano and guitar by ear, and started teaching myself the violin. I was very serious about music in middle school, so much so that everyone in my life thought I was going to be a professional drummer in a band when I grew older. Looking back, music was what got me through school- past the bullying, the homophobia and transphobia. In college, I took a couple music theory and sound design classes where I learned how to compose for film and my dance projects. It wasn’t the same as consistently practicing instruments but it was still putting my classical training to use. music did more for me than I think I give it credit for.
I bring this up because when it comes to directing, I get to be involved in the post sound scoring of it all. When I was young, I loved seeing the BTS of my favorite films and I would always get chills when they cut to (usually John Williams or Hanz Zimmer) conducting their orchestra in live time playing with the footage. I think the score plays a huge part in what really influences the audience’s emotions and when you have a good score it’s what trademarks the movie. Knowing I have the ability to communicate and really live in the post production scoring side of things is very exciting to me. Seeing the movement (physically, ideologically), film, and music sides of what I do come together is magical and it gives me the chills every time.
I keep saying this and will continue to say it but we (the royal we, us humans) have multiple interests for a reason. It’s not by some coincidence, or at least I personally don’t believe it is. At least for some people. I think the skills we learn along our journeys to where we are now isn’t in vain. They, together, make us who we are and to ignore an interest or a hobby- something that makes you truly happy- is to ignore a part of yourself. The arts inform each other and being interdisciplinary lets you think about the greater context within individual practices. Not that it doesn’t take accessibility and effort; there is a lot of effort and care put into fostering your interests. At least for me, my interests were meant to be entangled with how they are and I’m still unlearning the ‘one track mindset’ of it all.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Absolutely! It’s hard to discern between artistic influences and what influences how I approach my work. Something that a near and dear dance professor of mine, Barbie Diewald, had us do in class that’s stayed with me over the years is listing out our ethical vs aesthetic imperatives as a part of annotating what drives us into our movement. For the purposes of the short list of sources and materials I’m going to cite, I’m going to define them with how they have helped me navigate a ‘way in’ to whatever practice I was/am entering. Books:
Queer Phenomenology by Sarah Ahmed
Queering Anarchism: Addressing and Undressing Power and Desire by C. B. Daring, J. Rogue, Deric Shannon, and Abbey Volcano
Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman
Dance:
Fractus V by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui
Music:
Dorian Electra
Film:
The Matrix and Sense8 (both directed by The Wachowski Sisters)
Netflix Original animation Arcane
Amazon Original Carnival Row
These are just the sources that have stuck with me for the past 5 years and keep circulating in my brain. My mini “Roman Empires” if you will. Really, what all of these possess is the ‘here’s the problem/topic/subject. How do different people view it? How can we break it down? How can we change it?’. Shaping huge concepts or hard matters into consumable yet impactful offerings of thought – often illusioned by the mask of fantasy, camp, or embodied illusion- is what I like to bring into the work that I produce and offer up to a wide audience.
Then there are online platforms that support my philosophies of community and how important it is in the line or art work. Instagram being the biggest in terms of virtual networking usage in film. It cultivates community and acknowledgement of work. It’s a quick digital portfolio. It’s nerve wracking to be seen- and I’m still getting over that fact about my line of work- but it pays off when that draws the people who you’re meant to work with or be connected with. I love the Steadicam Forum and all the group chats; it always reminds me to practice but more importantly that there is a whole community with shared resources, knowledge, and experience that I can fall back on if I need.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.joeyjhaley.com/current-projects
• Instagram: @your.local.steadicam.op @mustardboysproductions @the_maze.mbp @spies.in.corsets
• Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/mustardboysprod
• Other: We Did It Donation page for The Maze: https://mustardboysproductions.wedid.it/ We Did It Donation page for Spies In Corsets: https://spiesincorsets.wedid.it/  Want Updates directly? Send me an email and message on my page as I get an email list going! https://www.joeyjhaley.com/contact

Image Credits
Taylor Balfour, Zan Cullen, Leah Hewlings, Ashly Covington, Barbie Diewald