We were lucky to catch up with Dustin Scully recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dustin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

When I was young I grew up in front of the TV… Now most of the time, my family didn’t have cable or satellite TV, but we had a wide collection of movies and classic tv shows on tape and DVD. I often went outside to play, but I wasn’t one for sports, and having moved a lot I found clubs and other after school activities to be a bit overwhelming. Most of the kids from school knew each-other from past years or sports, and I, at times would be at sone schools for at most a year… but no matter what, when I got home, a collection of tapes and DVD’s waited for me. I’d return home to the worlds of Tim Burton films and would play with my friends on Pee-Wee’s playhouse or classic 70’s Sesame Street episodes…

At a certain point my parents had started to question if me sitting day and night in front of the TV was such a good thing. Will he grow to be antisocial, lazy, and uninspired? I remember my mom saying, after telling me to clean my mess of a room, “you’re not motivated by much… but someday you’ll find that one thing that motivates you, and you’ll work harder at it than anything else in the world…” She was right!

It wasn’t long after that that I realized that there was someone making these worlds that I often escaped to… especially growing up with the films of Tim Burton, it was easy to spot the similarities in design, choices of music, and casting. It’s someone’s job to make all this? It was then that I realized I was going to be a filmmaker.

After I had vocalized my intentions, my parents did all they could to help hone the future filmmaker in me. Signing me up for any filmmaking classes we could find, as well as acting and music classes, as all this was involved in the world of movies.

Flash forward to my adult years, and since the age of 13 I’ve constantly been making films. I’ve stayed the course and made sure I was constantly working on my filmmaking dreams and that drive has led to so many of my successes even if it strays from my original goal.

In May, 2019, I made a film starring a puppet character of my creation, Grumbalo. For the film, I took it upon myself to study as much Muppet-style puppetry I could find online, to make my muppet spoof of a film as accurate as possible. Soon after the release of my film, I took Grumbalo, the puppet, to a job interview to work at a toystore. Next thing I knew, the store directors were interviewing the puppet and I got the job. Starting as a sales rep, I eventually became a full time puppeteer in the store, and later learned how to demonstrate sone magic tricks as well.

A few years went by and I had made quite a living for myself as a toystore puppeteer. While still making my independent films, of course, my puppet Grumbalo had become somewhat of a main character in my films, and alter ego for me as well. Soon enough, I saw an audition posting for Sesame Street: The Musical! An Off-Broadway puppet show involving real muppets built by the Jim Henson company! By this time I had a professional-level puppetry reel composed of my recent films and a full-time puppetry job on my resume, all thanks to my devotion to my filmmaking. Sure enough, I got the role and performed alongside these iconic characters that I had grown up watching as a child.

It was working on the Sesame Musical where I met my good friend Yanniv Frank, who not too much later called me in to perform as a puppeteer on his educational short film. When I got there, he’d told me that this was his first time working behind the camera and was open to any advice I may have going forward. In no time, this gig became a dream come true! I was puppeteering and working as a cinematographer, gaffer and filmmaking consultant! A dream come true to be working now on a film! With puppets! With my friends! And to think I’d never be working on this film if it had not been for sesame! And I would have never gotten sesame if I hadn’t worked in the toy store! AND to think I would’ve never worked in the toy store if it had not been for my filmmaking!

All these years my mother’s line plays in my head “One day you’ll find the thing that motivates you,” and I did. I see how important it is to find your calling and stick to it, work at it, and it will bring you places you never even thought we’re possible! Sure, I didn’t make films with the goal of becoming a puppeteer, but I found something new that I love and I still circle back and find myself where I started whether I’m working on someone else’s film or writing for stage, to me it all brings the same joy, and essentially that’s what I’ve been working towards. What did my parents do right? They saw the artist in me, and helped him grow, and for that I’m forever grateful.

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?

I have always been a firm believer of the thought, “if the project for you isn’t out there, make it!” I have always done my due diligence in making sure my projects are notably different from other content creators. And although this doesn’t help my projects go “viral” it does make life long fans out of the audience that does enjoy it. having a brain filled with film and TV of yesterday, I look for timeless techniques that we don’t see anymore that I can work into my own pieces of work. A perfect example would be my web series I co-created, ‘The Groove.’ The show was an under ten minute variety show composed of Music, Animation and original sketches. Although the sketches were more modern, the style of the show was more of a pee-wee’s playhouse or Saturday morning cartoon block. To give our audience, in ten minutes or less, the feeling that they’ve taken a break and visited a new world, that has different lands within.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I would love to see more mainstream media that encourages more artistic storytelling. I love what A24 has done for the film and TV industries and I’d love to see more of that. So much of the show business industry seems to be “how can we do our version of what just came out?” I’d like to see more artistically strange mainstream media. Especially in children’s entertainment. I think that’s where it all starts for most of us. Growing up watching Sesame Street, Pee-Wee, or even half of the Nick Jr. and PBS Kid’s Shows of my generation, there were plenty of segments and shows that would leave the average viewer saying “huh… that was weird…” And it’s true! Those shows WERE weird! But I wouldn’t have half the inspiration that led me to where I am today if I didn’t see these things I didn’t understand. Sometimes, I believe, we make art to figure out the things we don’t understand. And with the strange art I make today, sometimes I make it to try and better understand the avant-garde shows from my past.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me the most rewarding part of being a creative is the collaboration with my friends. I’m lucky enough to work in such a collaborative art form where I can’t do it on my own, and it makes for a much better piece of art to have more than one brain on a project in my opinion. Some of my fondest memories with my brothers and best of friends are from the films I’ve made and artistic projects I’ve done with them. There’s something magical about the feeling of creating something where there was nothing, yet it wouldn’t be the same if not every person that worked on had. It is important to give your collaborators room to add their flare as well. A lot of artists think that collaboration is just a extra bodies to help you do your craft your way, but I think if you pick your collaborators wisely, they’ll open up opportunities you never knew were possible!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.foursacrowdfilms.com
• Instagram: @dustinscully
• Linkedin: Dustin Scully
• Youtube: foursacrowdproductions
• Other: Current project: Mr. Wood’s Safe Space Instagram: @mr.woodssafespace