Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Eleanor Wells. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Eleanor, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

Before moving to Los Angeles in August 2023, I was a driving instructor for around a year and a half. Before that, I was the school’s receptionist for about three years. That job was formative for me many reasons, but mainly because of all of the relationships I formed, from my coworkers to my students, and their parents. Safe driving was always a value for me (as it should be for anyone) but it’s such a specific and important context in which to know someone. I quickly learned that patience, empathy and active listening were all essential. Understanding their being adaptable not only helped everything run smoothly but was both enriching and fulfilling.

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’ve always been a storyteller. From the time I first watched Peter Pan lead the Darling children to Neverland in Disney’s Peter Pan, I knew stories were something magical. So many of my core memories have been formed around movies, books, and plays. I can trace my personal development from what I watched in early childhood to what I first discovered later on, to when I rented DVDs from the library of all the movies on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list the summer before my freshman year of high school.

My goal, both with Cinderella Pictures and myself as a creative, is to tell stories from perspectives we haven’t considered thusfar, or to cover topics that not just interest me but I often see told over and over from one specific lens. I think it’s why I’m so often drawn to crime thrillers, because they also speak to my interest in why people do the things that they do. There’s certain needs that are so fundamental to what it means to be human, and when those needs are not met, it can lead in so many different directions.

I’m most interested in honest explorations of humans and how we relate to each other, why we self-sabotage, how we pick ourselves up, and how to find beauty in a world where existence so often seems meaningless. We might not agree with a character’s actions or be upset at the way events transpire, but if they inspire the audience to reflect on their own lives in some way, or make them feel less alone, then I’ll have done my job.

It’s hard to say what I’m most proud of because I feel like I’m only at the very beginning of my career, but making Eagle Rock when I was a year out of college was a fantastic experience. I’m immensely proud of Time in a Bottle, too, which was Cinderella Pictures’ first official short, as well as our staged readings of The Castle, my limited series about five college students who win an all expenses paid trip to a castle in the Scottish Highlands.

I recently published my debut novel, All Our Yesterdays, this past June. Considering I wrote my first novel at 12 and my first feature screenplay at 17, I finally putting my first length work in its finished form at 27 (I just turned 28 on August 5th), and even that book was seven years in the making. I love the book and there’s so much more I want to do with those characters (the audiobook is coming late this year, narrated by yours truly, with a spinoff novel set for 2025).

Beyond the creative, I always strive, above all else, to create a positive and enjoyable environment for everyone involved. I’ll never be a director or producer who puts others’ safety or wellbeing at risk for the sake of a production. I also always love hearing feedback. It’s such a joy to find actors who are able to bring so much to the characters I imagine in my head, or vocalize perspectives that even I had never considered. Every person on a film is vital to its success, and that’s part of what I love about collaboration and developing a sense of trust. Frankly, I’d rather be remembered as a mediocre filmmaker who was a good person and great to work with than the other way around. But, that being said, Cinderella Pictures will always strive to make the best films we can. We want to be honest, truthful, to make you clap, cry, reflect, call your friends, your family, think about something in a new way and mostly to feel a little less alone.

Personally, the best stories are always the ones where I came back to the real world in a bit of a haze, knowing I’d never be the same. I’d love for the work to inspire that same feeling.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I’d be rich already if I counted the amount of times I’ve heard my creative work isn’t a real or a viable job, referred to as a hobby, or have it be insinuated that storytelling will never pay my bills. I’m not there yet. While I’m still young, I’m closer to 30 than I am to 20 and I often feel like it’s hard for my family (who I love dearly!) to understand the path I’m on.

Creative life is funky because there’s no one single corporate ladder to climb, or jobs with 401k and health insurance and benefits that hit you write out of the gate. I think our society is moving away from that, anyways. There’s a million different avenues to take, Personally? I believe what everyone should do what makes them happy and fulfilled.

I think concern often from a place of care. We all want the people we love to be secure. Artists may not be curing cancer, building homes, solving crimes, or arguing legal cases. But what I’d ask those who think the arts hold any less inherent value is to imagine what our world would be like without movies, without books, plays, music, without art. It’d be a pretty boring world to live in, I think. At its best, the arts help us understand reality. They bring us together. They make us feel less alone. They inspire us in so many ways.

It’s so important that it’s always been a part of our species, back from the days of the cave paintings. We need it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, it’s seeing something that existed in my imagination become tangible and real, and to know that it has an impact on others. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ebrynnw.wixsite.com/eleanorwells/selected-portfolio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eleanorwellswriter/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cinderellamotionpictures

Image Credits

The first one was taken by Nick Muller

The set photo was taken by Alex Hampshire.

The rest are all either taken by me or stills or screenshots for my films.