We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sam Schneider a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sam thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Film school is a great resource. It’s where I gained a foundation for the basic elements of filmmaking, was given the space to experiment within certain facets of the medium and connected with a fantastic group of creative peers, many of whom are still my closest friend and collaborators today. But, perhaps more importantly, I think my education was most notably aided by the work I put in on my own time. Outside of my curriculum, I was always watching films, reading screenplays & interviews and trying to take advantage of anything that would give me insight beyond the mechanics of the process. There is a great deal of benefit to be gained from studying the basics as it can certainly speed up the process, but I think these extracurriculars were my personal education outside my academic education. They were things that taught me what I liked & what I didn’t, what I felt worked & what didn’t, and ultimately gave me the confidence to try and put some of those things into practice in my own projects. Film school is great, take it from me, but it’s not necessarily easily accessible. The same can be said for picking up and moving to a place like LA and getting on film sets, or finding a foot in the door at a company to make connections. I think it can feel like a disheartening process trying to advance yourself in this industry because so many elements that are advertised as facilitating success can feel distant or gate-kept. Yet regardless of where someone is, or how many resources they have access to, or how many people they do or don’t know, I think there is always one thing that remains the same: the ability to create. Art is subjective sure, but it can come from anywhere. When folks lean into experimentation, finding what sparks that passion, what strikes that curiosity, and practice ways of communicating that over and over, I think they tend to truly discover their own voice, which is the one component that really separates us artistically from one another. We all have stories to tell, some very similar to one another, but everyone has a different way of telling them. I wish I had leaned more into this at a younger age, because I think I put so much into the idea of film school being the actual starting point, that I showed up feeling inexperienced, and resultantly self-conscious & unsure of my voice & my ability. I was surrounded by so many young people who had already gone out and made things, tried different approaches and found their own slice of storytelling, that I felt a bit lost in obscurity as a result. I eventually found my own way and started to feel more at home in my environment, on no small account of engaging in lectures & projects & community, and built real confidence in my own creative choices. But retrospectively, I realize that all of that was there initially, and my collegiate environment just provided the tools and structure to help draw it from myself. Film school worked for me, but it’s not the end all be all; creating is. Just going out and doing it. Regardless of where you are, I think leaning into the opportunity to just make something and be guided by your own passion for the art of storytelling, whether you’re filming in your bedroom for an afternoon or on a weekend shoot across the city, can teach you more about yourself and the stories that you need to tell. Watch YouTube to learn the technical stuff, read screenplays to understand the nuances of writing, and seek out movies, interviews & BTS to garner a sense of a inspiration. All of that can exist as a self-guided crash course. But most importantly write things, film things, edit things, animate things, so you can start to understand your voice. When you start to acquaint yourself with who you are as an artist, everything else will start to flow.

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?

Around the time I was a freshman in High School I became obsessed with watching movies, which very quickly turned into a passion for filmmaking, something that has defined the roadmap of my life up to this point. I studied production and screenwriting at Emerson College, and shortly after graduating, in the midst of Covid, took a risk and moved to Los Angeles to further pursue this passion. In the four years that have elapsed since then, I have worked as a page on a studio lot, written social media content & short films for other creators and built a professional career in the entertainment data landscape. In other words, my 20s have not entirely been what I expected them to be while a burgeoning filmmaker in college. Yet it’s been a wonderful experience all the same. I think throwing myself into all manner of avenues that are filmmaking-adjacent has given me a broader appreciation for my artistic side and a greater feeling of versatility, which breeds a lot of confidence. I have found balance, made compromises and put in a lot of work outside of my 9-5, to ensure that filmmaking has remained an active part of my life and personal identity; something that makes the experience that much sweeter. It’s already not easy to make something, but I think making the deliberate decision to still engage with the challenge, while balancing so many other things, creates a deeper bond with the work. It can’t be disposable, if you make the time. Around this time last year, I organized, partially funded, wrote, produced and directed an $11,000 short film, called “The Talk,” that will be released later this year. It was my first project with a budget of that magnitude, and from pre to post production took about six months of on-and-off late nights, weekend meetings and out-of-office days to bring to life. It was a labor of love and was, in no small part, made entirely possible by the collaboration of some brilliant friends and creatives. Beyond enjoying and appreciating the final result, I’m insanely proud of the experience and hard work it took to pull off. It’s a story about delving into some of the more uncomfortable conversations and aspects of family-unit relationships, told with strokes of intended absurdism, surrealism and dark comedy. With about year having passed since the project, I feel that I have found new interests beyond the material and have found different aspects of my style that I want to hone in on. With that said though, I think the experience deeply solidified my love for telling human stories and focusing on things perceived to be mundane while trying to highlight just the inherent bizarreness of the human experience through heightened or dreamlike lenses. I love the intersection between comedy & tragedy; I think the things that make some laugh can often make others cry, and vice versa, and I think leaning into that type of absurdism & humor is another avenue through which we can better understand each other. I really like the existential questions and hypotheticals that make people tick, and within that there are things that I find vulnerable, uncomfortable and/or somewhat scary that I try to delve into in my own work. I think to create meaningful art, more for yourself than anyone else, you have to find ways to be painfully honest, even if it’s subtle. It’s a journey that I’m constantly on. In such a way filmmaking is, to me, the intersection between play and therapy, and I think that’s really the coolest thing. I’m always trying to experiment with new ideas & formats, all while keeping in mind that stylistic bend toward the simple strangeness of humanity, and I’m constantly curious about new ways I can try to touch on age old stories or ideas. I’m currently developing a few new projects, including another short, a feature film & a pilot, that are all very different but still loosely connected through that spiritual vein. I’m still young, and hungry to learn & experience & just try new things, so I can’t wait to see how they evolve. In the meantime, I’m working with some close friends to build out a creative collective, developing some short projects for the digital space and a programming slate for a small outdoor theater project. I’m a little hyperactive, so the work kind of never stops, but it’s always varied. I feel like I’m just starting to be ok with the cycle of picking up and putting down projects with ease, because I’m constantly excited by new things, and constantly reminding myself that there is time to explore all of it. Meditation certainly helps. I’ve never had more fun in my life & I really just love it.

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

To be completely honest, it’s getting to connect with other artists through their work and conversation. I think, at its core, artistry is about trying to evoke abstract feelings with physical manifestation, i.e. sorrow in a song, fear in a film & humor in a book. While there are general styles and genres that can be roadmaps to eliciting certain feelings, I think perspective has the potential to be so varied that any one thing can click for any one person in myriad ways. To me, this is magic. The unspoken understanding that you have been able to touch something deep within someone, or that someone has touched something deep within you, through artistic creation and expression. That somehow, without even knowing someone, we can see them, and perhaps feel seen in return. It is, for me, a singular feeling and fills a nook that not much else can. I think being an artist or creative, in your own right, means being tapped into that wavelength to some degree. Looking for the beauty, love, sorrow, excitement or fear in the work and expression of others and latching onto that. It’s a special connection.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think a lot of art requires some form of patience or personal meditation, really just a time investment, which to me feels at odds with a society that is becoming increasingly convinced that we are running out of time. I think the proliferation of media that is designed to support, and in some ways facilitate, low attention spans (ie social media, streaming, reality TV), stems from this innate desire to constantly ramp up consumption over short periods of time. I think somewhere along the way we became obsessed with the basic idea of just consuming, over what is actually consumed. There’s a degree of self satisfaction that I think comes from feeling like you can compile so much into such a short period of time, i.e. watching 50 TikToks in an hour, or a whole season of television in one sitting. And don’t get me wrong, there is so much good, creative work from really thoughtful talented people that is readily accessible at all times, but unfortunately it inherits the same degree of disposability that’s common amongst most things in the digital landscape, by the virtue of sharing the same space. I’m not going to soapbox it and say that this is all because of capitalism, that’s painfully obvious. But the capability of money has perhaps proven to be the most resilient thing through human history, and with that in mind I often wonder why it can’t be used to preserve human history. So many more resources could be put into establishing and maintaining things like museums and theaters, and so many more resources could be put into grants for up-and-coming artists who want to explore new avenues, and so many more resources could be put into general education to inspire a whole new generation of youth to follow their curiosity and go above and beyond what’s already been created. I think folks are driven to short attention span media because of its rate of return, but predominately because it’s easy and it’s accessible. Art was never intended to be inherently easy, but surely it can be made more accessible. I think folks tend toward what they feel is convenient, and if there was a greater dissemination of art in the culture, by way of experience & education, perhaps folks would be given the opportunity to engage with something that maybe isn’t so easy, yet enjoy the challenge all the same.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @schneid_and_prejudice
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samueljschneider/

Image Credits

Photos by Elyssa Ruiz