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

Eric, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

When I was a kid, my friends and I idolized Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, a couple of the creative minds behind THE EVIL DEAD series. We loved them because they were just these small town guys who decided they wanted to make a movie. My friends and I felt we mirrored them perfectly! My friends raised money, we shot the film and released it. THE EVIL DEAD (1981) spawned four feature films, a video game, countless comic books and a TV series. Our film failed miserably and all of our investors lost their money. Turns out we only mirrored Raimi and Campbell in that we wanted to make a film. Being successful was another story. The experience was a huge gut punch and my friends never made another film.

I decided to forge ahead. I mean, how hard can it be to make a film? I then spent the next six years putting together a film. Between writing script, gathering actors, and finding a crew, the whole process was: setting up a plan, executing, failing, coming up with a new plan, executing, failing, asking advice, taking a class, watching a tutorial… over and over again. That is the process in which it takes to really learn a craft. It’s not for most people, and will drive most nuts if you expect to be perfect your first, second, or tenth time. Maintain the frame of mind of the student and look at your films, writing or any artistic endeavor as a work in progress. You will fail most of the time, but you will learn and grow every single time you make something.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those who aren’t familiar with me or my work, I’m a Los Angeles based artist that was born and raised in Northern California’s Bay Area. I began my performance career when my sisters and I would put on shows for our parents. I knew at a very young age that I was going to be in the creative arts. I was very lucky that at a young age I found a theater that took me in and gave me a good foundation in which to build my career.

Theater is often a terrific way to learn as an actor/writer, but every theater struggles financially and they are always looking for volunteers. I took full advantage and spent years in the theater cleaning bathrooms and working the box office, but it also gave me ample time to study scenes, learn to write and get an inside look to what it takes to produce a live show. The theater also introduced me to stand up comedy. When they closed their doors, the comedy community really welcomed me. I was guided and mentored by comedians like Andrew Norelli, Steve Mazon, Kenny Kane, who are still friends of mine to this day. I also got to watch people go from unknown comics to being marque names, like Gary Cannon, W. Kamau Bell, and Kevin Avery.

I worked the road for many years, but landed a TV show on Fox called REALITY BINGE which settled me in Los Angeles. As many young adults, I dreamed of making films, and was lucky enough to star in a few (very) low budget comedies, but always dreamed of making my own. Though, those who have any knowledge of filmmaking, the process is very slow and very expensive. Trying to put together a team took years, and I was completely disillusioned by the start-stop nature of the process. One night at the WGA, I had a life changing conversation with the filmmaker, Mark Duplass, who gave me the advice to make my first film for the budget of $1,000. Nearly six years after that conversation, my first feature length film, BAKERSFIELD NOIR, will be released later this year.

I’ve written dozens of scripts over the years, but I’ve found I am always drawn to the themes of class warfare and the disparity gap. I was raised by a single mother who was the lunch lady at my high school, and watching her struggle in the exceedingly affluent Bay Area in the 90s has always stuck with me. Being raised in a lower income home, I was always awestruck how people came together and helped one another in need. When I moved to Los Angeles I found so many struggling filmmakers desperately raising money to share their work with the world, so along with my good friend, James Codeglia, we created the NIGHT OF SHORTS NIGHT, a free short film showcase that takes place the first Tuesday of every month. It is completely free for filmmakers to share their work and free for audience members to come and watch. In 2024 we will be celebrating the shows’ seven year anniversary. The community we’ve built has grown by leaps and bounds over the years and we couldn’t be more proud.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One of the biggest pivots in my life came when I started making films. For years I wrote scripts and acted, but when my best friend died suddenly at a very young age it put a lot of things into perspective. The scripts that I spent so much time working on only lived on my hard drive, and seeing a friend and peer die at such a young age I wanted to leave something behind for my children to watch once I’ve gone.

Seeing someone you love die at a young age really peels back the ridiculousness of everyday life. The things we argue over, the time we waste on useless pursuits or hobbies that bring us no joy. My life was forever changed and things became very clear once I was confronted with the idea of life ending. It’s like seeing the Matrix unfold in front of you, and the super power you receive is to cut through bullshit. If i wanted to make movies, then get off your ass and go make movies!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The idea of making a film is a lot of fun! The practicality of making a movie is exceedingly daunting. No matter how talented you are, you will need a small army of people to help, and those people have to have specific skills. Luckily, when I set out to make my film, I was already associated with a pool of very talented people. Namely, they were my friends. One of my closest friends, Geoff Prather, is not only a very talented writer/filmmaker, but also trained as a DP at Chapman University. I was very fortunate to have him come on and shoot my film. I was also very lucky to have a friend like Barry J. Neely, who had scored basically everything I’ve ever shot. Barry has since gone on to have a fantastic career as a composer and has scored dozens of films. Through the NIGHT OF SHORTS NIGHT community I was able to find a number of people who were willing to help me bring the film to life, like our sound and SFX man, Chris Schwab, our script supervisor, Alexis Javor, and our incredible cast which included Darnell Brown, Jeanne Taylor, Darrel Churney, Ryan Turi, and Alison Ball.

I was lucky enough to have all of these (and many more!) wonderful people help me out, but now it was actually up to me to make the damn thing. When it comes to indie filmmaking, there is really one person who is the driving force behind the film. If you aren’t resilient and stalwart then the film will come to a grinding halt. And even after the cameras stop rolling you have to be the one to make sure post is moving along. We had some wonderful people working on the project to bring it together, like our editor Joel Wetterstein, and our sound designer, Spencer Weitzel. With all of these talented people you still have to get up every morning and focus on finishing the film. Resilience is a big part of that. The other big motivator is not letting down all of the wonderful people who were nice enough to help me!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.erictoms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomsfunny/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/tomsfunny
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomsfunny/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomsfunny
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYafmSdoEkknt_AIcrex6vw
• Other: The Night of Shorts Night – https://www.instagram.com/nightofshortsnight/

Image Credits
Julie Delisle