We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alan Tracy & Rehana Power a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alan & Rehana, 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?

We learned by doing, a lot of trial and error, we originally started as an audio podcast in 2018, We didn’t do video until recently with in the last 2 years, Keeping curiosity is an essential part of what we do when we talk to guests from all sorts of places within film. We started as a Film in Minnesota podcast and later became Film and Beyond to keep growing beyond both Minnesota and film. Today we also react to videos on YouTube and introduce our guests to new music. Our favorite musical artists are The Warning (Alan) and Taylor Swift (Rehana).

Some of the biggest obstacles as with film, are scheduling with freelancers that have varied calendars. We tried different platforms to record remotely having the time to learn a new workflow are obstacles when trying to maintain the podcast weekly or bi-weekly. Learning to record video and audio is not as simple remotely as it may seem for the quality you want.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Rehana is an actress, Alan is a filmmaker, who had interest in talk radio, but wanted to focus on the film community. The podcast was originally centered around local film people being able to showcase their craft to our local film scene. We wanted to be able to connect different artists that may not know of each other to help broaden the community.

We are very proud to have a regular ongoing podcast for 8 years trying new things that didn’t always work out, meet so many incredible people, and go to some really great events.

We have recently joined YouTube and started doing reaction videos along with our guest interviews with artists. We love a good tangent. We really enjoy getting to know the artist as a person in addition to the art. Our favorite films are Bullet Train & Sinners (Rehana), and The Matrix & Aliens (Alan), and we are huge fans of Stand-up Comedy.

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

We don’t have some giant following, we don’t have any funding of any kind we are not sponsored currently, this is an ongoing passion project we started in our free time. We had to be creative during the pandemic to keep it going on a consistent biweekly schedule that we stuck to. We tried things that didn’t work out, but continued learning and refused to give up.

We have since covered Conventions, Film festivals, and networking events.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being able to share our discussions and projects with other interested parties and audiences we didn’t know existed. Giving artists and their art a platform to tell difficult, impactful and meaningful stories. Allowing others to feel a connection through films with the stories they tell.

If our films or episodes have resonated with even one person it makes it worth while.

As a filmmaker (Alan), creating a bond through the making of a film and the presenting of a film is a thrilling experience. It is rewarding by both technical and creative ways.

As an actress (Rehana), if my performance helps anyone watching to feel anything, that’s everything.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://filmandbeyond.com
• Instagram: @filmandbeyondpod
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/filmandbeyondpod
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FilmBeyondpod
• Other: Linktree
  https://linktr.ee/filmandbeyond

Image Credits

Reyna Rios-Starr (Color)
Benjamin Roembach-Clark (B&W)