We were lucky to catch up with Alec Bewkes recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Alec , thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I’ll start off the way most interviews do, by quoting Doctor Strange. How did I learn to do what I do? “Study and practice, years of it.” I have a bookshelf full of screenwriting books that I’ve read over and over again. They collectively add up to a few thousand pages, so it felt kinda silly to keep pouring through all of them every time I started a new script. Over the years I slowly distilled them into this study guide that’s roughly 90 pages, and its become my little secret weapon. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but I spent a long time just ‘writing from the hip’ so to speak instead of learning the craft. While I believe a healthy balance between intuition and craft is essential to good writing, I do think if I’d studied a bit more it would have sped up my learning process. For me, fear has always been the biggest obstacle of learning more. There’s a little voice inside my head that’s worried I’ll finally learn something that makes me realize I’ve been doing it all wrong. Like what if I read an article that says the worst thing you can possibly do in an interview is start off by quoting Dr. Strange?
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 started as a stand-up comedian but have since transitioned into filmmaking. I always wanted to be in the movie business, but I couldn’t figure out how to get a writing job. Or a directing job…Or an acting job. You’d think at that point I could just take a hint, but instead I started doing all three on my own. Looking back it seems so simple that if you want to be in the film industry you should start by making movies, but it’s a daunting task. That’s why I’m most proud of my latest short film “Shut Up, Jack” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June and just won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Comedy at San Francisco Indie Fest. There are obviously so many talented and unique voices in this industry, but I’d like to think what sets me apart is my outlook on this whole journey. It’s tricky business trying to turn your passion into your profession, so I’m just happy I’m still able to have fun with it and keep a positive attitude.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I was a personal assistant for a fairly well-known director when I turned 30. Something about that number made me feel hopelessly behind where I thought I’d be by then. I’m not pooh-poohing the job, (even though it does involve picking up a lot of dog poop) but it became clear that this might not be the best path to becoming a filmmaker myself. At that point, I’d been in LA for six years and all I really had to show for it was a Peter Pan web-series about the Lost Boys smoking weed that one random guy in Florida watched. I decided to quit the assistant job and make my first short film “Poor Tax”. It had a successful enough festival run that allowed me to make “Shut Up, Jack,” which will hopefully lead to my first feature some time next year.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Wow, I’m so glad you asked. When I was looking to raise money for my short films, I had a decision to make. Either invest what little money I had into NFT’s, or start driving Uber. Do I roll the dice on ‘dogwifhat’ or make LAX my home away from home? About 6 months later, after dropping off my millionth passenger at the airport, my buddy Tim texted me that ‘dogwifhat’ had made 3.4 billion dollars. It was at that moment I knew I’d made a horrible mistake. Now I patiently wait for ‘catwifcarrot’ to sweep the nation so I can be there to reap the benefits.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.alecbewkes.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coolhandbewk/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alec-bewkes-bb3b4b7a
Image Credits
Photo 1 – Thea Traff
Photo 2 – Thea Traff
Photo 3 – Chandler Desforges
Photo 4 – Colin Oh
Photo 5- Linnea Bullion
Photo 6 – Michael Evans