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

Alex, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

A project becomes meaningful to me when the technical training and creative inspiration are both available to you in the same moment, it doesn’t matter how hard it is or how long it’s going to take, it just has to be brought into this world and you feel like you or your team are the only ones that can do it. And for better or worse, you probably are. When I was in high school in the mid 90s I made a stop-motion animated music video in my garage along with a few other stop-motion school video projects. The animation was rough, the cuts were jumpy, there was VHS tape distortion all over it but it was ALIVE and moving on its own! I was learning about the filmmaking medium in a technical sense and I was inspired by the awesome results. I still think that unstoppable feeling is worth chasing in life, at least in mine.

In 2023 I collaborated with the same musician (Mike Ulliman of Everyday Dolores) to do another stop-motion music video, “Cowboy Down.” It was even more meaningful that it would be set once again to Mike’s music which has evolved and grown for decades now since the garage days. Mike’s prolific and persistent musical output over the 30 years I’ve known him was a huge inspiration to set out on the 20,000 frame animation project that I had just promised to deliver. I built everything from scratch in my Brooklyn apartment, I used a small mirrorless camera with macro lenses and lots of mini versions of professional camera and lighting rigs. It was a whole world at my fingertips, with animation you can do anything your mind can think of (if you have the patience) and I was able to capture ideas that a low budget filmmaker like me would never be able to afford in live action.

Every step a character takes, every breath, every blink is calculated and executed by hand, one frame at a time. It makes you think differently about how we move around in the world. The nuances of our movement can be the difference between a believable performance or not and in many ways the characters in that video are my acting performances planned out over tiny increments of time. Being able to attempt that in “Cowboy Down” is certainly meaningful to me and people seem to be as enamored as I am with the magical, handmade quality of stop-motion, even today. The screenings and acclaim that followed has been quite a ride to say the least but the real meaning is still in those long days and nights sitting in front of a scale model saloon and playing with dolls… slowly.

Alex, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a filmmaker, video artist, animator, and cat-dad living in Brooklyn, NY with my wife, filmmaker/theater director Lucia Bellini. Being married to another artist, especially one in similar disciplines is a dream come true for me. Sometimes I can look at my wife and think, “she get’s it,” and it makes everything a little easier. We may not go through all the same ups and downs but the goals and creative sensibilities are similar enough and I think that can add up to something greater than the sum of its parts when it comes to churning out ideas.

After film school, I started working for Sean Combs. I didn’t apply for the job, I didn’t have Diddy posters on my wall (I don’t think anyone did), and I joined the rest of the world resenting what he did to that Led Zeppelin song back then but it just sort of happened, a friend of a friend of a friend hired me. I was an associate producer with the newly formed, Bad Boy Entertainment division and had my first taste of red carpet culture, interviewing countless actors and musicians for Puffy’s “Vote or Die” campaign among other things. Little did I know, in some cases, I was standing outside the walls of what would become the most infamous parties in the modern history. Like anybody else, I’m sure, who has worked for a soon-to-be disgraced celebrity, it feels like a divisive line item on a resume but I was there in the spirit of youthful political activism, I did my job, and went home.

Years later one of my contacts from that job hired me to research and write a comprehensive history of Kool & the Gang and shoot backstage and studio interviews with the original members of the band. I was doing research spanning beyond 50 years of musical history that connected this band to virtually everything in modern music. They were a force and an influence from be-bop to hip-hop and everything in between. All but 1 member of the original band have since passed away and they’re still touring. I geeked out on Kool & the Gang for a couple years and I learned a lot about music in the process so I’m grateful for that gig.

Over the years, I’ve worked on features, music videos, short films, and public service announcements, I’ve worked as a producer, a cinematographer, an assistant director, a gaffer, an actor, a stage manager and I’ve had a ton of side jobs. My focus has always been on writing and directing a feature film of my own and the rest was just a way to stay in the creative orbit or survive. I wrote a screenplay in 2016, gathered financing (just enough) and finally started shooting my first narrative feature film, partnering with an actor and a cinematographer, we built it up from there. After 4 years of shooting, rewrites, scheduling conflicts, and every other typical low budget filmmaker setback you can think of, we were about 90% done with the film. The final scene for production – the big one, the one with all the bells and whistles of production value that we put off until now so we could “get it right” – was scheduled for April of 2020. Unfortunately Covid-19 wrote the rest of that story for us and we are just now discussing the idea of putting the pieces back together to finish the film. I’ll keep you posted…

Since then, I’ve seen some success in the festival circuits from two music videos for the band, Everyday Dolores. I’m very proud of “Cowboy Down,” a 5 minute stop-motion animation set in the old west. Other than the extreme patience and support from my wife, it was a solo mission. The whole process took about a year. It was a true test of mental and physical resilience and I hope I never forget what I learned making that video.

I’m also proud of a short film I directed called, “Broker” that was unfinished for many years but I never stopped thinking about it. This year I put the final cut together and we are about put it out for consideration at festivals around the country. “Broker” is a grainy, handheld, b&w drama about the real-world cost of absolution from guilt, set in suburban Newark, NJ and written by Joe Pacillo and Michael Caprio. Caprio, a Jersey native and in my opinion, one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with, also co-stars and wrote the soundtrack which is a gift to any low budget filmmaker but in this case, exemplified the authenticity of the film. It feels timeless in so many ways, the performances are captivating and even though the footage itself is a little dated (pre-4k), the story, the music, and the performances hold it all together and I can’t wait to premiere it after all this time.

I don’t really have a single brand, I have companies that offer production and creative resources, including cinema gear rentals at artist friendly prices and I want to work with other creatives on anything my skill set will fit into. I work a lot by word-of mouth and I love to jump in and help move inspiration forward in any way I can.

I’m looking forward to another wave of films over the next couple of years, some really exciting things are happening and I hope people will find a festival-near-you to catch some of it. I think the best way to follow me is on Instagram. I share festival and company updates, my work, my life and my cats on there. I’d love for people to attend these festivals, the people that organize them put their heart and soul into screening these films and I’d love to contribute to the attendance and overall success of as many festivals as I can.

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

I think society can best support a thriving creative ecosystem by active participation in smaller venue exhibits, festivals, galleries, whatever. I don’t think I’m saying anything new about that but it’s still important and true. I think society in the long view, does and always will support creativity. We’ve had it a lot longer than we’ve had money or economic systems or Venmo. And as artists I think we have to be wary of the balance between keeping up with the world and the integrity of our work. Same goes for AI, balance is important. The robots are coming anyway, I just hope we learn how to use them to clarify and amplify human ideas and not the other way around… terrifying.

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 read a book a long time ago called, “ADD and creativity” which coined the term, “CDD” or, “Creative Deficit Disorder.” It argued that those without creative tendencies could also be labeled with a disorder if one perceives the world from an “ADD” perspective. I dined out on that philosophy for years but I’ve come to realize it’s polarizing and inconclusive. Everyone is creative. Everyone can do it, all of it. It’s built in to our nature. We are creative beings with an incredible capacity for abstraction in everything we do. Plus there really is nothing to conform to anymore, there is no monoculture, we are narrow-casting narrower than ever. Everyone has to be creative and original to stay afloat in business, life, and love because of the rapid expansion of contact with the known world and I think that’s a positive thing. I’m sorry, what was the question?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.haneyfilms.com
• Instagram: @Alex_Haney_Films
• Youtube: @Haney_Films
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1889736/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2_tt_1_nm_7_in_0_q_alexhaney

Image Credits
James O’Connor, Olga Goworak