We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Austin Galante. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Austin below.

Austin, appreciate you 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.

It’s been a long meandering process. I started as a rapper and a producer making beats on drum machines and samplers. That evolved into being in the band (Bad fathers) as a vocalist and other people producing music for me. I played in a band for a long time and slowly learned producing on computers. I always had visual ideas for music videos, so I started learning the principals of photography and slowly that transitioned into video as I had enough money for better cameras. Then I slowly started learning lighting, editing video. I would watch lots of tutorials. It was a slow process. School or a mentor, would have likely made this process faster. But I just learned by way of doing it and making mistakes. I just kept practicing and learning little by little as I went along. So I’ve probably made just about every mistake at one point or another.

Most essential is hard to say, because each new skill is like a building block. I started learning graphic design, so I can make the things I need for marketing or props involved with a film, band shows, or a poster for it. And I learned to produce music before I knew how to make a film, but music is a big part of film. I can just sit and score a film once I’m done with it or write a new song for it. I wrote a song which features Snoop Dogg specifically for a scene in my new feature film called Sanguine Teeth on a Driftless Road that we start shooting on July 20th. Because I wrote the film and I know what I want to happen, what I want the vibe of the scene to be, I can put those things together from scratch.
But… Lighting was a really important skill to learn. I love lighting. how to shoot manually with cameras was a really important skill as well as how to shoot with the lighting. Creating a film is like drawing a jigsaw puzzle and then putting it together. I learned to produce my own films from years of shooting music videos and putting them together.

Sound guys will tell you they are the most important skill to have, if it doesn’t sound good the movie is ruined and no one will watch it. But honestly I’ve watched some beautiful movies with less than great sound. So really I think everything needs to be done well. Sometimes watchers will let a few little things go in any department if everything else around it looks and sounds nice.

Money has stood in my way of learning more. I would have liked to have gone to school, but didn’t want to go that deep in debt for such a hard industry to make a living in. Even now, I would like to take some certain acting classes, but I’ll have to wait, because the money I do have is getting spent on other things; like producing a movie. There also didn’t used to be as many available learning tools online. That was a challenge. Youtube has really changed the world in the way of people’s tutorials on just about everything you can think of. Masterclasses and all sorts of other tutorial have made it so I could figure things out without school; but 20 years ago… those things weren’t much of an option.

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’ve done a lot of things in the creative world; pet photography, wedding photography, rock band, music videos, acting. Most recently I started producing, writing and directing movies and short films. I just finished my first feature length film called Suite Killing Machines; whicch you can watch here and other streaming services online. https://youtu.be/M9j6qh2lkCw?si=OCDtLIhKEdKQl55V
It’s a very low budget film. I looked at it like my attempt to say “Hey look I can do this” without breaking the bank. It was a stepping stone. Now I”m working on a movie with a budget 40 times bigger. and I’m working on another movie that will potentially have a bigger budget than this one.
I think I’m most proud of Suite Killing Machines. That was a big stretch from shooting music videos. I wrote it and shot it 2 months later. So it was non stop production work every single day for 2 months to get everything put together. It’s not perfect, but I managed to get something I’m mostly proud of put together.

My mission is to keep making bigger and better films. I really love it. I get to put soooo many of my skills to use on the same project. From costuming to making masks, or writing music, acting, writing, and shooting something fun; or hopefully visually appealing in some way. It’s nice to make music and put it in a movie. I had often made music with the hope someone would want to use the song in a movie. But with making films…I never get bored.

I would certainly love some bigger investors. I’m doing everything on a shoestring budget and pulling stuff together. It would be amazing to be able to just pay for some cool things and ideas that I wanted to include. I currently have like 5 movie ideas that I would like to shoot. But I’m writing for what I can afford and hoping that I show some people who have money that I would spend their money well.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was living in L.A. doing some acting and music. I got married, moved to Portland Oregon and had two kids in two years. So I stopped acting and started doing pet, wedding, and real-estate photography. Eventually we moved again to Madison WI. and as my children got a little older I started working on film and acting stuff again. But this time I went all in and purchased all the gear I would need to produce a movie. This way, I can just do it. I don’t have to rely on others as much.

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

I think getting to go back and look at any piece of art that I’ve created or worked on with others. It’s fun to look or listen to the really good parts. It’s also interesting to learn from and take notes from the parts that aren’t as good. It’s also really exciting when I get to work with really talented people. Especially if I’ve been a fan of their work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.marshamallownapalm.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austingalante/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austin.galante.7
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-galante-64207599
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@realaustingalante/videos
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/austin-galante
• Other: https://austingalante.bandcamp.com/music

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