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

Alright, Chris thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

The film and television industry is an incredibly difficult industry to work in right now. It has been for the last four years. COVID, the SAG and WGA strikes and now the “great contraction” in streaming and TV has made this a miserable business for many. I’ve found it incredibly valuable to hang on to a day job in the industry and pursue my passion and grow my business in my spare time. It makes sense financially, but more importantly psychologically, it leaves you in a much better place. It allows you to truly chase your passions and gives you the freedom to be imaginative and take risks without worrying about keeping the lights on.

Chris, 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 writer, director and producer based in Toronto Canada. I’m a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Cinema Studies Program. I’ve always loved film and television. U of T’s Cinema Studies Program made me love it more. After university, I went to work for various TV production companies that mostly produced documentaries and “lifestyle” programming.

In Canada, documentary, reality and lifestyle have always been hugely popular. It was always easy to find work on these kinds of shows. As I worked on them, I began to really enjoy the format and I thought that maybe I could too could make documentaries and lifestyle shows that I’d like to watch. So I did! Starting with a 12 part series called “Organic Panic” about oganic products like food, clothing – even buiding materials. I followed that series up with 5 part documentary series about how to stay young and live longer called “Longevity Road Trip”. Most recently, I produced and directed a documentary about the 2SLGBTQ+ origins of electronic music, featuring acclaimed journalist and DJ Denise Benson.
All the while, I’ve been working on producing the format that was my first love, scripted film and television. The six short films I’ve written, produced and directed have been at festivals around the world. Two of them, “Peter and Jane Know Some of the Same People” and “Life on the River” are streaming on AmazonPrime and AppleTV in the US. I’m currently developing a feature film that I hope will start shooting in the next 18 months.

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

Making film and television always comes down to one thing – money. Essentially, you have an idea that you think people would be interested in and you pitch or sell that idea to someone or some entity who will or will not give you the money to make that idea. Well, there are a lot of great ideas out there and there isn’t enough money to make them all. So in this business you hear a lot of “no”. Hearing “no” also means you don’t get the money you wanted and your business takes a hit. It’s a double whamy, you don’t get the money you need to make the thing you want to make and you lose the time and money you put into developing what you wanted to make. And then there’s the psychological aspect of it: “They didn’t like my idea? Maybe my ideas suck? All of them?”.

The temptation is to run and hide. But of course you can’t do that. You just start again. And get knocked down again. And repeat. But then, once in a while – usually when you’re really ready to give up – you don’t get rejected. You get the money you need to make the thing you want and then all of the rejection melts away and you make the thing you want and that feeling of victory sustains you for the next round of “no s”. One of my mentors – a fantastic producer named Amos Adetuyi once put it much more philosophically. He called this process “collecting the NOs”.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I had known about all of the resources out there – virtual and in person that exist to help creatives hone their craft. In my case – particularly – hone their storytelling craft. It was only through networking with other creatives that I found this vast network or trove of resources – mostly free – that exist out there. The kicker was that so many people knew about these resources and as soon as I found them they made everything… it would have saved me so much heartache, loneliness and frustration if I’d only looked in the right place to begin with.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2611896/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisremerowski/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.remerowski/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-remerowski-b864b010/?originalSubdomain=ca
• Other: https://vimeo.com/chrisremerowski

Image Credits
The photos with the masks on – the credit is Alexandra Petruck – alexandrapetruck.com