We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cody Lawhorn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cody below.
Alright, Cody thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I knew I wanted to become a filmmaker from a very young age. I attribute my love of film to my grandmother who had an adventurous spirit and a love of action films. When other kids my age would receive Disney Animated Feature films on VHS, my grandmother would give me James Bond movies for Christmases & Birthdays.
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 decided to make filmmaking my career from a very young age. I attended the Art Institute of Portland (before it closed down) and in 2013, I graduated with a BFA in Digital Film Production. I laugh because there’s no such thing as “digital film”. But it was the study of film production… with digital cameras. I have fond memories of my time in college/film school. About a year in, I really dug in and buried myself in the study of filmmaking. I fell in love with the entire process of filmmaking! Everything from pre-production; scriptwriting, storyboarding, permits and contracts all the way to post production; sound design, color correction, and marketing.
I could sit here all day and night and romanticize about each step of the process in creating a film but I recognize that story is “King”. It’s the most important part of filmmaking. A close 2nd would be my obsession with the “mis-en-scene”. There’s something magical that happens when in terms of story; every single shot of your film is motivated by either revealing character or moving the plot along. And in terms of composition, you utilize; camera and talent blocking (movements), color palettes, and lighting to manipulate your audience into feeling a certain way. I could gush about my favorite shots and scenes from all my favorite films that do this very thing! And I could do it all day!
I am proud of 3 things in particular; Firstly, my persistence on my continued work on a handful of my screenplays for over a decade. I consider all of them dramas with crime and horror elements. I also have a comedy I’m writing specifically for Paul Rudd. If I had a snowball’s chance in Hell of ever having him read it, only for him to tell me my writing sucks, I’d die a happy man! Jokes aside, I think persistence and patience are important for all writers. A decade ago when I was fresh out of film school, my scripts were just wanting to be good. Turns out I needed to live a little bit of life in order to figure out what it was I wanted and needed to say.
The 2nd thing I’m proud of was a personal project I undertook on my instagram account for 5 years. As an homage to my favorite horror film producer, Jason Blum of Blumhouse, and my love of horror films… I challenged myself as a writer. Everyday in October for 5 years in a row, I decided to think of a horror film idea to “pitch”. Did I ever think Jason Blum would see my posts, no! And to be quite frank, the project really became quickly about forcing myself to come up with ideas, to push beyond the boundaries of my limited mind. Some Octobers I found myself sitting on maybe a dozen ideas I had thought up earlier in the year, but then it was a writer’s hell in needing to come up with 20 or so other ideas in order to meet the goal/target of the project, which was to come up with 31 horror film ideas every day in October. What resulted was a small catalog of film ideas, some of which I’m incredibly proud of and I will start writing one day if I haven’t already, some of which I’ll never write, and some complete garbage!
The 3rd and most recent thing I am most proud of, is helping my good friend J.S. (Jesse) Bray achieve his dream. Perhaps I should back up and provide a little context. Back when I was in film school and I was obsessing over the process of filmmaking, I spent hundreds of hours studying in the school library, mainly because I was too poor to pay for internet in my tiny little studio apartment, which was 750 feet away from my school. And because of all the resources the school library had on filmmaking. However, one of the best resources was one of the student librarians, Jesse Bray. We met in an Art History class, but our creative friendship grew in my hundreds of hours spent studying my craft in the library. We talked about our love of film & tv and most importantly about the power of good stories. Jesse’s dream has always been to create Animated Kid’s TV shows. I promised Jesse years ago that if he ever wanted to make a TV show together, that I’d happily be one of his writers. This last February, when Jesse revisited a TV show idea he had a decade ago, but under a newer title, I could tell by his conviction that he was ready to “Burn the Boats” (shoutout to author, Matt Higgins). I couldn’t say “no”! So, here I am, a student of live-action film & a lover of cinema… writing an Animated Kid’s TV show, called “Inklings”. “Inklings”, is a charming heart-felt tale about a group of bugs living in the attic of a library and the show follows them as they go on literary adventures to learn about life, friendship, and the power of a good book. I am thrilled and excited to help my good friend make his dream come to fruition. I’m thankful and humbled that he’s willing to let me tag along for the ride.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
I think NFTs are incredibly early in the Crypto world. I see their value as it relates to filmmaking. When I think of a filmmaking world with NFTs… I see a world where the “Gatekeepers” of Hollywood no longer hold any sway over creatives and I see the power going to the market and the creatives. Say I write a script and it’s a REAL banger! But for whatever reason, I just can’t break into the industry… I could release my script out into the world, create the movie poster, then essentially use the NFT of the movie poster as a means of crowd-sourcing on steroids. I’d create 10,000 NFTs of that movie poster. There would be different rarity tiers, Common, Rare, Super Rare, then obviously a few 1 of 1s, which would be “Holographic” versions of the movie poster NFT, and at the time of the “snap-shot”, the token holder would receive an Executive Producer credit, etc. You could release your script, tell the public that that is the film you wanted to make, and essentially fund the entire production from the NFT project. I do think this is the future of filmmaking. But I think it’s super early!
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I would say my biggest influences are Gary Vaynerchuk, author of “Crushing It” and founder of the NFT project, VeeFriends. Gary’s out-of-the-box thinking as it relates to chasing what makes you happy with practical application and his way of helping people pin-point their own limiting mind bullshit is what drew me to him.
Another influence of mine is one of Gary’s business partners, Matt Higgins, who authored a book called, “Burn the Boats”, where he encourages the reader to pursue their dreams and going “All-in”, effectively burning “Plan B” and tossing your backup plans out the window, effectively making failure not an option.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.codylawhorn.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frozenfilmguy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FrozenFilmGuy
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codylawhorn/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/FrozenFilmGuy
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mrbraylabs
- Other: https://mrbray.com/inklings
Image Credits
Cody Lawhorn with J.S. Bray. Cody Lawhorn with Gary Vaynerchuk