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

Connor, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project I ever worked on was my debut feature film “The Whole Lot”. For years I had always worked on other people’s movies and learned a lot about what was important and what wasn’t. I saw both extremes: people who made their own films without ever observing a professional production, and those who tried to replicate the professional production process despite not having the funds to back it up. I therefore decided to “engineer” this film into something possible to complete because there’s nothing worse than having a good script that can’t attract the necessary financing to complete.

I began by setting a modest budget of $10,000. I selected 3 actors I could trust, and who had experience in theater performance, meaning they could memorize large amounts of dialogue and had experience with dramatic timing. This was necessary given the 3-day shooting schedule: there would be no time for coverage so we would rely heavily on performance to drive the story. I also picked the most unique and visually interesting location I could get for free: a barn that housed a classic car collection.

I’m a terrible writer, so I engaged a friend of mine to write the script around these limitations. Matthew Ivan Bennet frequently writes for the stage and is accustomed to story-driven and performance-driven action. It was then my job to add the visual element to his dialogue so the film would be more than just static shots with talking heads.

In the winter of 2018 we rehearsed and dressed sets for 2 days and then shot 2 important scenes on Day 3, effectively adding an additional production day to the schedule. The remaining 3 days were spent completing the rest of the shots. In the end, thanks to careful planning and a script fit for the circumstances we were able to complete all 85 pages.

I was lucky enough to receive an additional $2000 grant from the local Film Commission, which I passed onto my editor. 2 picture cuts were completed in the summer of 2019, but it was clear we did not have a coherent ending to the film. Therefore, an additional pickup day was planned, but because we shot in the winter, we had to wait for the snow to fall again before we could do it. Once December arrived, the remaining shots were completed, and the final picture cut was completed in July of 2020. Unfortunately I was unemployed for about 9 months before then, which halted further progress for a while.

I hired a drone photographer to collect some additional shots for the opening and closing credits sequence, and waited my turn for the sound mixer to be between projects so I could get the “friend rate”. My childhood friend Russell Huiskamp provided the score and an original song for the end credits. It was added to the final sound mix in early 2021.

The next challenge was the color grade. The person I hired originally couldn’t deliver the look I wanted: it was far too inconsistent and didn’t do justice to the footage. I then saved some more money and hired a much more expensive colorist at a local post-production facility. Expensive, but worth it: the film finally had a professional look to it.

We premiered locally in the fall of 2021, in Los Angeles slightly afterwards, and in New York just before Christmas. We were lucky enough to be accepted to the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival, where we were programmed as the closing night feature. At Kansas City Underground Film Festival, we had an excellent reception from the programmers and local attendees. In December of 2022, we screened at the Mesa Arizona Film Festival in the largest screening room available at Arizona State University, the quality of the footage and sound was really apparent there.

I haven’t made any money on that film, nor have I launched a successful directing career, but I was able to do something I had been wanting to do since high school: make a feature film. I have the idea for my next film already and am just looking for the right opportunity to make it.

Connor, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

A graduate of the London Film School’s MA International Film Business Program, Connor Rickman has since run the Production Office for several studio and network projects including HBO, Amazon, Hallmark Channel, YouTube Premium, and Facebook Watch, and has also done the same for several independent films. In his hometown of Salt Lake City, Connor co-founded Overcranked Pictures: a production services company that provides business services to writers and directors creating their own films. Connor himself took advantage of those resources when he produced and directed his first feature film The Whole Lot, completed in 2021.

Connor left film production in 2022 to work for Wrapbook: an entertainment software company and pursue an MBA at Duke University. His next project is “Sartorial Cinema”, a lo-fi short-form channel devoted to craftspeople, primarily in menswear. Sartorial Cinema attracted the attention of Jason Sandagon, Creative Director for the tailoring brand Mad King George. Together they collaborated on “Velvet” a film that’s part lookbook, part music video, and totally a “vibe film”. Upon graduating, Connor plans to expand the Sartorial Cinema project to longer-form projects.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I was fortunate enough to work in an industry that allowed me to incorporate. Therefore, all the wages I earned working for Hollywood film productions were deposited into my business bank account and could therefore be spent on business expenses without incurring any taxation. I used this to my advantage to save the required $10,000 to shoot “The Whole Lot” and the entirety of the film’s budget was saved for (and spent) through the corporation. So long as I stayed employed in Hollywood, I would have at least some funds to complete the film.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

It took nearly 5 years to bring “The Whole Lot” from inception to the final release. On the way we experienced cashflow problems, hard drive problems, logistical problems, a pandemic, and availability delays with our collaborators. The important thing I learned was to keep making as much progress as was possible given the circumstances. A 9-month delay due to unfortunate employment circumstances followed by the covid pandemic was unfortunate, but it didn’t stop the process. The same is true for after the film is complete: submitting to film festivals can be extremely disheartening as you will receive far more rejections than acceptances. I tried to only submit to festivals where I thought a film like mine had a good chance of being programmed, but the rejection/acceptance ratio was still hard to deal with. Again, the process must continue. Persistence pays off and resilience is necessary to remain committed to what you believe in.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @sartorialcinema
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorrickman/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sartorialcinema
• Other: https://filmfreeway.com/projects/2293297

  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3330546/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_3_in_0_q_Connor%2520Rickman

Image Credits

Caty Gainer