Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Felix Werner. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Felix, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

The greatest professional risk I have have ever taken is the project I am working on right now.

It’s a crazy idea (or maybe not) with a crazy name, derived from the dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.

It’s called HieronyVision, or simply HV (much easier to pronounce). HV is a small platform with the big goal of developing a new creative ecosystem for independent movies, music and art.

So what does that mean?

We are witnessing seismic changes. Perhaps most notable is how the digital world and social media have transformed the way we create and consume media. This has offered incredible opportunities for new storytelling but also placed a new generation of artists at risk of losing some fundamental building blocks. We still need these basic elements to evolve as storytellers. We also need platforms for artists who aren’t inherent “self-marketers” to get their work seen.

These issues permeate across all the major arts. Filmmaking, my most immediate world, has certainly witnessed a dearth of innovative new voices and opportunities. However, musicians also face financial uncertainty with the Spotify effect on their industry. Fine artists—painters, sculptors, etc.—seem to have fewer gallery options to promote their work (and those gallerists still command 50% of their sales).

It’s just as difficult for fans of the arts. Popular social media platforms like Instagram limit what can be shown, whether by algorithms promoting certain works over others or old fashioned censorship in a digital disguise. There are also fewer options to enjoy the arts in the live communal sense. Major corporations and online distributors have eroded the local movie theaters, music venues, galleries, and bookstores where neighborhood artists and fans could exchange ideas and launch the next great movements.

This all has had me VERY concerned for the arts. It literally keeps me up at night—just ask my family members or creative colleagues who often get emails from me at 3am. Not out of concern for the big corporate driven artist ecosystem. Christopher Nolan and Taylor Swift are going to be okay. It’s the small artists, those eclectic voices that often surprise and inspire us in unexpected ways. They deserve to be heard, read, and seen.

This isn’t an easy issue to resolve. It’s a problem with many tentacles. At HV, our approach has been attacking them one at a time as we try to create a new ecosystem that can be shared with others. One that not just prioritizes but mandates quality, fairness, and creative risk taking.

The platform is for both artists and fans. Fans can stream movies, series, or shorts; read articles about poetry, the state of contemporary painting, or Roger Corman; and listen to music from artists they might not otherwise find. Artists—initially, we’re focusing on filmmakers—can develop their projects through us with help on financing and distribution.

So what’s the risk? There’s the obvious financial risk. More than dollars on the line, a creative venture like this has many moving parts that require a lot of goodwill from other creative people to share ideas and solve problems. In other words, it’s not just me taking the risk, it’s a whole group of filmmakers, artists, musicians, writers, and fans also taking the risk. I have found it the most challenging and rewarding artistic project I have ever undertaken.

People sometimes shake their head when I go on about what we’re doing at HV. “Did you learn anything from reading Don Quixote?” However, to end on a cliché, which we mostly try to avoid at HV: nothing risked nothing gained. What’s to gain? There are so many wonderful opportunities open to independent artists to forge new paths, speak their voices, and share their work with the world.

The short version? The risk is worth it. We have everything to gain.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I come from an artistic family. My dad was a respected actor with a passion for poetry and classical music. My grandmother was an actor too, best known for her collaborations with Fritz Lang—but she worked with everyone from Katherine Hepburn to Dario Argento! At UCLA, I majored in Art History, and after graduation I first worked for an art appraiser, then in the education and film departments of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on an NEA grant. Given my family history, perhaps it was inevitable I transitioned from the fine arts to film production. After working on several studio films, I found myself more drawn to the creative freedom of independent film. I’ve worked in the independent space in multiple roles: producer, director, film financier, distributor, and educator. Why can’t I seem to settle on one role? I love the medium and want to understand every capacity of what it takes to get a project made and, perhaps more importantly, seen in the world. Above all, I love storytelling. It’s how we learn to understand each other in the simplest of ways, and film, whether it’s a feature, TV show, web series, or documentary, still offers the most powerful medium to explore provocative ideas and inspire people.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

We need to realize that even small artists need to be paid.

Social media is so limiting. Creatively there are so many restrictions on what you can show; to be fair, some of these are justified like curbing hate speech, but there are also significant limitations on what you can show that might challenge or inspire the viewer to explore new ideas.

Also, there is an illusion that social media is free, when in fact all your data is being mined and sold and your content can be reused by the corporations without you truly benefitting.

We need new ecosystems to explore new models of supporting artists both creatively and financially.

Let’s realize the importance of the arts, especially in these challenging times. Most artists are not driven by greed but by a desire to express and explore. They are grateful for even the smallest support!

Have you ever had to pivot?

At a certain point in my life, I realized that if I truly wanted to have creative freedom, I had to be willing to have a day job at times. Some artists like working in the more corporate creative world, like advertising for example, but I have known more who go into that field and give up their true creative goals. Nobody wants to (or should have to) starve to be an artist, but giving up one’s creative dreams can be equally soul crushing. My belief is do the art you love and find a way to feed yourself, you’ll be more fulfilled. At least that was true for me.

I have been fortunate in that my day job has done well for me, and I love doing it. It also keeps me grounded. More than anything though, it has given me more time and space to pursue my creative goals in the way I always dreamed. As a result, I am more often interested in the creative process than in the results, which in turn allows me to take greater creative risks, and surround myself with artists who feel the same way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hieronyvision.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hieronyvision/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hieronyvision
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/hieronyvision

Image Credits
HieronyVision