Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Geoffrey Prather. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Geoffrey, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I recently wrote and directed a short film called “A Mind Cannot Touch”, which had a deeply personal inspiration. In addition, as someone who has had many near misses in the entertainment industry, I had grown tired of hearing from agents, managers and studios during pitch meetings that my lack of experience was one of the main reasons a project didn’t get off the ground. Anyone can see the catch-22 that creates, so I finally decided to do a crowdfunding campaign so I could bring a script to life and create art completely on my own terms.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started taking a career in the arts seriously in high school. As a kid from a military family that had an extremely turbulent childhood, I often found escape in film, television, and music.
As time wore on, I realized that my unique experiences growing up all over the country had shaped my personality and point of view in a way that I wasn’t seeing onscreen. While I’m envious of people that get to have a true hometown, I’m lucky in the sense that I learned about different people and cultures in a way most people will never experience. It shaped me as a writer and was one of the main inspirations that led me to Chapman University, where I earned my MFA in screenwriting.
Since then, it’s been a lot of near misses, heartache, rejections, and the occasional triumph. A pivotal moment in my career occurred in 2018 when I had the opportunity to pitch a television series to Netflix. I was extremely amped and so fortunate to get to that point, but in the end my lack of experience meant that I would have to partner with an established showrunner to get the project off the ground. As anyone in Hollywood knows, finding someone with the clout to get their own shows made to sign off on basically being a mentor is pretty much impossible. It was a devastating setback but motivated me to finally get around to making something of my own that could show what my material looks like as an actual production.
So, with the help of many amazing and generous contributors to a crowdfunding campaign, and talented professionals that I was fortunate enough to have work on my film, I was able to direct my short script, “A Mind Cannot Touch.” It wouldn’t have been possible without my amazing partner and Producer/Casting Director, Clare O’Connor, my best friend and Producer, Eric Toms and later with Producer Michael Carrier and Celestía, who invested in the post production and various other aspects of the project. The film turned out incredibly well thanks to the performances of Paget Kagy, Love Carrier and David Stanbra and has had an amazing festival run thus far with screenings at Fantasia Film Festival (one of the biggest sci-fi fests in the world), Cleveland International Film Festival, Cinequest Film Festival and L.A. Shorts Film Festival. And fingers crossed, I will get to make the short into a feature film.
The film will be available to watch once its festival run is over, but you can check out the trailer now at www.amindcannottouch.com.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
As I mentioned before, I had a huge near miss when I had the opportunity to pitch my television show to Netflix. I had been out of grad school for a while and outside of a few pitches, it was the most traction I’d had with any project. On top of that, I was going through a divorce that had left my personal life in shambles.
I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy opening up my computer to write after that. For a while, I felt like that was going to be my one opportunity and I’d blown it. However, I eventually got back to sitting down in front of the screen for hours on end and have since written two features, two pilots and the short script, “A Mind Cannot Touch.”
If anything, the experience with Netflix reminded me of how badly I want to do this. Not just as a job, but just the act of creating is something I love and can’t live without.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think there are a lot of misunderstandings when it comes to the work of creatives. I experienced it with the recent WGA strike when I’d get questions about what writers do and how AI was a possible threat.
So, I think education for the public to raise their awareness would be huge in order to better support artists and keep the community thriving. There’s still a pervasive misconception that artists tend to be lazy people who sit around and do a whole lot of nothing all the time. But in my experience, artists work just about as hard as anyone can. Multiple jobs, long nights, and scraping enough money together to survive are common themes that pop up in the lives of writers, actors, directors etc.
In addition to understanding, I think there’s a need for better funding in our schools and communities. It feels like for far too long the arts have been a neglected area and that needs to change.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.amindcannottouch.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/golfpanther/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/geoffrey.prather
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-prather/
- Other: My band’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adarkerbright/?hl=en