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

Kiel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

Being a writer/director brings me so much joy, and it is such an outlet to be able to express myself that I wouldn’t trade it for almost anything. That being said I’m in a unique scenario that I really have two full-time jobs. I’ve been lucky enough to teach the next generation of creatives, in the aspects of media and filmmaking, a “regular job” of being a professor. There are a lot of aspects of that job which are extremely fulfilling. Seeing students grow and change is something that’s hard to put into words. However, it doesn’t give a lot of opportunities for creative experiences, for those I have to find/make them myself. It’s a lot of work to balance these two very demanding worlds, but I love it.

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

I wanted to tell stories for as long as I can remember, there isn’t much else to do in the rural south. I went to school for filmmaking in Kentucky and wanted to push that further. I ended up moving out to the east coast and pursued film school. I was lucky enough to land a job with the school so I worked full-time while going to school full-time, but it meant my tuition was free which was/is a huge blessing. In school I tried to make as many contacts as I could inside and outside the classroom. I was on as many projects as I could be on, in whatever role was needed editing, sound, pa, whatever. I also quickly realized what the standard of good storytelling was and, by association, what bad story telling was.

This allowed me to expand my circle and meet people I wouldn’t otherwise have met. Towards the end of my film program I was a paid Cinematographer for student sets, but also professional ones. Before graduating I had been apart of a few features and shows around the area and I knew I wanted to tell big stories of my own. So I set out that I would write a feature and make it the year after graduating the biggest thing was the feature needed to be achievable. The script needed to be a budget that I could afford, which at the time was zero dollars. So for roughly six months I went to work during the day, took classes in the evening, and wrote every night for a few hours. By the time I graduated I was on draft 5 of what would eventually be “A Place Called Home”. I continued to work on the project, got some interested parties involved and the rest is history. History which you can see more in detail on any of the A Place Called Home social media pages.

From there the pandemic hit, I don’t want to drown everyone in the woes of the pandemic as it effected everyone in terrible ways. I added a move across the country into the mix of that timeframe. So lets just say it was a “challenging time”. However since then I’ve started to find my footing again, with a few large projects in development, writing for a tv-series and a mini-series, as well as all the other small projects in between.

At this point in my career I’m finally happy with the work that I’m producing, I don’t go into any project without a well thought out detailed plan and I think that’s what sets the projects apart from the others out there. It’s no secret that there is to much media to consume, you can’t watch everything, so making sure that your content is worth watching is as important as making it. The next step is getting some of these new projects off the ground and in flight.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to be able to look back on my body of work and be proud of the stories that I had a hand in telling. It all comes back to the story, there is nothing more important. I want to reflect the hope and joy that exists in the world, without shying away from all the other things the world has to offer. I, to this day, remember the feeling I had as a child watching Space Jam in theaters and watching Michael Jordan dunk the last ball, I SPRUNG up out of my seat. Those emotions exist in all of us and good stories have a unique was of bringing those out. Stories like that are the ones I want to tell, that I have to tell, that if I don’t I would feel “unfinished”.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

This is a great question and I can give an example of when it “clicked” for me. I have a really good friend he and I have been friends since I was 10 years old. When I decided to go to film school and move 16 hours from home, I remember that I felt anger from him along with others. They had an idea like “Why would you move that far and leave all us? And for what!?”. For me it was an adventure and a time to expand and grow, to challenge myself to try something hard, for them it felt like betrayal. He and I stayed close, but the distance is a challenge. After A Place Called Home came out he called me. He simply stated “I get it.” We had a long conversation about the film, how much he enjoyed it, the process, and the journey. At the end of the film he understood why I had to do it and I realized that something as obvious as this journey was to me, wasn’t nearly as obvious to everyone else. When it comes to people being driven sometimes it seems crazy that you would up-root your whole life for a singular goal or task, but to others we just have to.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aplacecalledhomefilm.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aplacecalledhomefilm/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aplacecalledhome
• Other: https://linktr.ee/aplacecalledhome

Image Credits
Aaron von Buseck Edward Diggs Shelli Witt Patrick Wright