We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Levi Wilson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Levi below.
Levi, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
So, interestingly enough, the first time I thought about really going into the arts was when I was in 4th grade and the movie The Princess Bride came out. I loved the entire thing. And I remember watching some interview or behind the scenes promo and Carey Elwes and Mandy Patinkin talked about how they had to learn how to fence so they could have a really accurate sword fight for the scene when they first confront each other. After that I was hooked with the idea of working in cinema somehow. After that I used to watch this half hour show about special effects on WGN out of Chicago called Movie Magic. My mother wanted me to go to college and get a real job. I saw an episode and this guy was talking about the miniatures he made for this movie and the chyron below him said he was a mechanical engineer. So, I figured, I’ll go into mechanical engineering and then work in film!
Levi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Ultimately, I’m an independent filmmaker. Which means that I am a Jack of All Trades since you have to wear a lot of hats when you aren’t working directly with a studio. What I’m usually doing is shooting or editing. I’ve worked on docs and corporate stuff and some narrative shows. I’ve also done acting work. I also write and direct but those tend to be my own passion projects rather than working for a client.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Let’s talk about NFTs! What’s my view? It’s a total scam. Which is not to say that the underlying technology has no legitimate uses, I just have not seen many examples of widespread uses of these digital contracts that, a) replaces or improves upon traditional contracts, or b) isn’t used to create artificial scarcity. In the end, what is an NFT? It’s a unique and discrete digital product. The allegation is that this makes each product valuable. But if there are millions of easily created unique digital products inside the same category, then it serves the same purpose as having millions of a single fungible production.
I’m assuming this question is here because of the alleged potential for funding films with NFTs. The problem is that as an investment share there’s no other place to go with it. It’s value is separate from the film it’s supposed to fund, which is, itself, a discrete non-fungible item. And, plus, where do you go to cash in on this investment? The success of the film doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in the value of the NFTs. Not to mention that NFTs have a very narrow market. Like, art or vintage cars or wine, these things are only valuable to certain people. Sure, technically a painting by Gustav Klimpt is worth $120,000,000 but that’s only because it sold for that much from one extremely wealthy individual to another extremely wealthy individual. But the owner of that painting only has a potential market of a few several dozen people if he needs to liquidate it. That’s an extreme example, but NFTs suffer from the same problem. Not to mention that the NFT market has completely collapsed.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’m pivoting right now. I’m moving into more producing and directing when my focus was really on performance for a long time. I’ve been a proud member of SAG-AFTRA for over 20 years but I’m interested in telling my own stories now rather than someone else’s. But it’s not really a “had to pivot” as much as a “want to pivot.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wilsonarts.weebly.com/
- Instagram: @levithewilson
- Twitter: @levithewilson
Image Credits
First photo was taken on the set of my short film, Luke and Emma and a Gas Station on Franklin Ave Second photo is from a Q&A for the New Face New Voices Film Festival where I won Best New Director Third is from a Halloween event and just think it’s cool Fourth is from a wardrobe fitting for the feature film SLC Punk 2: Punk’s Dead