We recently connected with Noah Meister and have shared our conversation below.
Noah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I remember hopping around a lot when deciding “what to be” as a kid. The first thing I remember really wanting to be was a comic book artist, or any sort of visual artist, like a painter. But I would bounce back and forth depending on the week, I would be a comic book artist one week, an architect the next, a Beatle the next, but nothing really held my attention for very long and kept me captivated to learn more deeply about the subject itself. I think artistic fields are so competitive that you have to have that deep love of it to even stand a chance, and I found that with film when I was in high school. I remember the moment it clicked was watching the behind-the-scenes little bonus feature on my DVD of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2. I was obsessed with this movie at the time and seeing the work that went into it was so fascinating and inspiring. It really shifted my perspective from movies being this untouchable multi-million dollar business to an art form that you can start practicing and honing with your friends. The story of how they made the first one most of all, a couple of kids from Michigan grass-roots financing, shooting it on a shoestring budget, really gave me the optimism I needed to start doing it myself.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I got into filmmaking in early high school making short films with my friends and going on to graduate from UW Milwaukee’s film program in the Spring of 2021. During my time at UW-Milwaukee, I gravitated toward writing, directing, and producing, and have since produced two independent feature films. I produced “The Universe Where” for my friend Karol Nowak in the Summer of 2021, which is now on the festival circuit, and am currently producing a film that I also wrote and directed called “All That Glitters”, which is currently in post-production.
A common thread I have found in my work is that the films that I write and direct commonly deal with morally grey characters, and unhappy endings. I’ve constantly tried to express that character growth and personal change is often a lot harder and slower of a process than media normally depicts. Even if a person’s intentions are good, it is hard to completely change one’s nature within the scope of a two-hour film, and the fact that change doesn’t happen overnight is okay. I have found these ideas even in my earliest short films at UW-Milwaukee, and it has been really satisfying to explore them further in my first feature film, “All That Glitters”.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I think there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing words that you’ve written being acted out for the first time. It can be really intimidating, especially if there’s a whole crew around, and I constantly am having this thought of “is this good dialogue? Am I a good writer?”But seeing the scene come together from just some words on a paper to something living and breathing is really something else, and never fails to excite me.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
There’s a YouTube Channel called Film Courage that I really recommend up-and-coming filmmakers to check out. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon them, but they regularly interview experienced members of the film industry in such an open and refreshing way. I remember when I was just starting out, I had very specific questions that it’s hard to find the answer to unless you know the right people. That channel is great because they interview everyone from producers to Art Directors to DPs and ask them the questions you are wondering about. I would also tip myself off to Celtx earlier on, which is a screenwriting software with a free trial, so I wouldn’t have written so many early drafts in poorly formatted google docs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://allthatglittersmov.wixsite.com/allthatglitters
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noahameister/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-meister-81a258b7/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7q9TomvXaZwaXz4WUKlwDQ
Image Credits
Diya Mark Emily Dalske