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

Ryan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Creating a larger project for me has been the sum of pursuing multiple, smaller projects, each with the intent of pushing the boundaries of my knowledge or talent, and then eventually settling on a large project that was even further beyond the scope of what I had accomplished up until that point.

Early on, my intent was to write and illustrate comic media. I enjoyed writing odd little stories and felt like the comic medium was a good path for doing weird/outlandish tales. To my dismay, I discovered that I was not a good artist, despite my several attempts to learn. I DID learn, however, that I enjoyed the process of creating sequential art for storytelling purposes. At the time, I had transitioned to a much more computer-centric day job and came across a website called videocopilot.net, which was hosted by Andrew Kramer. I took it upon myself to learn this new medium, with my thought being “If I can’t draw it, maybe I can just capture it with a camera.” I really enjoyed working with After Effects and began creating my own short videos- each trying to build a small story around a new skill that I had learned. I made corporate videos for work, stingers for sermon illustrations at my church, and short films just because.

After a few years, I felt like I was ready to do a legit short film, but I didn’t know anyone in the area who did film work. My answer? I participated in a local community theater to get some actors, and filled every other role for the short film myself. I learned SO much during that process about all the different parts of filmmaking, and eventually finished a 20 minute short after filming for several nights and weekends and doing all of the editing and special effects myself.

Shortly after, I made a big move to another state for my job and it felt very much like starting over. New area, new contacts. Over the course of 3 years, I tried to make new connections as I worked on the script for my first feature. I wanted it to be something that stood out as a first work, so I wrote a horror/comedy/musical with some lyrical/music help from Nathan Hurley (Fox Royale). Again, trying to push myself, I also forced myself to allow others to do the work that I was familiar with. The largest push for me was allowing someone else to be the Director of Photography, but my DP David Watson was an excellent pick who worked well with lighting and capturing the scene well.

All of this is to say that larger projects are born out of smaller ones. Make sure you’re constantly pushing yourself. If you are getting ready to do your first “large project”, try not to just make it be a smaller project that’s bigger- add something else that will continue to push you towards greater things.

Ryan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Ryan Smith. I’m a U.S. Army veteran who’s been married for 25+ years, with five children and one grandchild (so far), despite only being in my mid-40’s. From a day-job perspective, I work full-time at a software company where I do business development and training for government software. From a creative perspective, I wear multiple hats in the filmmaking arena. My first work was a short film called “The Terrible Old Man”, which was a Lovecraft adaptation from his story of the same name. For that film I adapted the screenplay, and did all the other roles, with the exception of the acting and music (Directing, DP, Editing, SFX, Sound Design, etc.). My second work is a feature-length horror/comedy/musical called “Eldritch, USA”. (I worked as the writer/producer/director/editor/VFX). This film has won several awards in its festival run and is currently being shopped for a distributor. While Eldritch is being shopped, I am continuing to write other scripts that would fit into the horror/sci-fi genre (although not a musical this time).

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Now that I’m in the journey to find a distributor for Eldritch, USA, I wish I had known several of the rules associated with festival runs and distribution. There seem to be many unwritten things that are known in the community by people who have lived it before. What festivals should you submit to? Which ones get priority? How does timing work? How do you handle a local premiere? These are all questions that would have been beneficial just for the initial finishing of the film that would have deeply impacted the eventual distribution. For people who haven’t gone through the path before and make some flubs, what next? Should you get a sales agent? who is reputable? What distributors should you stay away from? Even when we were making the film, I believe there are some things that can be done to help with the process. For example, if we had a “famous” actor (even C list or a former star) in the film for ~10 minutes, it vastly increases the opportunities for distribution. Had I known that going into the making of Eldritch, I would have done things differently.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I tend to be someone who leans on the expertise of others. I don’t want to say that this skill is a bad thing, but I have learned through the creation of Eldritch, USA that if you allow too many people to bring their voices into the creative process of a project, that project starts to look like something that you had not intended. When I initially wrote Eldritch, USA, I had a friend who I respected as a local director who had done some film work before. He asked for the opportunity to direct Eldritch. I was trying to let go of some of the roles that I had been holding so tightly to from my previous projects, so I decided to give him the opportunity. As a result, he said it was normal for the director to do a re-write of the script to add their own voice. I decided to trust him, which ended up taking the film down a path that led away from my original vision. After some hard work (and the friend moving away), the film came closer to equilibrium with what I wanted, but some of the changes became hard to pull back. In the end, I’m still immensely proud of Eldritch, but I wonder what it would have been had I stuck to my guns and trusted myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eldritchusa.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eldritchusa/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EldritchUSA/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/EldritchU
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@passiveaggressivefilms5232