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

Tom, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about one of the craziest things you’ve experienced in your journey so far.

So, working in production, every day and every project is different. The creative asks vary greatly between projects, and they are a bit chaotic by nature. This being said – I’ve seen some crazy things on set; a few of which stand out. I thought I’d do a little list of some of the wildest ones here:

-Once I was filming in Arizona for a football promo. For it we were demonstrating the harshness and resiliance of the desert by filming some of the animal life. So, we had a local animal wrangler bring out a scorpion and a rattlesnake. as a bonus, she also brought out a bobcat kitten, just to show off. We got some picture holding it before we began shooting. When the animals we’re on camera, the wrangler kept them in her car. We also filmed the scorpion first, and then the rattlesnake lunging at the camera. It was very dangerous, but we took all the proper precautions and it went well. As we wrapped our successful day, the wrangler does back to her car, to find that the baby bobcat had eaten the scorpion.

-I produced a series of dairy commercials, which, as you might imagine, featured an actor drinking a tall glass of milk. Our actor neglected to tell us until the morning of our shoot day that he was lactose intolerant, but he was a pro about it. He took some medicine and got through the project just fine.

-I just completed a project in Florida that involved some long interviews, and we didn’t know until the day of that our location was next to a military base who’s main function is to teach soldiers how to disarm bombs – so about every 15 – 20 minutes, bombs are going off. Needless to say, it made conducting the interviews more challenging.

-I once did a project for a hospital client, and two patients agreed to let us film them in very intimate moments – one patient agreed to let us film his open heart surgery, and another agreed to let us film her give birth. It was awe-inspiring.

-When I just started out and was working as a Production Assistant, I was doing a spot for the lottery that involved a chicken, but, they did not have a chicken wrangler – s0 that duty fell to me. Every take I’d hold the chicken in the shot, then let it go at the last second and dart out of frame. The chicken always ran off, in a different direction each time. When they called ‘cut’, I had to go chase it down, catch it, and bring it back for the next take. It was a nightmare of a day.

-With the amount of electrical power we utilize for large lighting, fire is a bit of a risk. Once we were filming in a model home, using large lights, and we began to plastic melting, but couldn’t tell how serious it was. All the breakers held so we thought one of the extension cords was just a little hot. It got worse and we eventually tracked down the source to one particular cord that was hot to the touch. When the electrician on our crew pulled it out of the socket, flames shot out of the wall. She stomped it out, but it was one of the scariest experiences we had. The breaker had simply failed to shut it off and we had started an electrical fire in the wall. Luckily we caught it before anything catastrophic happened.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m born and raised in the Kansas City area. I started in production right after college by cold-calling producers and production companies and asking to work as a production assistant. Eventually I got my foot in the door at a handful of places and intermittent work became more steady.

After PAing for two years, I decided the career track / department that I wanted to advance into was producing. I let a few of my mentors know and before long I was production coordinating, then production managing, and finally, producing.

The whole process took roughly six years – two as a PA, two as a Production Coordinator, two as a Production Manager, and then I began working as a Producer.

As my producer career established, I branched out and began writing and directing narrative work, which has always been my first love and a long-term goal. So now I produce commercials and write / direct narrative projects, and tour film festivals.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are two things about the process of filmmaking that I find the most rewarding:

First, the creative problem-solving aspect of it, which comes from the conflict of telling the best story with the best creative, and the real limitations of time and resources. Every job faces this challenge, and for me, one of the funnest. parts is deciphering how to get the best creative piece for the time and resources we have.

Second is the expansive and collaborative nature of filmmaking. Some art forms are solo, or some work in single mediums – visual arts, the written page, music. Filmmaking combines every art form, and thus, is a massive collaboration between talented artists specializing in their own mediums. A visual artist may design the set, a writer writes the script, a composer creates the score… and everyone elevates the overall project and puts a part of themselves into it, which, when done well, really creates a magical experience and product. As a director and producer, it’s an honor and in incredible experience to work with talented artists to make everyones vision into a cohesive story.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

This is unconventional, but for me, word-of-mouth has been the main way I’ve connected to new clients. I’m a unique, small business in a smaller market, Kansas City, so that’s why I think it’s worked for me. There aren’t many folks in KC that do what I do, so I built a little reputation through word of mouth connections over time. And it’s a smaller city where a lot of people are connected, so that helps word spread.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tomhipp.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomhipp