We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tom Sys a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tom, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
When you ask someone how they learned to do their job, the wide majority will answer you with the name of the college they went to. I, too, won’t leave my education out, but that’s only a part of how I learned to do what I do.
When I was looking for performing arts colleges, first in Belgium and The Netherlands, I found those schools to be terribly exclusive. They’d enroll a maximum of fifteen people per year in a performing arts education with sometimes over seven hundred applicants. Because of its exclusivity, it seemed like “the best” way to learn. My mind said: “I have to go to a performing arts college to become an actor.” My interest in the international showbiz industry led me to enroll at the AMDA College of the Performing Arts. This experience was very intense, wholesome, and wonderfully shaped my craft and discipline to compete in the professional acting world and I’ll always be grateful for that journey. However, when I just started at AMDA, I sought contact with AMDA alumni, and Emmy / Golden Globe Nominee, Anthony Ramos. Back then, he was only just breaking through and I asked him about his experience with the school. He responded that AMDA gave him great tools to be the best at the audition, but that the “real world” will always be the best education though. Now that I’ve graduated, I agree 100%.
In school, amongst many things, I learned to act in front of a camera and what was expected of me, the actor, when working with a small film crew. However, on the first days that I spent time on a professional set, which was for a KARUS commercial in Belgium and a movie teaser with Chaotic Neutral Productions, the process felt quite different. The value of each second, each take, and the small room for mistakes is something I had to get used to. For example, it’s a lot of waiting. I may be hanging out in a trailer or a green room for several hours before they are ready for me, but when I get to set and they call “Action!”, I have to deliver. There’s no modification. Those experiences are a phenomenal learning school in itself. I was able to take those realizations and discoveries into the next projects. In the short film “Beyond the Curtain”, I was able to trust the process of creating those takes and how to adapt to the type of production you’re filming for. Not even the most exclusive performing arts college can give you such an exact experience.
The craft of producing was only taught in a handful of classes at school. But the bare basics were enough to get started. I learned by trial and error. I learned how to put on a production by trying it and then failing. As long as you can acknowledge your mistakes and fix them by the next project you do, you’ll grow tremendously. That’s what it’s been like for me in the past years. I made my first movie called “Table of Truth” which had a too-small crew and time frame. In the next production, “Be All My Sins Remembered”, I made sure that I had more crew members to fill in all positions and took out more shooting time, which made everything go flawlessly. But then we had some technical issues with the equipment, which I improved on when I produced the VAYYU commercials. Everything I’ve done has learned me something new and I’m sure that’ll keep happening. Trial and error, that’s all it is.
Tom, 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?
At the end of 2022, alongside Erik Sopacasa and Luca Fontaine, I started the digital media production company called MOVART. Our goal is to inspire our audiences to become unique storytellers by creating thought-provoking, innovating, diverse media and entertainment through sustainable production. We all have an international background and try to use our unique life experiences as an inspiration for the art that we create. We are all professionally trained actors at the best performing arts colleges in the country and carry that package of knowledge with us into the company. On top of that, all the productions that we do happen in a sustainable way that keeps our carbon footprint as low as possible. I believe those norms of unique storytelling and emphasis on sustainable production set our company apart from other studios.
Our company is divided into two branches: Movart Creative and Movart Studios. The Creative part focuses on collaboration with other businesses and offers commercial work to elevate their products. The Studio side produces short films, documentaries, and feature films that tell inspiring, diverse, and entertaining stories to our wide audience.
I am incredibly proud of the work that we have done so far (VAYYU, Beyond the Curtain, …) and the things that are coming soon (LESCAUT & more). Of course, there are a lot of people to thank for that success. We couldn’t have achieved these first steps if it wasn’t for the help of our closest friends. In each production, for certain elements, we have relied on the goodwill of our crew and the passion that we share for filmmaking. In a world where everything revolves around money, that’s a wonderfully unique thing to share.
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?
I grew up in a lovely environment, surrounded by lots of smart, rational, and analytical people. Even though I had a rather creative mind, I’m glad they surrounded me and I wouldn’t want to change it for a second. Now that I’m pursuing my career in the performing arts industry, I can feel their curiosity. Coming from Belgium, it’s quite an exciting thing to be out here in LA to pursue a dream. Nobody knows what it’s like and what it entails. Neither did I when I came here. It’s so wonderful to be the one to explain to them how things work and what it’s like, rather than the other way around, but it’s not easy. Especially with my immediate family, I have trouble explaining what exactly I do on a day-to-day basis and how that is helping my career. Especially the acting preparation for the role can sound a little odd to them as it is very artistically driven from the inside. Production is a little easier to understand, yet nobody seems to be quite familiar with what it all takes to make a movie or shoot a commercial. When I attempt to explain, they don’t seem to be too interested, and that’s okay. It makes me happy and I love it. Sometimes you can’t explain love to someone else, you just feel it.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Society views the performing arts solely as a form of entertainment. It degrades show business, and I mean specifically the theater world, to a low-value industry because often it’s not a money-maker. Mostly, creatives become successful and their work becomes highly valued only when it’s a financial success. We, as a collective, should steer away from that thought. We should see that any piece of art can have an impact on someone and change lives because that’s exactly within its capacity. When I made the movie Beyond the Curtain, people came up to me after a first viewing to express their gratefulness for how it changed their view on the mental health of an actor. It’s more than entertainment. Society is so money-focused that we automatically look at the box office status even before we take in the work of art. Let’s change that view and respect the creatives that pour their heart into a movie, or a play, … instead of applauding and uplifting meaningless TikTok content with sponsorship deals for the sake of emotionless cash.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @tom_sys
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-sys-633a11233
- Youtube: @tshorts8933
Image Credits
Chris Wood, Sabina Francesca, Yancy Perez