Filmmaker Chad Hartigan on sticking it out in tough industries

How would you define your place in the film industry and how’s it different from where you started?

I guess you could say journeyman. In the old Hollywood studio system, there were journeymen directors who weren’t known as auteurs, weren’t known as guys that would get you Oscars, but just worked. That kind of applies and kind of doesn’t, because I don’t work as consistently as I would like to.

You see the term “middle-class filmmaker.” Do you identify with that?

I think the answer is probably no. That there definitively is no middle-class filmmaker anymore working purely in film. Television is where you can lead a middle-class life because there’s some stability there. But in film, there’s the elite and then there’s everyone else. The money I make at the rate I make it is only really sustainable now because I have a partner who makes good money. And before her it was sustainable because I lived in a studio apartment and lived frugally. You may remember all the ink spilled last Oscar season because both Sean Baker and Brady Corbet talked about not making livable wages on their films. I think that’s the reality and I can’t really think of what kind of movies you could be making to classify you as “middle class.” Unless you supplement directing movies with good writing jobs or TV.

I’m very lucky that I’ve been able to make at least the last three movies that I’ve made for an actual budget where you have resources and everyone’s getting paid good rates. But they’re still independent movies. There’s still a lot of risk. There’s still question marks of if anyone will ever see them. And so, in one sense, it still feels like struggling. If I could continue making movies at this level forever, I would be very happy because they pay a good wage. But I do worry that those opportunities are becoming harder and harder to get.

How do you protect your artistic identity as the scale of your projects grows, but also this middle class gets squeezed?

I think I’m good at compromise. I wouldn’t say any of my films don’t have my identity in them. And they’re all what I want them to be, but they get that way through some compromise and through working with other people, including producers, financiers, and people who have money at stake and have notes. I mean, it’s definitely true that the worst notes you get are from those people, but it doesn’t mean that they’re all bad. They have a part in making the movie better. So, I think one of my strengths as a director is working with everybody and incorporating all ideas, pushing back on ideas in a respectful way.

What has been the most surprising thing you’ve realized along your creative path from starting off in the Mumblecore cohort to now you work with up-and-coming stars, you have decent budgets, you have more aspirations?

Well, I remember a rude awakening coming of age in the ’90s, where you would hear about people just selling their scripts and getting to make movies. Robert Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino, the path that those guys took, I thought that would be the case. Oh, if you can prove yourself, if you can have that one indie hit that plays at Sundance or does something, then you’re in and you can do what you want. When in fact, we’ve reached a point of IP and risk-adverse movie studios, where if you get to that level where you’ve shown you can do it and then you get to their door, they’re not like, “What have you got?” They’re like, “Here’s what we’ve got. Do you want to make any of these?” And so, in order to fully embrace studio filmmaking, you have to just be willing to make a movie that they were already going to make anyway. Like Greta Gerwig making Little Women. Or, after Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino making Suspiria. You just realize that unless you’re Christopher Nolan or one of the absolute top directors, you can’t just bring them your idea and expect them to give you a huge check for it anymore.

So, I embraced that. I’ve seen peers and friends of mine who are a little more stubborn, that only want to do their own stuff. And they’ve sort of hit a dead end at the million dollar threshold, where they can’t get any more money than that or they can’t get their more ambitious projects financed.

Let’s talk about daily work. What does a typical daily routine look like for you, especially in between projects?

It’s embarrassing, because it’s not very productive. But I have two kids. I get the kids ready for school. So, at 9:00, I can go to a coffee shop and work, except I don’t really work for the first two hours. Check soccer scores, check my email, check the news, movie news. Maybe listen to some new music and two hours are gone. And then I’m like, “Whew, time for lunch.” And so, it’s really like the afternoon that I start to get productive. And usually, if there’s literally nothing going on, it’s up to me. I have to try and write and create something. But usually, I have four or five projects that I’m a part of, that are trying to inch forward to production.

Right now, I do have a script that I wrote many years ago. I’ve been trying to get made for many years. That’s as close as it’s ever been. It has a few actors attached and we’re trying to land the financing. So, every day, there’ll be some conversation about getting that actor’s deal signed and cleared. Where are we going to shoot it? Driving out to check out something or researching online. It’s a lot of that. And a lot of that will end up being fruitless. It’ll be a project that never gets made, but you got to do it. That’s a typical day. Waste the morning, be productive in the afternoon.

But I imagine that time that’s not necessarily productive is still useful in some sort of way, right? You can’t just be on or grinding all the time.

No. And everybody figures out what works for them. I don’t beat myself up for the schedule that I have now. I like it. And I don’t feel bad about having a leisurely lifestyle. It’s a great privilege. And then when I’m making a movie, obviously I’m working 24 hours a day. So, you kind of earn those periods of respite in between.

How do you keep the creative momentum going throughout a long development process? And what do you do when you feel stuck?

I would say I feel stuck more often than I feel creatively flowing. It’s about not beating yourself up about that, not getting on your own case for long periods of not being productive, because it can happen in a big sudden burst. And usually, forcing it too much has never really resulted in good stuff. So, it’s a lot of being patient and forgiving of yourself. I watch a movie every night and listen to a lot of music. I’m constantly surrounding myself with stimuli, that anything could be the spark that gets the creative juices flowing again. I have experienced times, though, where I’ve found it’s not happening, and I get tired of movies and music and I need something else. So, then I’ll go to an art museum or go see an orchestra perform and see if that helps.

I feel like the process of making a movie for me is never ending peaks and valleys of getting really excited about it and then thinking it’s the worst thing ever. And when you get in those ruts of you’re working on something and thinking it’s the worst thing ever, and it’s a total disaster, some new element will come in and get you right back up into creatively invigorated. And I can point to, on every project, the moment that Keegan DeWitt starts sending me music for… It always ends up taking me right back up to the top.

When it comes to collaborators, how do they contribute to the creative process for you?

I like to think of my job as being someone who’s only there to facilitate other people to do their best work. There’s nothing dictatorial about the way I approach the job. Using Keegan as an example, I’ve never once said, “This is what the score should sound like.” The very first thing that always happens is he sends me music. Whatever he’s thought of from the script or the dailies or whatever, and that’s how we start. That’s true of production designer and costume designer. I never want to be like, “This is what they should be wearing.” I feel like I’m a sculptor of ideas rather than a visionary. I don’t consider myself a visionary in any way, shape or form. David Fincher, I’m sure, will tell you what the costume has to be, but I want to hire a person who has good ideas and opinions, and then see what that first instinct and idea was.

From there, through conversation, we get it to where I know best what it needs to be in order to fit under the umbrella of the entire operation. Because costume designer’s not also thinking about what the music sounds like—I’m the only person thinking of all the things. That’s the only reason why I’m more knowledgeable. In any other case, they’re more knowledgeable, so why wouldn’t I let them start that conversation?

From a technical perspective, as your projects have scaled, you’re presumably doing things you haven’t done before. How do you approach uncharted territory for yourself?

That was something I was more nervous about when it was a hypothetical. But when you actually get there and start doing the things, just leaning back on that other point, I don’t actually execute anything myself. I just have to tell the cinematographer or the gaffer the more ambitious idea and they make it happen. So, it helps to have an understanding of what you’re asking of people, generally speaking. But doing a more complicated steadicam or crane or using equipment I’ve never used before, I don’t actually do it. So, it becomes less daunting when you actually get on the set and realize, Oh, I’m still a communicator, really. My job is communicating. My job is making sure everybody is making the same movie that I have the vision for.

Do you feel that your communication skills are natural? Or do you feel that you have grown as a communicator?

Some of it is definitely natural. I think I’ve always been a personable person. I’ve liked interacting with people and am patient with all kinds of people. Those attributes have come in handy as a director, especially working with actors. Actors, literally, every crazy character quirk you could find in a person you find in actors. They’re all so different and yet you have to talk to all of them at the same time. In The Threesome, we have one scene with nine actors. That’s the most I’ve ever worked with in one scene together. And they’re all so different. They all have different needs for how to communicate. So, I feel like I’ve gotten better at identifying quickly how a person will be most effectively receptive to the way you talk to them or understanding what people mean when they say something, what they really mean when they say something.

We’re going to get a little existential here. How do you define success for yourself in an industry that usually equates bigger with better? Bigger budget, more box office, et cetera, et cetera, but that’s just not the reality for everyone.

First and foremost, I consider myself a success because I’m doing it at all. Even if I wasn’t getting paid to make films, continuing to try is a success because it’s really hard to make a movie. A lot of people want to make a movie and never even do it. I did it for the first time with my friends and $4,000 (Luke and Brie Are on a First Date). And we made a total failure, in terms of it didn’t screen anywhere, nobody cared. That could’ve been the end, but I tried again and I had to do it again for no money. We got like $40,000 through Kickstarter and credit cards. So, even just trying again, you should consider that a success. But then that one (This Is Martin Bonner) did get into Sundance and came out well and gave me a career, which is more than I could’ve dreamed for. In a way, everything post that has felt like gravy. And of course, the goalposts move every time, and now there’s new benchmarks for success that I would love to hit and get disappointed when things don’t hit. But to be doing it at all, to be getting paid to do it, to work with actors that are cool and that you’re genuinely a fan of, all those things constitutes success for me.

But I’ve had disappointments. Little Fish didn’t get into Sundance. Everybody was hoping that it would and you have to email everyone and be like, “Guys, so sorry we didn’t get into Sundance.” And you feel like you’ve let everybody down. But again, every movie has its own life. And it’ll find its way and have its own thing. It would be great to make a movie that everybody saw and made a lot of money at the box office. But I think if you were to go to Letterboxd and look at how many people logged Little Fish in the last month, it’s probably more than the amount of people that logged Beverly Hills Chihuahua in the last month, and that movie made $100 million at the box office. The real barometer for if the movies have any impact is if people can continue to discover them and they mean something to people. That’s not something you can even really tell. You just have to hope that it’s happening.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Nic Juarez.