Rayka Zehtabchi’s career path has been, to put it mildly, anything but ordinary. “Everyone has their own journey,” says Rayka. “Some people’s journey starts at the Oscars when they’re 25 years old.” She’s referring to her stunning documentary “Period. End of Sentence.,” which took home the statue for Best Documentary (Short) at the 2019 Academy Awards when she was still in the early days of her filmmaking career – and made her the first Iranian-American woman to win an Oscar. 

“I was really young,” explains Rayka. “I had just left my job as a PA and an Uber driver. It was a very strange out-of-body experience.” But as improbable as the win might have felt to Rayka at the time, it was in no way an overnight success. “It was a project that we’d been working on for years at that point. But I don’t know that we ever thought it was going to be possible to even be a part of the Oscars conversation.” 

And while production of the short was a long-won labor of love, the visibility and notoriety associated with that kind of win did come fast and furious – leaving Rayka in need of a reset. “I came away from the Oscars really feeling like I needed to take a step back, and I needed to actually continue to explore my voice as a filmmaker,” she says. 

Four years on, Rayka has reemerged as a prolific documentarian with a unique eye for story and craft. We caught up with the filmmaker to learn more about how she found her voice and what keeps her creative fire lit. 

When did you know you wanted to be a filmmaker? 

Rayka: I was 15, I think. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do in film. I was like, directing sounds fun, producing sounds fun, production design sounds fun. I dabbled in a couple different things while I was going through school. But I think one of the biggest things that happened in my life that really gave me this idea and confidence that I could actually be a filmmaker, was this mentorship program, this film program when I was in high school called Film at Academy of the Arts.

I was really fortunate to have that program because you start to learn about the craft at a really young age, and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel like such a huge mountain to climb. You feel like you can see yourself in that position. I was like, “I want to do this and I don’t want to do anything else.”

You specialize specifically in short documentary. What is it about that medium?

Rayka: Honestly, I love the short format because first of all, there’s a low barrier of entry. You don’t need a huge budget or anything to go out and make a short film. The stakes are not as high. I think what that allows for the artist is more freedom for creativity. More freedom to really explore your voice, and also not be so precious. Go out and try different things. 

I think every film that I’ve made is different, or exploring something new. Maybe not so much in the themes, but in the craft is exploring something new. And I think that’s really fun and exciting, and I don’t know that you always get the opportunity to do that so readily with longer form projects. 

Your work is often issue-based, but you never sacrifice form for story. How do you balance those? 

Rayka: I think my collaborators and I are always thinking about form. How do we push the craft in some way? Especially with documentary, a lot of times what happens is it can start to feel a little formulaic, or you’re leaning more into journalistic sensibilities. So, the craft is sometimes it’s secondary. I think with us it’s like we’re always thinking about how you can put the craft and the storytelling first. 

Because the project should feel, technically, really sound. They should take you on a journey. They should be entertaining. They should be a visual feast. So, for us, it’s just filmmaking is the best way that you can infuse all of the art form, along with the humanity. So I feel like every project we do has to have both.

What has your creative life been like in the wake of your Oscar win? 

Rayka: I mean, it’s been challenging. It’s been great. It’s been filled with hard times. It’s been filled with growth. But I think it was a necessary step for me to take. You need to take a step back and you need to just shut out all the noise and you need to say, “This is who I am. What do I want? What’s important to me?” 

For me, I realized what was so important to me was that emotional connection to what it was that I was doing, whatever that may be. And so, taking a step back really allowed me to look inward, reflect, do the painful, challenging, almost therapy work of figuring out what your voice is, who you want to be, and what kind of projects you really want to put your energy into.

What keeps you going? 

Rayka: Honestly, it’s the stories. You think long and hard through the story before you decide that you’re going to go out and make it. Because it takes so much time, and energy, and effort, and emotional energy too. For me personally, even if I’m doing a job, I get really emotionally invested in the project and I don’t say yes to a job unless I feel emotionally connected to the project in some way.

You really have to be driven by the story that you’re telling, the message that you’re putting out into the world, the conversation that you’re putting out into the world. Do you feel like it’s something that you can shoulder for the time that you’re making the film? 

You received your first Staff Pick after winning an Oscar – how did it feel?

Rayka: It was a project that my partner Sam [Davis] and I did after the Oscars. After “Period. End a Sentence.” It was this small mockumentary. And it was sort of in response to the spectacle of the Oscars. We were like, “Okay, now we want to do something really small and really fun and quirky and intimate, and how do we just get creative?” And we made a fun project called (SHn(y)o͞of). And that was our first Staff Pick project.

I remember just being so elated, because even though we just came off of the Oscars, it was a project that really just came from our brains. We got so creative and fun and scrappy with. I think our budget was a few hundred dollars. So getting a Staff Pick was really great because it just felt like, you know, got that validation.

How do you use Vimeo in your day to day? 

Rayka: I use Vimeo almost every day, in some way. Whether it’s because a friend has sent me a film, or a Staff Pick that’s wonderful and I need to watch it for inspiration. Or because I’m uploading my videos, and using the review tools. 

Or if I need to find talent. I mean, I remember I had a project during the pandemic, and I really needed to find an animator who did a really specific style of animation. And I went down the Staff Picks rabbit hole in the animation category. I think I searched through 30 pages or something. And I found an amazing animator who we actually ended up hiring for the project, and I would love to work with again. I use it as a tool, a resource. It’s always in the diet.

What’s your advice for other filmmakers trying to find their voice? 

Rayka: I think it’s easier now to make a film than it has ever been. Especially for people who are just starting out. We have so many tools at our disposal, and you really just have to start making stuff and finding really what sticks and what matters to you.

It’s a process. It’s not like it happens overnight. You really have to get to work on it, and spend a good amount of time really discovering what it is that you want to say in the world. 

Get inspired

Dan Covert is a man of a thousand disciplines. A talented artist and graphic designer, co-founder of the wildly prolific production company Dress Code, and a filmmaker whose work spans short branded projects, commercials, and a recent feature film profiling the art and life of Geoff McFetridge – Dan has experience and insights in spades. But the secret to success isn’t in his artistic acumen (though that certainly helps) – it’s in his work ethic.

“Nothing’s going to make itself,” says Dan. “The quickest way to build your career is just keep making stuff. Even if it’s doing a bunch of favors for friends to make stuff, that’s how you stay active as a director.” 

It’s an ethos that has led Dan through an impressive career dotted with accolades from AFI, SXSW, and, of course, Vimeo Staff Picks. “Vimeo made our careers,” says Dan. “That sounds crazy, but it’s true. We never would’ve had an audience for any of this stuff. We just bought cameras and learned how to make things.” 

Shortly after the release of his first feature documentary, “Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life,” which won the Audience Award at this year’s SXSW, we had a chance to chat with Dan about his process and his creative north stars. Check out highlights from the chat above and read the full conversation below. 

You started out as a graphic designer. How did you get from there to feature filmmaker?

Dan: We started a company 16 years ago that was a graphic design company that then became a motion graphics company that then became a production company. So it’s this long evolution. And all along the way we made shorts, and a lot of them were Staff Picked on Vimeo.

We were just experimenting and learning what our voice was as a company and as directors and then I was turning 40 and was always like, “I’m going to make movies someday.” And I was like, “Maybe I’m not going to make movies unless I start.” So I just was looking for stories and this film kind of just happened. 

16 years is a long time to be making stuff in this industry. What keeps you going?

Dan: It’s just genuinely fun to do this work. Even until recently, I wasn’t like, “Oh, there’s going to be this blow up moment where my career changes and I’m at the Oscars.” I don’t think about that stuff. It’s just like, “Am I having fun in the moment? Am I enjoying the ride?” 

Because once a project it goes out in the world, you can’t control how people respond to it. It’s just like, “Did I make the best thing that I could? Am I hanging out and working with people I love and respect? Are we trying to be honest and authentic?” I’m always the lots of irons in the fire kind of guy. I have a business. I am a commercial director. I’ve been making this feature film. I have a pretty successful art practice. But it’s all about just slowly just doing these things that I enjoy and then like, “We’ll see where they go.”

But I’m not as concerned about the ‘where they go’ part because that can just eat you alive. Because ultimately in the end, who cares if you’re famous or successful? It’s like that’s not the stuff you’re going to remember when you’re 80. 

What’s your creative north star?

Dan: We constantly are refining this, but it’s really storytelling acumen. It’s craft and visual artistry. And those are kind of vague terms, but it does have a lot of meaning. It’s like, “Can you tell a story?” A lot of times people come with a half-baked concept and we, as storytellers, are kind of pulling the story out.

The idea of commercials and art, they’re somewhat contradictory forces – but not at the highest level. It’s more about emotion and how you do that with beautiful cinematography. But we each kind of have our own voice. But the stuff that really truly excites me is character and story.

How do you work with a brand without compromising your vision?

Dan: In the beginning I always thought it was like, “Oh, they’re hiring me to do what they need.” And then over time I realized, “No, they’re hiring me because they need some help and I know what I’m doing.” So it was a big shift of trying to understand what the company’s needs were and what their aesthetic was. That’s still obviously important, but then the more and more I’ve climbed as a director, I realized that they’re coming to you for your personal voice to really sort through all this stuff and be like, “What you guys need to do is this.”

Are there any brands that you’re still hoping to collaborate with?

Dan: I think that’s tricky because I don’t really care about that stuff. It’s like, “Is it a fun, interesting project?” Some of the most boring assignments that I’ve been given have turned into the best pieces. I did a film centered around a type historian at Syracuse, it’s a Staff Pick video we did. It was like this dude who was in a basement who found this font and then Pentagram turned it into the logo for Syracuse University. That guy’s amazing. I want to talk to people like that.

Everyone wants to do jobs for Nike and all these amazing brands. Sure that is fun, but I also like finding these unique stories and kind of giving them a platform. 

Can you tell us about your experience with Vimeo Staff Picks? 

Dan: Our first staff pick was for “Font Men.” The film we premiered at SXSW in 2014. I remember we had the first screening. I woke up the next day and saw that the film had been Staff Picked, media had picked it up, and that was a huge deal. I was a graphic designer who started co-directing with my business partner on films about other graphic designers.

I never learned how to be a director. So it was a huge validation as a creator to have 300,000 people within a few days see this movie that we made. And it’s like, “Oh, my God.” You know what I mean? We didn’t even make it as a short film. We made it for a client project and just slightly re-edited it, and I saw this audience.

Dress Code has been on Vimeo for a very long time. What keeps you on the platform? 

Dan: It just seems like the platform where all the creators are who see our work. A lot of this stuff on the short film side, we’re self-funding, kind of putting out these little trial balloons, and then other creatives see them. It’s always shocking. Somebody from an ad agency will call and be like, “Hey, we saw this thing. Can you do this commercial project for us?” It’s like a one to one. If we’re putting work out like that, the right people are seeing it and then kind of elevating it and giving us a platform.

Where do you get your inspiration? 

Dan: I get the most inspiration for my work through art. I actually don’t watch a ton of videos anymore. I find that it’s kind of taxing and then I want to mimic things, so I just really try to find things that are very outside of what we do or even look at feature docs for commercials or look at fine art for framing and visual techniques. 

What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten? 

Dan: There’s a quote from Steve Martin where he says, “Be so good that they can’t ignore you.” I’ve always loved that. It’s just like a lot of people want this quick fix of just to make something and then one and done. Where for me it’s more about just kind of slowly putting the time into building up a body of work and then being so good that someone will find you. 

Get inspired

What do you get when you combine an AI image generator, a 98-year-old woman named Lillian, and Harry Potter? The result is ‘HAIRY POUTER,’ a short film from director Chris Carboni that layers increasingly whimsical AI-generated imagery with commentary on the classic novel from a very funny nonagenarian.

“Lillian is my grandmother,” says Chris. “She and I have always had a very close relationship and I’ve been recording her giving reviews for probably 10 years.”

When AI image generators began to take over the internet in mid-2022, Chris saw the stars align into a new project that could leverage his hours of audio and help him explore his relationship with this emerging technology. “I had a lot of conflicted feelings about [these generators] and I was looking for an opportunity to learn about them a little bit,” explains Chris. “At the same time, I was talking to my grandmother who just finished reading ‘Harry Potter,’ which I had purchased for her as a birthday gift.” 

From there, the film came together at warp speed with a nimble crew – “my grandmother and my wife and our sound designer and composer, that was the full team” – and the rest is (futuristic) history. As the capabilities of AI continue to evolve at a breakneck pace, we caught up with Chris Carboni to talk all things art and artificial intelligence.

The imagery in this video is incredible. What did you use and how did you get it to give you these results?

Chris: So we used MidJourney, back in its first version. We started with entering in Lillian’s words unedited and seeing what it would generate based on just the quotes from the interview. We really liked the art style that it had come up with through just a few rounds of regenerating images. So, I wrote down some hallmarks of the art direction based off this image that it had produced. 

I think the first image we got was Ron with his really wafting hair, and he looked amazing. I think it was sort of shoulders up, and he clearly didn’t have a shirt on. He just looked like this beach god. And then when we had a shot of Harry and Ron together, it posed them almost embracing each other and we were like, “Oh, this is wonderful.” 

We let the AI really come up with these interesting interpretations, and when we hit on one that we really liked, we guided it to follow that thread, so that it would be consistently entertaining and just easy to follow.

What was it like applying AI to this very human story?

Chris: At the time I made this film, I had a fair amount of concern [about AI]. But I certainly enjoyed working with it for this project. I think that was a good use case for the project because the use of AI was fundamental to the story. 

That’s what made it feel fun and interesting and special. It was kind of about the clumsy but charming relationship between AI and humans. It wasn’t a project where we chose to not spend a budget on an illustrator and tried to use artificial intelligence instead. It was a project where the use of artificial intelligence was foundational for the storytelling.

How do you feel about AI entering the creative space?

Chris: There’s certainly something compelling there, but it’s gotten obviously so much more complicated since now these generators are so ubiquitous. Their potential has been unleashed, and expanded into all of these different use cases. So, the topic has become a lot more complicated than I feel like it once was in terms of my own understanding and feelings about it. 

I think that anybody in a creative space is going to have to figure out what this means for their work, and adapt to recognizing that things are probably going to change. And with that change will come opportunities to do incredible new things, but also the automation of a lot of the craft we as artists love. It does make me a little sad, if I’m being honest. I worry about art being devalued and commodified further than it already is.

Would you use this technology in your work in the future?

Chris: Well, I love using AI to enhance my emails and as a sort of personal assistant capable of answering questions, explaining complex ideas, and handling rote tasks. In terms of creative work though, I don’t fully know. I certainly don’t want to use it in a way that would replace human artists on my teams. I believe that the results would not be as good. 

So much of what makes our work great comes from collaborating with other people. A project produced from start to finish using AI is reliant on prompts from one person’s brain. In some cases that might be okay, but more often than not, productions benefit from a team of specialists working together, each bringing their own unique expertise and creative insights to the table.

The most compelling use cases I see are for generating early ideas and kickstarting the creative process. Maybe for raising funding for a project and showing some initial concept work to get something off the ground. But for animation, you need so much control over the minutiae of a scene, both for creative and production-related reasons. That level of control is likely on the way, but it’s certainly not there yet.

Check out more Staff Picks

Ah, Sundance Film Festival – a cloud nine state of mind for filmmakers and film lovers. It’s a place where both the ingenious filmmaking and high elevation will leave you breathless. Where the “Sundance Sickness” represents the unshakeable itch to be at all of the parties at the same time and the inevitable viral infection that will besiege your bod as a result from shaking all the hands, chatting closely with people in loud rooms, and barely sleeping. 

This year, the festival was back in Park City, Utah for the first time since January 2020. In the 15th year of the Staff Pick program’s existence, we were happier than ever to see the names of SP-badge recipients in both the short and feature film programs, including Laurel Parmet, Savanah Leaf, Laura Moss, Staff Picks Best of the Year 2023 winner Eddie Alcazar, and more. 

The curation team watched all 64 shorts that were programmed in 2023. Curators gonna curate, and culling down our favorite films from a larger collection is what we do best. We do this not to discount the actual award winners (shoutout to alum Crystal Kayiza for her Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction win!), but to highlight stories and filmmaking that we believe are also deserving of special recognition. 

So without further adieu, here are the curation team’s unofficial award recipients…

Grand Jury Prize

“A Folded Ocean” by Ben Brewer 

U.S Fiction

“Troy” by Mike Donahue

International Fiction

“Simo” by Aziz Zoromba

Non-Fiction

“Will You Look At Me” by Shuli Huang

Animation

“Christopher At Sea” by Tom CJ Brown

Special Jury Prize – Acting

Lena Papaligoura in “AirHostess-737,” directed by Thanasis Neofotistos

Special Jury Prize – Directing

Ben Brewer for “A Folded Ocean”

Congratulations are also in order for Staff Pick alumni who won big at this year’s festival. A.V Rockwell, received the U.S Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize for her feature film “A Thousand And One”, which Variety described as an “admiring portrait of survivorship, determination and resourcefulness.” 3-time Staff Pick recipient Sing J. Lee took home the Directing Awards in the U.S Dramatic category for “The Accidental Getaway Driver.” And 6-time Staff Pick alum Charlotte Regan won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition!

We’ll see you on the festival trail in the months to come, and look forward to saluting a fresh batch of shorts at Sundance 2024!

Watch more Sundance Film Festival shorts

As the year comes to a close, we’re often asked to look back, as annual recaps (and beloved Spotify Wrappeds) abound. This year, we wanted to do things a little differently – by looking forward to the year ahead with a little help from our creative global community. The result is Fast Fwd 2023: an interactive video experience that combines insights from creators and professionals across the globe with interactive elements that bring you into the action.

Interact with the video above, and read on to see how we built it.

Capturing quality content 

To start, we reached out to members of our talented community from all across the world – creative directors in the Netherlands, filmmakers in the UK, animators in Australia, and NGO activists in Nigeria, to name a few.

Even the most camera-comfortable among us know that looking calm, cool, and collected during a self film can be a challenge. So we created and shared a simple guide to filming best practices to help our subjects turn around great videos to go with all that great wisdom. 

Then, we asked them to hop on their phones, cameras, and computers to answer three questions about the year ahead: 

• What’s your mission for the upcoming year? 
• What’s inspiring you in the new year? 
• What are the biggest hurdles you anticipate in 2023? 

Their answers spoke to the power of community, like this gem from creative director and Soursop co-founder Ravi Amaratunga Hitchcock… 

“In individual streams we can only do so much, but as a collective we can do massive, massive, massive things.”

…and the limitless possibilities of storytelling, like this sentiment from Staff Pick filmmaker Faith Briggs.

“I don’t want to just tell cool stories. I want to tell stories that matter.”

Streamlining the post process 

In editing all the video submissions together, we knew we wanted to each segment of the video to stand on its own. So, we created a series of supercuts, featuring our favorite answers to each of the three questions above.

Then, in anticipation of adding interactivity, Vimeo’s creative team set a few ground rules to transform the footage from sizzles and raw footage to an immersive experience.

• No more than two hotspots on the screen at once
• Add an interactive element within the first ten seconds 
• Allow for :15 – :20 between each hotspot 

From there, the team added engaging visual elements like small illustrations and dynamic text to keep the video feeling zippy and dynamic. (Our very talented creative team designed the overlays you see in the video above, but you can check out similar ones in Vimeo Create.) Once the edit was completed, it was off to interactive!

Imagining an interactive experience

To bring the video to life, our interactive team first had to add a branching element, which makes up the bulk of the interactive experience. (You can check that out above.) From there, they added simple touches, including dynamic bios for each speaker, and included a persistent hotspot to allow viewers to navigate through the video when they’re ready to move on. 

“Making a video interactive is all about adding value,” says Jen Mendler, a Senior Designer at Vimeo. “Our community did the heavy lifting by providing such interesting wisdom about the year to come, and we followed suit with a video experience that puts the viewer in the driver’s seat. It’s all about choosing your own destiny in 2023.” 

Make the most of 2023 with interactive video

Video Matters is Vimeo’s interactive magazine showcasing the most inspiring videos on the internet. Each month, we serve up some of the best new Staff Picks, magnificent marketing work from all sorts of businesses, and a themed archive collection.

For October, a spook-tacular collection of Halloween classics, a mesmerizing visual look book, and an extraterrestrial (g)love story.

You can look through past issues of the magazine over on our Video Matters page. Video Matters is made with Vimeo’s new interactive tools. Come this way to find out more about the future of video, and how you can harness it.

Watch more Video Matters

CONTENT WARNING: The following video contains material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.

Based on a 911 call that made national news in 2013, this week’s Staff Pick Premiere is “Dekalb Elementary,” a gripping Oscar-nominated short by Reed Van Dyck.

A film that’s shot within a single room doesn’t get much better than this. In the space of 20 minutes, Van Dyck puts forth an impressive feat in environment and pacing. Tension is built around a feeling of confinement, along with a clear and perplexing understanding of a dubious threat. “I wanted to play with what we don’t see,” says Van Dyck.  “Whether that’s obstructing an actor’s face or leaving the chaos of children running [and] screaming off-screen, heard but not seen. My feeling was you, the viewer, would create more interesting pictures in your own mind than any I could show you.” This play on space ultimately makes each minute more arresting than the previous.

Given the astounding performances from leads Tarra Riggs and Bo Mitchell, it’s no surprise Van Dyck said he wouldn’t do the film without the right actors. A true testament to the cast, crew, and attention paid to the craft of narrative filmmaking, “Dekalb Elementary” feels like a non-fiction report of a gravely real event.

We caught up with the director Reed Van Dyck to talk inspiration, challenges, and control throughout the film.

What was your inspiration for creating this film? 

“‘DeKalb’ is based on a 911 call that made national news back in 2013. In the call, we overhear Antoinette Tuff talking to a young man, Michael Hill, who walks into her Atlanta elementary school with an AK-47 and five hundred rounds. I hadn’t heard about the call when it first made news, but I found it years later during research for another project I was working on about a mass shooting. I remember sitting on my couch in Los Angeles riveted and emotional as I listened to the fourteen-minute recording unfold. For weeks I couldn’t get their voices out of my head. Her strength and compassion, his confusion and regret. It touched me in a deep place, and so I began to wonder if I could bring their encounter to life on film.”

Did you face any challenges when making this film?

“The film is essentially a two-hander. So one of the primary challenges was finding the right actors to play the roles. I even decided I wouldn’t make the film without the right cast. It was a months-long process of scouring IMDb, looking at cast lists for indie films, TV shows, etc. Anytime I saw someone who looked right for one of the two leads, I’d add their name to a list. Once that list had grown to 30 or 40 people, I’d start going through all the actors on it and watching their previous work (TV appearances, films, etc) and narrowing it down.

Then I’d start the whole process over again. That’s how I found Tarra Riggs and Bo Mitchell who play the leads. I actually hand-picked every other actor in the film, even the supporting roles, using this same process. My feeling was that a single false performance note from anyone would pull us out of the reality of the situation and so I needed the best actors I could find for every role.”

It’s tough to strike such a compelling tone with subject matter as serious as this. What worked for you in crafting such a tense environment?

“My north star in making the film was always the 911 call. So when I started to think about how to realize the film, visually and aurally, I decided less was more. I had such a strong response to the call, which was more or less a radio play — just these two voices. And so with the film, I wanted to play with what we don’t see… whether that’s obstructing an actor’s face or leaving the chaos of children running [and] screaming off-screen, heard but not seen.

My feeling was you, the viewer, would create more interesting pictures in your own mind than any I could show you. And by giving less information, narratively and visually, perhaps the viewer would engage even more actively with the film, bringing more of themselves to the experience. That was the goal at least.”

This film has exceptional control, which makes it feel like it was shot in a day. What did the production timeline end up looking like?

“The script was twenty pages long and so we shot five days. I tried to keep my daily page count as low as possible for the very reason you mention. The more time my team and I had in production, the more intentional and thoughtful I/we could be with respect to shot design, blocking, performance, costume and production design. So for me, more time equals more control. That includes a long pre-production process.”

What is your best piece of advice to aspiring filmmakers?

“This isn’t so much advice, but I grew up in a small town in New Jersey called Mahwah. The land I grew up on is unceded Lunaape Tribal land. I have researched the Lunaape extensively for a film I’m making and one of the things that struck me, moved me, was their relationship to stories. Storytelling was thought to be a powerful medicine for the community. The Storyteller was an important figure who traveled from clan to clan within the tribe and told stories that taught people how to live. Stories were part of how these communities and their individuals continued to evolve and wake.

Personally, this is why I go to the movies. And in strange times like ours, I crave films and filmmakers willing to speak honestly and deeply about themselves and our world. I crave stories that will help me continue to wake. And so my (selfish) hope or wish for aspiring filmmakers is that they set about this work — this path — exploring themselves and this world and sharing what they find.”

What’s next? Any upcoming projects? 

“I’m in the process of putting two feature projects together right now. One is an original script of mine. My producers and I are out to actors on that. The other is based on a New Yorker piece and we’re in the final stages of securing rights/releases, etc.”

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In this week’s Staff Pick Premiere, “West by God,” Vimeo Best of the Year recipient Scott Lazer details an intimate power struggle — aka a first date — between Dane, a low-level drug dealer, and Nelly, a seemingly disaffected high schooler.

After locking eyes at the local water park, the two meet up for a date at the local Dairy Queen. Dane, who’s used to being in charge, pays for the meal, dictates where they go, what they do, and what they listen to.  While Dane might have started out in charge, Nelly’s presence and the brilliant use of a 2000’s rap anthem create a vulnerability in Dane that starts to break his machismo armor. Lazer brings this small town tale to life through a keen attention to detail via setting, situations and characters. 

The specificity of the film is essential to create and then break both the strong male and submissive female archetypes “West by God” explores. The two actors, Kyle Riggs and Aphrodite Armstrong are the stars of the show, even winning a special jury prize for Outstanding Performances at this year’s SXSW Film Festival.

Ahead of the release, we reached out to director Scott Lazer about how the film came together, challenges along the way, and what’s next.

On the film’s inspiration:

“I’d been looking to film something in West Virginia – where I was born and spent a lot of my childhood – for a long time. One of my favorite things to do there is bring friends who’ve never been and see it through their eyes for the first time, which I thought I could do through film. When writer Juli Blachowiak and I first discussed collaborating on this together, she originally set it in Hawaii – where she was born and raised, but I saw it fitting perfectly in West Virginia with specific locations in mind. I started sharing photos from there with her – some I’d taken, some from Google. This helped us shape the scenes, tailoring the story to a world I knew intimately.”

On crafting characters:

“Nelly and Dane sort of straddle the two ends of young adulthood. Nelly is eager to become an adult, and Dane laments getting there as quickly as he did. I know so many Nellys and Danes from growing up who inspired these characters, and a big part of how we brought them to life was through their wardrobe styling, which Juli and I did ourselves.”

On the actors:

“My friend Cat was finishing her MFA at University of North Carolina School of the Arts, which is about three hours from where I wanted to film in West Virginia. I asked her if she was tapped into the acting program at the school, which I know is a prestigious conservatory. Cat has always had a great eye for performance, and when I sent her the script, she replied that she ‘knew’ Nelly, one of our leads. ‘I’ll get a tape from her,’ she said.

A couple weeks later, she sent Aphrodite’s audition, which absolutely floored me. Michael (Fiona) also came from UNCSA, and Kyle (Dane) is an actor Cat knew from the North Carolina acting community. I felt so fortunate to get to work with these incredible actors, and I was thrilled for Aphrodite and Kyle to win a Special Jury Recognition for Outstanding Performances at SXSW earlier this year.”

On casting Aphrodite:

“I didn’t know she was trans when she auditioned. I just knew she was mega talented and right for the role. But once I learned she was a proud trans woman, I did take a beat to consider the optics of me (cis white man) directing her. Aphrodite and I spoke about it. I asked a few others about it. I did some research, and I found an article that quoted a trans actor named Harrison Knights who said “It is not until [trans actors] are being cast in major cis roles because we are the best actors for the role, rather than because we tick a box, that we will have truly arrived.”

Cis actors have played trans characters since forever, why is the opposite so rarely the case? I obviously ultimately decided to cast Aphrodite, which was not only the right creative decision, but helped give the film some purpose. As she put it to me after we filmed, just the presence of her body rendered something unique for the character.”

On writing and performing the final line, “I know.”

“There’s a power dynamic between Nelly and Dane, which is the central tension of the film. They go where he wants, he’s paying, he’s in control. But when he reveals a vulnerable side of himself to Nelly that she didn’t expect, she realizes the power she wields in being a sympathetic ear to him – something she could potentially even exploit. With that last line, she affirms that shift between them. It’s happened, and they’re both aware.”

What is your best piece of advice to aspiring filmmakers?

“Even if you don’t intend to be an editor, learn how to edit, so you can communicate with editors. Editing is where a film comes together or falls apart, so it’s an essential part of the process to understand thoroughly.”

On playing a song for someone you care about:

“Early in my relationship with my girlfriend, I played her a Melody Gardot song called ‘Our Love is Easy’ which I thought summed up how I felt about our budding romance. We were so compatible, I thought, that being together felt effortless ‘like water rushing over stone,’ as Gardot sings. The song didn’t go over how I hoped. ‘Easy?’ she asked me incredulously. ‘So if things get difficult, are you gonna lose interest?’ I didn’t lose interest. And it’s still easy.”

What’s next? Any upcoming projects? 

“We’re not done exploring ‘West by God.’ I think we still have a lot more to uncover in that world. Other than that, I have a couple other shorts I’m making in addition to the commission work I do in advertising and music.”

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I am so tired of waiting.

Aren’t you, 

For the world to become good

And beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife

And cut the world in two–

And see what worms are eating

At the rind.

-Langston Hughes, Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings

The winner of the Vimeo Staff Pick Award at Palm Springs Shortfest 2022 is “Meantime” by Michael T Workman. Michael planted a camera in his Dad Tim’s house to make a “deeply personal exploration of memory, guilt, labor, and the attempt to preserve the fleeting.” At least, that’s what its logline says. What is so beautiful about this documentary is that it isn’t truly about those vague descriptions of human sentiment. “Meantime” focuses a magnifying glass on the product of evils that plague the United States: capitalism, inhumane labor practices, inadequate support for those who suffer from mental illness, and the reality that the American motto of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is a physically impossible feat. The film outlines the ways in which the United States fails to fully take care of its people, from birth to death. As Michael eloquently states in our Q&A: “

“It may not be obvious, but I believe that the subject of this film is the inhumanity of capitalism. …My dad is a product of a system that views people as “human resources,” a system that dehumanizes those who are unable to fit into a strict regime of labor exploitation. “

As austere in its filmmaking as the bleak Montana winter its set in, “Meantime” is a film about wounded souls who nonetheless grew into kind and loving people. 

We asked Michael some questions about the creation of this personal family portrait and were moved by his thoughtful and warm answers. Read on for excerpts from our conversation with him.

On inspiration: 

“The inspiration for this film came to me after helping my dad digitize his home videos. While reviewing them, I had these profoundly emotional moments in the small, seemingly unimportant moments my dad captured. It was not the birthdays, christmas parties or weddings that were the most affecting. It was the moments where my family was caught in between, waiting for something important to happen and just talking, arguing or joking. In those moments I saw the people I knew at different phases of their lives and my understanding of their experience began to deepen. I had always been pretty averse to the idea of making personal films, but reviewing that footage and finding myself back home in Montana led me to want to create this film.”

His tips on filming family: 

“Working with your family is so hard. Knowing when to turn off the camera and just exist was the biggest challenge. By the end of the process my dad and I were over filming. I think I’m good with just hiding behind my lens now. My tip for filmmakers working with family would be to structure times and situations in which you are going to film and use that as a limitation. Don’t shoot everything all of the time, and don’t chase what’s happening. Think through what you want to film and then let the camera roll. When you are done you are done. You will miss things and that’s fine. What’s important is that you create a scenario in which what you do capture will have a higher likelihood of being deep and compelling. Then turn off the camera and go back to living your life.”

On his family’s reaction to the film: 

“My family has seen the film. I showed it to my mom when I finished; it was the most intense viewing experience I’ve had. Since this film is so personal I would go through waves of feeling completely numb to it and moments of profound emotion. While watching it with my mom, small subtleties in the film made me tear up uncontrollably. It just goes to show how much the context of the audience you are viewing a film with can deeply change the experience of that film. It was a healing experience for both of us and she learned more about my dad’s perspective that she couldn’t see then. 

I was most nervous about showing it to my dad. We were going to watch it together but the timing wasn’t right so he decided to watch it on his own. When he called me and told me he watched it, my heart sank. He said something along the lines of “Mike, I watched your film, it’s a good film, and I never want to see it again.” The primary source of anxiety for him wasn’t the vulnerability of what he shared; instead it was watching himself on screen and hearing his own voice that was most uncomfortable (for me too).”

On challenges faced: 

“The hardest part of making this film was creating distance between myself and the film. I think this is the primary struggle with personal work and where it fails most often. Personal films can be emotional to the filmmaker but not the audience. I wanted to avoid this at all costs and attempt to distance myself from the film and view it as someone who does not know me. Since I was the editor, this was a constant challenge. I overcame this by having many trusted people around me who gave me honest critical feedback.”

What he’d like us to consider upon viewing the film: 

“It may not be obvious, but I believe that the subject of this film is the inhumanity of capitalism. Ultimately, this is the primary source of my dad’s struggle to have a fulfilled and comfortable life. While abuse may be the inciting incident of my dad’s struggle, the lack of support to heal from that trauma is a societal failure, not an individual failure. My dad is a product of a system that views people as “human resources,” a system that dehumanizes those who are unable to fit into a strict regime of labor exploitation.

Capitalism gives working class people two options: work or beg on the street. While this is never explicitly stated in the film, it is the subterranean foundation of the story. If people in my dad’s position had access to robust mental and physical healthcare, housing, and food without the need to justify their humanity through working in terrible conditions, they could live fulfilled and safe lives where they could work on healing their trauma. 

The crucial detail in the opening title cards of the film is that my dad’s stroke was triggered by a panic attack at work because the company was trying to maximize profit by understaffing the nursing home where he worked. I realized this was a recurring situation for him while making this film when I discovered that stress at work rather than the stress of having a family was what led to my dad’s mental health crisis when I was a child. 

I also hope that this film inspires people to treasure the time they have with their loved ones and discuss trauma and hardship in an empathetic and open-minded environment. Ultimately the emotional core of this film is about caring for our parents through understanding them as complex humans and valuing the limited time you have with them.”

Michael’s advice to aspiring filmmakers: 

“I always tell my students that they should fight tooth and nail to maintain their childish excitement for making movies. Every step of the way, this industry will try to force you into the meat grinder of work and turn you into someone else’s tool. They will try to take all of the fun out of it and create artificially high stakes for making the most asinine content. Anyone who has worked on a large advertising set will understand this. My advice is to always be working on something that gets you excited, if your wage labor job doesn’t. Keep working on your own films or creative hobbies that make you feel like an artist. If you get into Sundance, but you’ve lost the joy of filmmaking, why are you even doing this?”

What’s next?

“I’m developing a feature documentary idea that will be a woven-narrative character-driven observational film in a mining town in Montana. It’s in the early stages of development so I can’t say much more than that at the moment. 

I’m also working on a project about people who have jobs that they know are completely useless. If you have a job like this, please reach out and email me. We are currently casting.”

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In this week’s Staff Pick Premiere, “The Tunnel,” BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Arash Ashtiani tells the harrowing story of three refugees running for their lives through the Euro Tunnel connecting France to the UK. 

Inspired by true accounts, the film is unflinching in its depiction of the bravery and risk unjustly required from the millions of people seeking basic human rights. “The Tunnel” drops us into the tense third act of a larger story Ashtiani is developing with co-writer Daniel Metz. Yet, the short stands alone as a powerful and chilling story of how far three individuals are willing to go in seach of a better life.

Ashtiani describes the stories he heard in preparing for this film as “rollercoasters” of physical and emotional challenges. In the film, this feeling is masterfully captured through the immersive production design of the tunnel itself and the precise editing that oscillates between the camaraderie formed between the men, the growing fear as the train approaches, and the eerie calm of the train station.

Ahead of the release, we reached out to Ashtiani to hear more about the film and his process. Read on for an in-depth look at how he pulled of such a compelling and ambitious film. 

On the inspiration for the film: 

“‘The Tunnel’ is inspired by a true story. My community of friends in London includes people who came to the UK in many different ways and some in the most heroic and horrific ways in the last 20 years. One of the topics that we speak about is how we each arrived in the UK and some of them have come from Calais to Kent with different means of transport.   

When I heard their stories, I felt obliged to share them. Their stories are like a rollercoaster of emotions and events for me. The challenges they overcome, the dreams they have, the will to move, and also the energy. It’s got hardship, physical and mental exhaustion, and moments when their humanity is tested. It’s got laughter and life in the darkest moment and these are the things that inspired me to make this film.”

On the writing process:

“‘The Tunnel’ is the last act of the feature script that Daniel Metz and I wrote together.  The first two acts follow these men in Calais training to run the Tunnel. We finished the first draft of the feature script in 2015. Since then we made the short and at the moment we are writing the new draft of the feature script.

We didn’t want to make a social film about refugees, but of course, during the research and writing of the script, we talked to the people who had been in Calais and reached the UK. We read the memoirs of refugees who have written their stories, watched documentaries, plays and films about the camps in Calais and how people live there.”  

On the production design and cinematography: 

“From the writing stage, we had this question about where to shoot the tunnel. We had some information about the actual EuroTunnel and as much as we wanted to keep the real characteristic of the tunnel we didn’t want to restrict ourselves to those details. After months of location hunting, we came to the decision that it was better to shoot in a studio. The challenge was how to create extensions for each side of the set. 

Mike McLouglin, our production designer, did an amazing job of re-creating a section of the tunnel within the studio and Nick Morris, our DP, worked wonders in the way he shot it. One of the challenges was to create extensions for each side of the set to see the tunnel as an infinite black space.  Mike extended it with the genius idea of putting a mirror on each end so when the camera looks at each end you see the endless tunnel.  Mike then built a scale model version of the tunnel and we used a Hornby Eurostar model train with a tiny lens attached to it to shoot the scenes of the train actually traveling through the tunnel.  It seemed bonkers, but when Static VFX then brought their skills and magic to the post-production everything started to make sense and look incredible.

We decided to get closer and closer to the main character as time passed by. Each time we cut from the station to the tunnel, we get closer to the main character and it helps to create a more internal experience of the tunnel and the fearless attempt to run it.”

On the editing the film: 

“The editing process of this film was one of the most interesting parts of the whole process. One of the most important goals for me was to test to see how we can create tension and suspense. My co-writer, Daniel Metz and I had planned it in the script but I understood it properly in the editing process and I have to thank the film editor Stuart Gazzard for this.

Through the editing process, I learned what kind of information we need to introduce bit by bit in order to build suspense. We shot the Gare du Nord station shots and also the model train after we had our rough cut. The editing process shaped the film by defining the main character, creating suspense and also the pace of the film.” 

On the challenge of making the film:

“I think, in general, making films is challenging. One of the main challenges filmmakers face is getting money to make their films. It took me a couple of years to find producers. Anna Seifert-Speck was leading a program at Berlinale Talent Campus where she heard me pitch the project and introduced me to Anna Griffin. Together we raised money from the BFI Network and Lush Film Fund. 

The mindset for shooting running and action scenes is different from emotional scenes. This became more evident during the shoot and the difference became clear to me. When I look back at the shooting days I learned that I spent the equal amount of time between action parts and more emotional parts which could have been done differently… I should have brought the energy and urgency of the escape and the run into the scenes by shooting them in a faster and more intense time frame and spent more time on the moments between the characters.”         

On hopes for the film: 

“I think what continues to worsen is the rise of Nationalism and populist politicians in British and European governments. It’s the government that uses the anti refugees and xenophobe sentiments for their own political benefits. 

By the new British law that was passed just months ago, young male refugees just like the characters of ‘The Tunnel’ will be sent to Rwanda from now on to wait for their cases to be processed. I hope the audience understands the people who go through hell to get to the audience’s beloved haven are humans and full of dreams for a better life, a peaceful and meaningful life. They escape their homes and countries either from war, religious fanaticism, or economic hardship. They better get humane treatment to be able to join the society instead of always labeling them as criminals.

I hope that by watching a few strange people in an unfamiliar setting, going through a challenge because of basic human needs, audiences see their familiarities and see them as individual humans.”

On advice for aspiring filmmakers: 

“Filmmaking is not a one-man job and it’s teamwork. Try to find people that make you excited about what you are trying to do. Trust in their taste is key for a creative collaboration. Trust comes from knowing people. Spend time with them as much as you feel you need, and listen to what they say, ask them to share with you their five top movi,es and see If you relate with them or not. It doesn’t matter if they are close to the film you want to make or not, but it helps you to understand if your worlds are close and if you share the same vision for the film.

Don’t let the technical side of your story overwhelm you, don’t compromise your story because of the technical side. 

Be respectful to your colleagues and be demanding!”  

On what’s next: 

“Developing and making ‘The Tunnel’ feature film is my next project. The story of the characters up to the moment they enter the tunnel. My co-writer, Daniel Metz, and I are working on the feature-length script with what we learned from making the short.  

I’ve recently finished a feature-length documentary about an Iranian exiled poet, Esmaeel Khoei, who passed away in London in 2021. It’s mostly constructed by the VHS tapes he had collected during his early years of exile.  It’ll be released in October.”

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