Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Tarantino.
Paul, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Like so many filmmakers, I was drawn to Los Angeles, the mecca of filmmaking, to attend classes at USC, and then to presumably go on to conquer the world. As a kid growing up in northern New Jersey, in the shadow of Manhattan, I made Super 8mm films with my friends, there were even competing factions…sorta like studios, making their films and screening them together. It was a very much Tom Sawyer like situation, and I often look back on it with a lot of fond nostalgia.
The film gods at that point in time, that informed our passions for filmmaking, were what I call the Three Georges, George Lucas, George Miller, and George Romero. Star Wars, The Road Warrior, and Dawn of the Dead were tremendously impactful on myself, and all my filmmaker friends. We went on to emulate them on budgets that were under $100, procured mostly from the birthday money of the director…and other sources. When I say “other sources” and you factor in we’re talking New Jersey, feel free to let your imagination run wild, chances are…you’re right!
I got a job in a local movie theater, Ramsey, New Jersey, which could not have been more perfect! Watching films over, and over, and over again with a live audience, is the best education you can get in storytelling…what works, and what doesn’t. It was during this period of time I discovered another filmmaker I fell in love with, Woody Allen. I’d never really watched his films before, but I watched BROADWAY DANNY ROSE a hundred times – and fell in love. It was and still is, BRILLIANT.
There were two books at the time that everyone with a super 8mm camera were reading: SKYWALKING, the story of George Lucas, and ADVENTURES IN THE SCREENTRADE by William Goldman. They were both truly inspiring, and both had the common theme that, if you’re going to start out in film, it’s best to not be alone, and the best place to surround yourself with other like-minded folks – is Los Angeles. I set my sights on LA, and the Christmas break of my first year of college (at Jersey City State College) I took an exploratory trip out, with two goals in mind, to visit the campus of USC, and see if I could get on the sets of any films at studios.
I achieved both goals, with the first film set I was ever on being THE GOONIES, it was BREATHTAKING for a 18 years old kid. How I got on the set is story, for another time….but I spent a day or two there, and it is still one of my most treasured memories. I even had the chance to speak with Mr. Spielberg, who shared that he too had spend a chunk of his childhood in New Jersey, and that was the inspiration for the first episode of Amazing Stories called GHOST TRAIN. In my estimation at the time, I had made it…achieved cruising altitude, and from here on out, things would be easy.
I…was wrong.
I came back to NJ and worked on getting accepted to USC School of Cinema & Television. I did get into USC, but not the School of Cinema Television, I trekked back out to Los Angeles, moved into a cockroach-invested student housing, and started at USC, taking any classes I could at the Cinema School, and set in on still more…I even got two jobs at the school, and eventually became an omnipresent fixture there. I had Jay Roach, of Austin Powers fame, as a Camera Class instructor, and got to know an assortment of students in the school who would eventually go on to amazing careers. I took a page from Spielberg’s book, and started sneaking onto the Universal backlot a few days a week and hanging out on sets (these days, it is much harder, if not impossible to do this). I became such a regular on the Amazing Stories set that the security guard at the stage door used to welcome me with a “There he is!” whenever I showed up….of course, I had zero right to be there! But I watched Robert Zemeckis, Joe Dante, Paul Bartel, Phil Joanou, and others work their magic. I can’t impress upon anyone how valuable this time was to me, not just in seeing the filmmaking process, but in the inspiration it gave me. Most of the time you spend in this business, you have very little to go on, but for inspiration…and a big part of that is derived, in my opinion, with a passion of what you’re doing, mixed with a deep-seated belief that it can happen. So many people I started out with, dropped out of the filmmaking world early on, because to them things seemed impossible to achieve. But I had BEEN THERE, I had breathed the stale air of Universal Studios sound stages, and I was hooked like a methhead junkie…if you’ll forgive that imagery.
There are so many other episodes I can share from that period, but I’ll take a jump to my working as a production assistant on a million commercials, which was a deeper dive into the physical production education, and then in the Fox Studios Mailroom…where I delivered mail to James Cameron, Mel Brooks, James Brooks, Savage Steve Holland, and others. I hung out on the Die Hard set, and films like How I Got Into College.
I moved from Fox to the marketing department at Disney, where I was no stranger to wandering the lot there too, this was the dawn of the indie movement with Clerks, Brothers McMullen, and Blairwitch. I used my access to the Disney lot, in a way that may or may not have been allowed, to put together my own film. A few of my team were fellow Disney grunts, looking for their big break. This was before digital filmmaking, we’re talking FILM…which was NOT EASY or affordable to pull off. Over the course of two years, near financial ruin, losing my job, and being taken to court by a nefarious film distribution company…I’d finally finished my first film called COURTING COURTNEY. Not a cinematic milestone by anyone’s judgement…but it was made with heart, mine, and each and everyone person who came to work on it. Pure magic. In post-production, I decided to go to the Independent Feature Film Market in New York, as a work in progress. I went to a screening in Los Angeles, before the IFFM, of Brothers McMullen, prior to its release, wanting to hear Ed Burns speak afterward. I did not get a seat! It was sold out. I went to a Starbucks up the block, and had a coffee, thinking I’d go back later and see if anyone left after the screening, so I could at least hear the Q&A. When I got back to the theater, Ed was standing outside waiting for the screening to be over, he and I spoke for almost an hour about how best to attend the IFFM…his kindly shared insights were tremendously helpful.
With a twenty-minute promotional piece edited, with Mr. Burns insights, I headed to IFFM and met still more wonderful and inspiring people…most of all Hadeel Reda, who came onto the project as a producer. Like so many moments in my career, some things seem to happen by almost divine intervention…Hadeel was one. Working together, through some extremely difficult circumstances, including the far from on the level distribution company taking us to court, we finally got the film done and out into a highly successful film festival run, at festivals like Rotterdam, Flanders, Palm Springs, and Melbourne, which segued into a successful distribution including a small theatrical release in the States, Sundance Channel, a VHS, and DVD release, thanks to my meeting Neil Mandt, a fellow filmmaker who had created his own distribution company for Hijacking Hollywood. I believe the company distributed two films, his and mine.
Not a cinematic masterpiece, but it was out there, and got me the break I needed to get paying gigs in Hollywood that did not include getting coffee and sweeping stages, both of which I’d done my fair share of. I was editing promos, directing commercials, writing screenplays…I was making a living at what I loved most. I continue this to this day, I had a film come out two years ago called THE BIG UGLY that I co-wrote with the director, it starred Vinnie Jones, Ron Perlman, and Malcolm McDowell, among other fantastic actors. I continue to meet and work with, friends and collaborators who inspire me, and keep me forging ahead. At this point…turning back is not an option. I had a meeting once years ago with film legend Arthur Hiller, after an hour of talking about the business and its many pitfalls and difficulties, he said he didn’t feel like he’d been a help. I told him that he had been, that he made it clear to me it never gets easy. He looked at me and nodded saying, “It never does.” That is perhaps the best and most concise advice anyone has given me…and I’ve spoken with some of the biggest people in this business, and everyone has left me with solid gold insights, but the idea that it never gets easy…no matter how successful you get, is the most telling of the path you’re setting out on. Which is why I always tell people, if you’re getting into filmmaking for fame and fortune, there are much better ways to achieve that, I’m involved 100% because it is my passion…and always will be.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’m sorry…I got so verbose in the last answer I think I covered this already, but….It is never a smooth road, I mean, sure…there are those one in a million people you read about who make a film with their iPhone over a weekend, get accepted to Sundance, win, and before you know it they’re making a Star Wars series…there are those stories, but by far more people have a rough go at it, and a truly difficult time of things, at many twists and turns along the way, nothing but darkness. True story, I lived in the back of my car for a few weeks while making Courting Courtney…I had no money, at all. It is my opinion that the only way to light the path forward, is with your own undying passion for filmmaking, the entire process of it, from writing, producing, directing, editing, promoting, and setting the next one up. There are a million obstacles, not the least of which is, these days, that there is competition from all over the world just a Youtube away, and while there are more streaming opportunities, compared to the tidal wave of competition, making a living being a filmmaker is still not easy…if not for love of the process, and a lot of filmmaker friends who you can lean on from time to time. My most valued assets are the friends that I have…to boost my spirits, or to bounce ideas off, or to revel in their success, which makes everything seem within reach.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I have lived and worked in an industry I love with all my heart. To date, I have had a number of jobs I would rank up there with being the best, but if forced to pick one gig I loved the most, it was the six years I worked for AMC Networks producing and directing behind-the-scenes pieces. I worked on such brilliant shows as, HELL ON WHEELS, HALT AND CATCH FIRE, TURN, THE WALKING DEAD, INTO THE BADLANDS, BETTER CALL SAUL, and more. The series my heart is most attached to is FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, which I worked on full-time, for its first four seasons, creating behind-the-scenes materials to promote the series on the AMC.com site. The cast and crew of that series were all wonderful humans, top-drawer professionals, and sincerely, I learned something from each and every one of them. I had true adventures on that series, from shooting in Los Angeles to Mexico for two years to Austin, Texas. Right now, it is my hope that I have at least one more experience as amazing as that. I am extremely proud of my work on that series, and my affiliation with the talented professionals that made it each week. I’ve immortalized many of the crew on my Instagram.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
My favorite thing to do is hang out with fellow filmmakers and talk, I’m probably at my host happy when that happens. Film Festivals are the best place for that to happen. Outside of that, I love writing, it’s a process of making things work, of looking at life’s little problems, and trying to figure them out, or at least give the illusion you’ve figured them out in a satisfying story. Once the screenplay is written, even if it never gets made, should you bring together a group of actors, and bring your words to life…whoa, is that satisfying. I find myself giggling with happiness when this happens, and things work. Of course, sometimes when you bring your words to life, you see their major flaws too…but the process of fixing them is very much a natural part of the creative process, also rewarding, and can make me happy. Outside of all that…going on a trip somewhere, and just sitting and watching the world go by will make me happy. I was recently in Cannes, not during the festival, but over the summer, and just parked myself at a cafe and watched the people of France go about their lives…it really makes my heart sing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.paultarantino.com
- Instagram: toastfilm
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-tarantino-5828a89/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@paultarantino8862
