Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Inniss.
Hi Stephen, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always been a storyteller. My parents recently reminded me of a play that I wrote and directed with a cast of neighborhood kids when I was in elementary school. I got interested in filmmaking when I started seeing behind-the-scenes documentaries and realized how it could satisfy both my creative and technical interests.
I went on to study film at the University of Texas and work on educational videos for the Austin Independent School District and the University of Texas at San Antonio, as well as getting into early web video. During this time I also fell into a separate career in quality management, which allowed me to gain experience in business operations, training, and project management that I’ve been able to apply to my filmmaking work.
I left that job and moved to California to get my MFA at Chapman University, from which I graduated in 2020, in the midst of the covid lockdown. As the pandemic went on, I shifted into live streaming and working on sets as a Covid Compliance Officer. I was also able to complete my feature screenplay “Time Piece” which recently won its category at the Sherman Oaks Film Festival and is in development with producer Sunny Xiang, with whom I worked on two of my films while at Chapman.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s always been a struggle to find work, and I’ve gone back and forth between the freedom and insecurity of freelance contracting and the more stable but more restrictive environment of staff employment. Not to mention trying to find time to develop my own projects. For those of us specializing in directing, there’s not as clear of a career path as there is for other trades, so there are always feelings of insecurity and frustration to deal with.
Covid was also obviously a huge wrench in my plans, as it completely halted the momentum I expected coming out of grad school.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I identify as a writer/director because I came to directing as an extension of writing. By the same token, I’ve also been heavily into editing, which has been a great asset in my work for companies and clients. I’m also a classically trained musician and am keenly sensitive to rhythm, dynamics, and what I might describe as “timbre” in my film work.
One of the things I’ve discovered about my voice as a filmmaker is a preference for leaning into the more dreamlike qualities of cinema rather than having it strictly reflect reality. The worlds I put on screen are familiar but don’t conform entirely to the rules of the real world. They incorporate speculative concepts such as the television in “Tinhead” serving as a portal into a world of memories, or the mechanical time machine in “Time Piece,” that allow me to explore big ideas through character-centric stories.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I of course have to thank my parents for supporting my pursuit of such an irrational career and always giving me a place to fall back to.
Jason Jowers and other management and colleagues at Velocity Electronics, who allowed me to always speak my mind and provided a great environment for me to grow as a professional.
Joseph Lopez one of my earliest collaborators and the hub of a great set of the diverse friend groups.
The great faculty at Dodge College including but not limited to Rachel Goldberg, Andy Lane, Thomas Harris, and Roy Finch, and all of my cohort, who are my family on this crazy journey we call film.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stepheninniss.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stepheninniss
- Other: http://www.imdb.me/stepheninniss
Image Credits
Rongdanyang “Sunny” Xiang Siqi “Thinky” Xiao Xinxiu Liu
