Check Out Ethan Grover’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ethan Grover.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Sometime in the year 2000, a young boy heard for the first time an epic sound that would forever change his world: Hans Zimmer’s score to Ridley Scott’s epic tale “Gladiator.” I had always been interested in storytelling and had found my way to the piano once or twice before then, my Grandmother having taught me the basics of notes and scales. I banged away at those keys, trying to tell my own stories until the day my father brought home the DvD release of “Gladiator.” I must have popped that disc in and out of the player a thousand times just to hear the musical intro leading up to the virtual menu. I was entranced, not just by the score but the film itself. I saw for the first time a way to transport myself and others to lands far away, fantastical and terrifying.

As though the pendulum had swung in my mind to forever stay seated in this fictional playground, I would never look back, or so I thought. I dabbled in my own musical compositions through grade school and beyond, but my passions for storytelling were quickly redirected to writing and directing my own stories or acting in the grand tales of others. I convinced all my teachers in school to replace essay and project assignments with films! What could be more involved than writing an original story, producing, directing, and editing a film for a class project? We’d often dedicate an entire class period to watching my ridiculous little films. “Tides of Crime”, a thriller about the impact of seismic events and tidal waves was one I made for a science class, along with a sci-fi odyssey teaching the temperatures and chemical makeups of our solar system’s planetary bodies. “Milky Way Maneuvering” it was called, and I deployed some green-screen techniques at the ripe old age of fourteen. I made quite a few little films throughout my school years, but like many artistic wannabes, I found myself at the mercy of enumerated naysayers and doubters eternal. “Don’t go to film school”, they all said. “Get a real job, do something practical, there’s too many people trying to make it in Hollywood.” You’d think the ambitious young filmmaker that I was in my youth would have paid no credence to the doubts of others, the tropes of society telling us to “be practical” and avoid taking great risks. Sadly, or perhaps wonderfully, something else happened at that time.

As high school drew to a close, I had my eyes set on The Los Angeles Film School. I wanted to make it to Hollywood somehow, some way. But then I fell in love circa 2010. It wasn’t yet accepted in the mainstream societal circles, being gay, and definitely not in rural Washington State, in the city of Olympia where I grew up. I found myself doubting not just my dreams as a storyteller but my own identity. The doubters had won their battle in my mind, and for the next several years, I found myself in a variety of vocations, from sales to gaming to management and eventually of all things, finance. Four years into my relationship with my longtime partner, he became an addict, and the next many years were fraught with my chauffeuring him from rehab to rehab, him nearly losing his life, while simultaneously furthering a career I never wanted in the field of finance with Boeing Employee’s Credit Union in Seattle. I was good at it. I kept him and us alive through thick and thin, but year after year my dreams were dying slowly. I often say to those who dream to never let it die, but even I lost my way in my formative years and only recently found the path back to my passions. The summer before the COVID-19 pandemic was the final hour of my decade-long relationship with the boy I met at 17. Now 27, I returned attention to my dreams before they were lost completely. I began floating the idea of film school once more. COVID had the last laugh, however, and I was seemingly stuck in Seattle taking business classes online. Business school was elucidating, and it certainly augmented my financial management career, but it was boring. It wasn’t a cinema. It wasn’t art. It wasn’t storytelling and it wasn’t me. By 2021, I could take it no more. I signed up with The Los Angeles Film School, the place I wanted to go since I first popped “Gladiator” into the DvD player all those long years ago.

I’m now in my last year of a Directing program, and there’s nothing but work and excitement before me. I’m eager to start out in this wonderful industry of filmmaking, storytelling, and acting. I’m working on getting my first book published now, a children’s tale in rhythmic prose detailing a hopeful look at the end of the world. I’m producing an audio-drama podcast thriller titled “The Chain”, set in the mysterious forests of Washington State in 1976. My team and I are hard at work on our next short film “Metronome”, a mystery sci-fi-thriller where music and murder intertwine. I’m penning the novel and feature script currently. We’re set to shoot in November, and I couldn’t be more excited to share this new story with the world! My first film made at school, “Counterpart” has already premiered in twelve countries, was nominated at Cannes Shorts, won the Best Student Film Award at the Sunset Film Festival here in Log Angeles, as well as Best Student Film at the Seoul Film Awards in South Korea earlier this year. I couldn’t be more shocked and humbled. Is it possible that my decade-long wait to follow my dreams is finally starting to pay off? I’d like to think the perilous path that finally brought me to Hollywood was necessary to becoming the storyteller I am today. I’ve lived a dark and twisted hero’s journey of my own, and now it’s my obligation to pass my stories onto others, for it has always been stories that kept me going. I’ll certainly keep working at it, and I’ll certainly keep dreaming.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. The road has been dark and fraught with dangers big and small. Though I had always wanted to be an actor, a writer/director, I let the naysayers and doubters convince me not to pursue my passions after high school. The most excruciating aspect of my journey has been the slow death of dreams, year after year. Many of us feel it, and relatives and friends I’ve met along the way have all told me the same thing: “Don’t wait until you’re dying to follow your dreams.” I’d convinced myself that taking a practical road was the right choice, the only choice: getting a job, paying my bills, building credit. It took a failed relationship of ten years and a global pandemic to shock my system into rejecting my paradigm and finally push my leap of faith. It was the best decision I’ve ever made. I might be loads in student debt, but I’ve never been happier.

Along the way, I found myself stuck in promising careers at multiple junctures, climbing the corporate ladders for bigger paychecks more job security. I was miserable. My slow march to the grave almost claimed me, as it claimed most of us. Moving to Hollywood is expensive. Filmmaking is expensive. A boy from Washington who once watched the bank take his family home away had to endure a long grueling early adulthood to become the man I am today. I took care of a career meth-addict for many years, sacrificing my twenties to care for the man I loved. Though it was a terrible time, it certainly forged a unique variety of stories from which I am now able to express myself.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I spent many years in the world of retail management, sales, and finance. I’ve been a GameStop manager, opened the first brick-and-mortar ThinkGeek.com retail storefront on the West Coast, and lastly served as a Financial Manager for Boeing Employee’s Credit Union in Seattle. All those long years, I’d always kept writing. I’d compose a few songs on the weekends, write a few narratives, or make a few short films. My passion and talent for storytelling was relegated to the realm of hobbies and pastimes but never truly dead. Now I find myself in my final year of film school, having opened a Narrative Design LLC in California, ‘Untold Story.’ It’s just me and a group of wonderful young filmmakers who all want to bring our stories to life, especially the stories we would have otherwise left untold. I’m a writer/director and actor located in Hollywood but will freelance as a sound designer and editor as well. I’m always looking for new opportunities to share my stories with the world (usually a mind-bending mystery-thriller!)

My first short film made since I moved to Hollywood, “Counterpart” has already premiered in twelve countries. It’s been nominated at Cannes Shorts, took the Best Student Film Award at The Sunset Film Festival here in Log Angeles, as well as the Best Student Film at the Seoul Film Award in South Korea. It’s my first foray into my specialized genre of mystery-thriller with a sci-fi twist! The pseudo-sequel “Metronome” is currently in production as a proof-of-concept short film. We’re set to shoot in November, and I’m already at work on the novel and feature script. We couldn’t be more thrilled to share “Metronome” with the world! I’ve always been a lifelong superfan of Nolan and Zimmer, and it’s because of Zimmer specifically that I now think in sound. It’s my unique little mark on filmmaking, I hope. I first imagine a sound, a melody even, and then I begin to write or rehearse my lines. I’m either blessed or cursed with this dysfunction, but it allows me to deeply feel my stories. It’s important to feel a story, I think, rather than understand it. It’s important to feel anything, really. We’re only human after all, and what is storytelling if not the most magnificent way to share with others how we truly feel.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
It’s an interesting idea, luck. I’ve never really given it much thought, though as a lifelong gamer, I suppose there is some credence to it. At nine I watched the bank take my childhood home from my family. I watched my parent’s dreams shatter before them, and yet I often wonder how losing ourselves back then might have made us stronger. Was it bad luck paying us forward so that later in life, I might find myself in Hollywood with something to offer? It’s entirely possible.

I will say, though, that every time of great importance in my life has been met with arduous work. It’s hard to keep working. We get tired, bored, and afraid; we lose ourselves in the day-to-day. And yet, I’m walking to school down the Hollywood walk-of-fame. Twelve years old me would be screaming. In this, I might even posit that the universe itself has ebbs and flows, and we are simply sailing along its currents. Since I joined the Great Resignation and moved to Hollywood to pursue my dreams, I’ve stopped fighting this universe. I’ve stopped trying to control and confine my life to a paradigm laid by generations before me. I’m open to the journey now, and in this great journey, I think there’s certainly a little room for some luck.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untold.storytelling/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/untoldstorytelling
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCowMUANkcxKwvCbGUJk4IRA