Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Harris.
Mike, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
My story begins and ends in California: I was born in Los Angeles, and the first thing I wanted to be was a magician, but at age five a boy I thought was my friend told me magic wasn’t real. I next decided on a career in stand-up comedy, but I realized I wasn’t that funny and was so enamored with crafting the set-up of a joke that my punchlines fell flat. By the time I was seven I had settled on becoming a filmmaker. I attended university in the Bay Area, though there was a brief sojourn in Florence, Italy where I studied semiotics and researched “Mysteries and Sacred Knowledge in Architecture.” Back in the Bay, I worked as a library security guard before returning here about nine years ago. My intention was to be a screenwriter, and I worked for a number of years in film and television development. During this period I moonlit as a writing and research assistant and was one of the winners of the Francis Ford Coppola American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest. I worked as a mover and helped clear out one of Elizabeth Taylor’s storage units — as I write these words, I realize this may, in fact, be a career highlight. During this time I was experimenting with an old VHS camera I purchased from Craigslist, and some musician friends asked me to do a music video for them. One thing led to another and now I am writing these words…
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I’ve directed music videos, designed concert performance visuals, made album art, and produced my own films. My medium of choice is the moving image, and I must confess that there is a bit of dilettantism in what I do… film is a medium composed of other mediums: theatrical, literary, photographic, performative, musical, architectural. I think a lot about ritual and the phantasmagorical properties of the filmic medium — how in crafting a narrative cinematically you conjure another world. Light and shadow, smoke and mirrors, form and void, one frame after another… Regardless of the material or medium, I am interested in the promotion of empathy in a world that is often unintelligible and frightening. Thematically, I am attracted to the voices of the marginalized and unheard, issues of spirituality, investigations of toxic masculinity, and the absurdity of systems and societal structures. With the way that our culture voraciously consumes “content” these days I mostly just want to create things that stay with people longer than the duration of their viewing experience.
Artists rarely, if ever pursue art for the money. Nonetheless, we all have bills and responsibilities and many aspiring artists are discouraged from pursuing art due to financial reasons. Any advice or thoughts you’d like to share with prospective artists?
Ooh boy… having seemingly fallen backward into what I do I’m in no position to speak as an authority but right now it seems it has never been easier to make films. Every person has a camera in their pocket at all times… you may not be able to realize your dream project right away but you can make SOMETHING. I think a lot about what Beckett said: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” My best advice is to make friends with Failure… if you can imagine yourself doing anything else, I strongly encourage you to do so. If this is something you HAVE to do (and it should be), then you will find a way to make the thing. I guess that’s my advice: make the thing… then another one… then another one after that…
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I’m terrible at self-promotion… most of the things I make appear on my website www.mikeheresy.com although there are random artifacts I’ve made floating all over the internet. I post a lot of curated occult film and art history content on Instagram as @mikeheresy and last year my short film “I am the Devil” played in festivals in London and New York. Everything I have done has been without the help of a manager or agent so if there’s anyone out there in that department I would be curious to know what that process would be like…
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mikeheresy.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeheresy/
Image Credit:
Cinematography by Aaron Grasso.
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