Check Out Allen Plone’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Allen Plone

Hi Allen, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Unlike many writers and film directors, I had no plans nor any desire to be either. I received, out of nowhere, an 8mm camera for my 13th. birthday, which I use to film my friends and family. I was an early and avid reader, always with a book, a comic book, a newspaper. I had an aptitude for chemistry, later I understood it was the idea of taking disparate elements and turning them into something quite different that intrigued me. My other love was theater, but only as a spectator, never considering it as a profession. My first two college years were spent as a Chemistry Major pre-med, with the intent to become a cardiologist. My father died of a heart attack my senior year of high school. I was 16, which fed my desire to do so. I was just turning 17 my first year of college, shaken by my father’s death and the sudden need to take care of both my mother and sister. After two years at Temple University in Philadelphia, I felt overwhelmed and directionless. I no longer cared about medicine or chemistry. I quit school and went to work as a salesperson. When the chance opened, I decided to move to San Francisco, away from the life and responsibilities I had assumed. I went back to school, to San Francisco State University, where my passion for literature grew into writing, mostly poetry, and making experimental poetry films. I received my Master’s in Comp. Lit., It was also where I first took part in theater, as an assistant director doing West Side Story. I love the experience, but still had no idea about film theater of writing as a profession. With my Master’s Degree in hand, went on to teach at San Jose State U. and take a Doctorate at UC Santa Cruz. It was there there, at Santa Cruz, where I was also hired to teach media, that my passions came to fruition. I made several films, experimental, that won awards. I learned to direct theater, doing O’Neill’s “Hairy Ape,” Albee’s “Zoo Story,” several experimental plays and more film. When one of my poetry films won an award, a film based upon my poem about old age and loneliness, of all institutions, the Federal Government sought me out. They where about to do a series of films on Senior Advocacy and they wanted me to write and direct them. So started my professional film career. Those films won awards. A Santa Cruz ad agency hired me to begin directing commercials for them. I had no experience, but I managed to do some good work. After 5 years as a Professor, I decided to become a professional filmmaker/director. So with my girlfriend, whom I met at Santa Cruz, I moved to San Francisco, opened a film company, Vis/Art Films, and became the second largest commercial production company in the area. We specialized in commercials and industrial films that were story-based, my strength as a director and writer, was always character and story. Carol, my Santa Cruz girlfriend, now wife of 47 years, learned to be a producer and the chief executive. We did great. The year was 1983 when we decided to leave the smaller pond, move to Los Angeles, and really join the film community. It was rough at first, more difficult than San Francisco, but we managed. I continued to do as much theater as I could, did commercials, several documentaries for PBS and tried pitching my scripts. I was hired to direct my first feature, a slasher film, which I decided to direct even though the genre wasn’t my favorite, but you can’t turn down an opportunity. This led me to be nominated to join the Director’s Guild of America, of which I have been a director member for over 40 years. During this time, while I was writing and directing film, I became involved with Panasonic and created three computer games, one of which featured, the group, Earth, Wind & Fire. I had directed their Earth, Wind & Fire live concert in Japan, creating a hugely successful DVD, which went on to become Platinum award-winner. based upon my experiences with digital media, I was asked to head the Director’s Guild’s first committee on digital media. With it all, I was able to find time to direct plays, not many, but theater was still my first love. I also wrote short stories, poetry and children’s books. I have a special love for children’s programming. My poetry has been published in four books and in many journals. My short stories, one of which one the Best Short Story of the Year, at Rosebud Journal, a prestigious literary publication. My commercials won a Clio. Several of my short and industrial films won awards. I directed two more features, wrote and sold 4 screenplays. All of which still surprises me, to be sure. Though I’ve pretty much chosen to not do directing any more, I still write screenplays. Just sold one to Lion’s Gate. Though I loved directing, especially theater, my heart, I realize is bent toward writing.

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?
No, the road hasn’t either been one way nor smooth. I have to overcome my own sense of not being worthy of the gifts I’ve been given as well as my reluctance to be mentored. I have a dislike for authority that kept me from having a mentor or getting instructions on how to be a successful writer, director or producer. I have learned from my mistakes, from hands-on just doing-it. Film is a tough business. When you have success, too many envy that success and harbor desires to undermine. Media was easier in the 70’s, 80’s and much of the 90’s when I was most active. Now it’s a rapidly changing world with streaming, social media, standard TV’s decline… Mostly, the struggles I’ve had were self-made, choosing to make decisions without advice, foregoing apprenticeships and mentoring. The fact that I chose to write poetry and children’s books therefore working outside my profession, not concentrating on being the best writer I could be or the best director I can be but to do what I felt passionate about in the moment, jumping from literary skills to theatrical ones meant that, I believe, I never achieved to pinnacle of either art, which I might have had I concentrated upon one skill. Here’s a poem about that I wrote and was published in the literary journal,” Light”…

For The Ordinary Man

the face in the mirror
does not belong
unknown, foreign
this invading stranger

have we met?
from the benign
indifferent universe
there is no answer.

is he the one risen
from ashes
of spent passion
of misspent youth

where once he dreamed
of standing above the field
claiming victory over enemies
hearing cheers from admiring troops

good at many things
great at none
wishing once to feel
worthy of applause

an ordinary man dares
to wake each day
battle shadows of foes
invisible but for the light they bend

the only accolades awarded
the chance to rise again tomorrow

@alp

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Mostly known for my film work, I am most proud of my writing. I’m an imagist poet, schooled by Yeats, Plath, Mary Oliver, Creely, Wallace Stevens, Frost… I think I’m most proud of my successful poems, of which there are fewer than my unsuccessful ones. Schooled also by being a Hippie living in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury 1965-67, I discovered Buddhist thought and have tried to live its most critical lesson, compassion for all living beings. I think my lack of ambition, strangely enough, is what sets me apart from others who have had the same successes I have had. These days, it’s my compassion and caring, especially for all animals, that makes me a bit different that others in the film industry. I am also quite proud of the fact that I have now been a Vegan for nearly 30 years. I chose to not eat diary or meat after seeing how cows, chickens, sheep, etc. were kept, treated and ultimately slaughtered.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love Los Angeles’s diversity, it’s honesty in its pretensions. I’m an amateur chef, love to cook and bake, especially sauced foods, even though I am a Vegan. So amongst its better features is that there is, now, a variety of good restaurants serving Vegan meals. What I dislike most, along with virtually everyone who lives here, is the traffic. I also find it difficult to understand how we as a city, we as a society, can let homelessness, poverty, mental health needs exist. Surely we can find a way to be more compassionate towards those who need it most.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.writtenworldsbyallen.com

Image Credits
All images by Allen Plone.