Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Kellman.
Hi Sam, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Since a very young age, I was always engaged in storytelling. Being involved with theatre from the age of four, I’ve always found comfort and massive creative interest in “putting on a show.” As a kid, all I wanted to do was perform for my family– I liked making people laugh and getting a reaction from an audience; there was something magical and oh so fulfilling about it. But it wasn’t until I was introduced to behind-the-scenes footage through the DVD extras of a bunch of movies I frequently watched as a kid that I realized that THAT was what I wanted to do. I was a weird kid– I knew exactly what my calling was quite early on– but I embraced it and was fascinated by the fact that maybe someday I could make a career out of something I had so much fun doing.
Up through middle school, I was making anything I could with whatever I could. In hindsight, I’m still pretty impressed when it comes to my resourcefulness. I only knew a few other kids that had any interest in filmmaking, but I could always pull a few friends in to “act” and run the camera, and that’s all you really needed. Though, one of the most life-altering opportunities arose for me in high school with LACHSA, an arts high that I was really able to hone my craft at. I think the most notable benefit here was finally being able to meet other people my age that were just as interested in the art form and willing to commit in the way that I was. Almost all of my best friends and collaborators today are incredible folks I met back during my time at LACHSA, and I’m seriously not sure where I’d be without them!
To slightly change the subject, in addition to filmmaking, another track that I’ve been on for a while is immersive entertainment. Brought up going to Disneyland as a kid, I was always absolutely blown away by the fact that artists could build and execute fictional worlds to such a believable degree in our reality. That for just a moment, the lines between our world and another can be blurred, and that real-life suspension of disbelief is something I’ve always been attracted to. Over the years, I’ve built and designed multiple haunted house attractions, immersive theatre experiences, and even audio installations– always powered by the story that is able to act as a foundation for whatever I’m doing. If it doesn’t have a story, if it doesn’t have something to say, I’m not interested– even if the project in question is something as seemingly unrelated as a haunted house.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve always been extremely fortunate to have a very supportive family and group of friends who encourage what I do, so luckily, support has never been a personal struggle, which I know can be a hindrance for certain artistic individuals trying to get started at a young age. For me, though, struggles are presented on more of a project-to-project basis. I love getting ambitious with the work I make, but that means things are never really “easy.” Each project has some sort of new challenge to overcome, and while some folks may see that as a turnoff, I honestly always enjoy the problem-solving aspect of creating. Someone’s always going to drop off of a project, something on set is guaranteed not to go to plan, and scheduling is always going to be horrifyingly tricky. I do struggle through these things, but being able to overcome them only makes myself and the rest of my crew stronger for the next project. I think it’s important to stay resilient, and as cliche as it sounds, you NEED to stick to your gut. I’ve realized over time that utilizing my own distinct voice and not attempting to conform to what others feel they want to see or have seen before can make a huge difference when it comes to the quality of my art.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In 2020, I founded Inside the Box Productions, a film and immersive experience production company with a focus on telling stories in unconventional but captivating ways and priding ourselves in creating projects made solely by young artists. Since its inception, Inside the Box has already met some amazing milestones: collaborating with brands like Syfy, LEGO, and CBS– working on music videos with artists like Daisy the Great, Billy Tibbals, and Matillo– in the summer of 2022, we ran an immersive theatre production called Within Our Walls, which allowed audiences to voyeuristically peer into various rooms of the “home” in which the play took place– in early 2023, we unveiled SLEEPWALKR, an immersive audio experience that plunged audiences into the dreamscapes of other strangers, which was actually officially selected by New York’s Tribeca Festival as part of their 2023 Audio Storytelling category– and this past summer, we shot my most ambitious film project to date, a 40-minute sci-fi black comedy short called You’re Doing Great, which will be released later this year!
My professional life is sort of a balance between operating Inside the Box as my pet project and then taking freelance in the editing and visual effects spaces to actually make a little cash, most of which goes right BACK into ITB.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
There are lots of childhood memories that I cherish and many that I resent (don’t we all?), but one of my favorites has to be the absolute freedom and pure, unapologetic, creative openness in running around the house with my dad’s old tape camcorder at four years old– a time I remember distinctly well. The home movies I made with my siblings, my parents, and my friends truly shaped and informed what I do today, and I yearn for the four-year-old me who was just simply curious and motivated with nothing in his way. He had absolutely no perception of the real world yet, no deep anxieties, just a bunch of weird stories that he wanted to tell, and to this day I find it extremely important to hold on to a piece of that younger me in everything I do. It’s something I never want to lose.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://samfkellman.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetheboxprod/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samkellman/
- Other: https://goinsidethebox.com/
Image Credits
Zenzele Moore-Ysaguirre Hanabi Copon Albert Lam
