Conversations with Harry Waldman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Harry Waldman

Harry, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I have loved movies for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories involve me watching movies when I was just a couple years old. While I have loved watching films for so long, I was someone who was a bit too “practical” when it came to my career, despite the fact that my Dad had been a successful artist since I was young. I assumed that you were supposed to graduate college and then work at a job that you weren’t passionate about in order to pay the bills. The thought really depressed me, so I tried not to think about it too often and focused on my hobbies, which included watching movies, playing video games, sports, listening to music and hanging out with friends.

I studied business in college, which did ultimately teach me how to be a good leader as a film director/producer, but the actual content didn’t interest me much. I assumed that I would get some business marketing job out of college that I wouldn’t really be passionate about. I started to have these fantasies about finding myself working a marketing gig on a film production during my junior year of college, and while the fantasy excited me, it also depressed me because it didn’t seem realistic considering my situation.

During the second semester of my senior year of college, shortly after watching “The Social Network”, which is one of my favorite films of all time, and which I believe had an influence on what I have written below, I had a dream that I was going to a prestigious film school, taking various filmmaking courses, collaborating with other students to work on film projects, etc. Near the end of the dream, I met a psychic who told me that one of my closest friends (Inspired by Mark Zuckerberg stabbing Eduardo Saverin in the back) would steal my film idea, but despite this awful fact, I would become a successful filmmaker.

While I believe that I get along pretty well with most people, I can be a vengeful person if I feel that I was wronged. What truly shocked me about this dream was that I was so excited about the prospect of being a successful filmmaker, that it completely overshadowed my distress over having my film idea stolen by my best friend.

Suddenly, I woke up, jumped out of my bed, grabbed my backpack and jacket and ran to the front door of my apartment, getting ready to go to one of my “film classes”. Then, I realized that it was 12:10 p.m. on a Saturday; that I had just been at a bar the previous night with friends; and that I wasn’t a film student at a prestigious film school, but a marketing student at a business school; and I would graduate college and find some job that I hated; and that would be the rest of my life…this was the single most depressing moment of my entire life.

I stared at my bedroom wall in horror for about 20 minutes and then a lightbulb suddenly popped on inside my head. I told myself, “So you finally figured out your passion as you are graduating college. That’s unfortunate, but you’re still only 21 years old. You have plenty of time”. I immediately came up with a plan for my filmmaking career. I would graduate college with my business marketing degree and find a decent paying job in business after college during the day while pursuing my filmmaking career during the evenings and weekends. This plan launched the beginning of my exciting filmmaking journey, from watching youtube videos on filmmaking and working as a production assistant on film sets while working in Insurance to pay the bills to being able to direct and produce my own films as my main passion, while working for a post-production company, handling video editing and video ingest.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
While things have always eventually worked out, there were definitely some road bumps along the way. As someone who was too practical when it came to choosing my career, it took me a while to connect the dots regarding what I actually wanted to do for a living. The thoughts and dreams were swirling around my head until the end of college when I finally realized that I wanted to be a filmmaker.

As for starting out, that was arguably the toughest part for me, as I didn’t go to film school and had a very limited filmmaking background. (I worked on a couple short video projects in school, which were two of my favorite projects that I worked on growing up) Fortunately, once I started networking with other filmmakers and getting on sets, meeting my friend Lance was so important as he showed me the ropes from the filmmaking side of things and helped producer and shoot my debut film, “Enter the Room”.

The main struggle I dealt with during production of “Enter the Room” was dealing with the shot list. I learned how much time it can take to reset camera, lights, sound, etc, and realized after the shoot that the shot list could have definitely been more efficiently set up. As for directing actors, while my team and I did a great job casting, (and I think my two actors did a phenomenal job in “Enter the Room”), I could have done a better job trying to “paint a picture” for their characters rather than simply telling them what to do regarding their performances on set.

During my second short film, “In the Backseat”, I learned how difficult it can be to shoot outside, having to deal with all the background noise, weather and lighting issues. The thought that a storm or a lot of rain could have led to us having to reschedule that shoot day was very stressful. I also made the mistake of picking a location at a forest preserve that was near Chicago O’Hare International Airport, so we were constantly dealing with planes flying overhead during one day of our shoot.

For my feature film, “The Corridor Crossing”, I learned how much more work it was to make a feature than a short film. I expected it to be more work, but I truly felt like I was drowning during production of the feature, which hadn’t been the case with the shorts.

And now with my newest film, “Slivered”, which is the first animation project that I have worked on, I am witnessing how time consuming it can be storyboarding the project and can only imagine how long it will take to actually animate it.

Overall, I have run into mane road blocks on my filmmaking journey, but through hard work, learning from my mistakes, perseverance and probably a bit of luck, I have always been able to pull through okay in the end. And I have had so much fun on my filmmaking journey despite some of the struggles.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in directing, writing and editing, and also produce my own projects. The project that I am the most proud of has to be my feature film, “The Corridor Crossing”, which is an idea that I came up with back in college. I only made the film after 3 of my short films because I was advised that jumping into a feature film without the necessary filmmaking experience would likely be a mistake. (and I believe they were correct) While I am proud of all of my short films in some form, “Enter the Room” is the short that I am the most proud of as it is very personal to me and was my first professional film. (It is based on a toxic relationship that I had with a roommate during my freshman year of college)

While there are many areas that I still need to improve in regarding filmmaking, I do believe that I have a non-stop work ethic, precise attention to detail and obsession to improve that has helped me grow at a pretty dramatic rate as a filmmaker. And I feel that I give a lot of depth to my characters, which allows for my cast to feel very prepared and connected to their roles once we begin shooting.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
I just have a few pieces of advice below for aspiring filmmakers and/or anyone beginning to enter a competitive field.

First and foremost, I would not recommend becoming a filmmaker unless you absolutely love doing this and breathe it day in and day out as I (and a handful of filmmakers I have met) do. It is a long, expensive and stressful journey that often doesn’t come close to giving you back what you put in from a financial/recognition perspective. But if you truly love doing it and receive the level of satisfaction that I do from working on and completing your films, I think you should continue to push forward and hopefully things will work out. Even if they don’t, you will always have something to be proud of and no one can take away the satisfaction that you receive from completing your passion project.

Second, understand how competitive this industry is, never expect anything and never act like you are owed something. Unless they had some incredible connection, even the best and most successful filmmakers on planet earth had to start at the bottom and grind it out in order to get to the top.

Be professional, kind and courteous to others, and always do what you say you are going to do. The film industry is very oversaturated and you need to do everything in your power to present yourself in the best light Third, just do it. I slowed my career down at times by stressing over trying something for the first time and not taking initiative, giving myself various excuses. Of course, you should plan ahead as much as you can, but studying is never the same as actually getting out there and doing it. Accept the inevitable fact that you will make mistakes, be flexible and move forward and you will learn from your mistakes and improve as you go.

And last, just remember to enjoy the process and don’t focus too much on the endgame. I am currently editing my first feature film “The Corridor Crossing”, and post-production is taking me a lot longer than I initially anticipated it would. I could obsess over this fact and make myself go insane, but I have instead decided to understand that this was my first feature film, so it is okay that I couldn’t properly estimate how long it would take to edit the film and simply enjoy the journey, which has been an absolute blast so far, despite all of the unexpected hurdles that I have faced to this point.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://edgewaterfilmproduction.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hwaldman18/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harry.waldo.3/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryWaldman1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsZ2cMMN2wCYoC5IptbvemQ
• Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/harrywaldman Filmfreeway: https://filmfreeway.com/HarryWaldman Stage 32: https://www.stage32.com/profile/586379 The Dots: https://the-dots.com/users/harry-waldman-1150050

Image Credits
Lance Eliot Adams
Jordan Sasticum
Konrad Proce
Leni Irizarry
Justin Casterline