Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Hale.
Hi Heather, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a film and television writer, director, and producer.
My background is pretty eclectic.
When I was just four years old, I was already telling people I wanted to be a writer. By 8, I was writing, directing and producing plays based on Greek mythology (Perseus and Andromeda – maybe because the Producer in me knew sheets as toga costumes were within my resources and skill sets!) I was first published at 12 in a mainstream newspaper (I won The San Jose Mercury News’ poetry contest). I acted in plays, sang and danced in children’s musical theater while doing seasonal inventory and year-end books in my parents’ retail chain.
I got my Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. Then, to escape a marriage proposal (before I was even of drinking age), I ran off to work abroad in Kobe, Japan. Upon my return, I got hijacked into helping my dad launch a multi-branch mortgage banking brokerage, where I was the CA DRE-licensed CFO, table-top funding a million a month. I bought my first house in California before I was 25 and thought I’d get into rental properties. Then the triple dip recession hit. As the VP of the San Juan Capistrano Chamber of Commerce, I won a Senate Commendation for helping them be the only city to escape being dragged through Orange County’s junk bond scandal-driven bankruptcy. My father and I (and everyone I knew) lost everything (including our health). I figured if I was going to be broke, I might as well go back to being a writer!
Before I finished my screenwriting certificate at UCLA, I sold my first project – which was produced as a $5.5M Lifetime Original Movie that starred Vanessa Williams. I have directed a million-dollar indie thriller (that I also co-wrote and produced). I’ve written and produced a couple of hundred hours of reality TV, which have won a couple of Emmys, Tellys and Ace awards. I was the Director of the Nat’l Assoc. of Television Executive’s programming, then the Int’l Film & TV Assoc.’s Industry Liaison to the American Film Market.
Right now, I’m the Senior Producer of the #1 life coaching show on broadcast television; I’m in funded development on a slate of legacy-impact true life stories; developing several novel adaptations and TV series and getting my Master’s in Fine Arts in Directing at the Savannah College of Art and Design – shooting my thesis this Spring.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
LOL! NO!
Which ones haven’t I had?!
I think I could check all the boxes for every obstacle and challenge everyone in this biz experiences:
- Financial Instability
• Erratic, Fleeting, Intangible and Ambiguous “Success”
• Unpredictable Workloads, Schedules and Calendars
• Relentless Scope Creep with Increasingly Unrealistic Expectations
• Pulling emergency rabbits out of hats setting standard expectations for future miracles assumed to be consistently reliable, fast, free AND great! ;-/
• Legal and Financial Bullying
• Sexual Harassment
• Nepotism
• Ageism
• Sexism
• Chauvinism
• Jingoism
• Cynicism
• Careerism
• Consumerism
• Cronyism
• (All the -isms)
• Male Gaze
• Misogyny
• Misanthropy
• Mediocrity
• Hypocrisy
• Mean Girls
• Jaded People
• Zealots
• Cultural Claustrophobia
• Money, Power and Fame Corruption
• Being the victim of Unearned Arrogance and Professional Entitlement - Being forced to Cater to the Lowest Common Denominator
• Crooks, Fraudsters and Scammers
• Wannabes “Playing Hollywood”
• Being the Victim of “Get Away With It” Ethics
• Betrayal, Heartbreak, Disappointment, Disillusionment, Hopelessness, Rudderlessness
• False Economy
* Pointless Admin Minutia
• Apathy
• Exhaustion
• Losing Faith/Hope
• All your joy siphoned
• Your soul diluted
• Check
• Check
• CHECK!
LOL! Remind me why I’m in this business again?!
What’s the opposite of a meritocracy? A kakistocracy?!
Being relegated to doing the 80% of pointless (soul-sucking) Pareto Principle admin minutia while stuck in relentless Groundhog Day Development Hell, “controlled” by a Peter Principle Confederacy of Dunces Mundanity Committee strangle-holding creativity into diluted homogeneity.
If there were an Olympics for surviving being overlooked, ignored, dismissed, minimized, marginalized, disrespected, humiliated, horrified and mollified, ;-/ I’d have a long gold medal legacy!
I already do.
In my family, we call it earning vertebrae. (I have a prized, Platinum spine!)
I often liken myself to a Sisyphean Octopus, pushing eight projects simultaneously uphill, trying not to drop any balls or jeopardize traction on any of them.
There are whip-smart, super cool people all over Hollywood. In every job. People that are – or could be – lifelong friends. You just have to find, protect and treasure them.
The hardest thing about being in such a tough, artistic business is managing to keep your heart open through a thick-as-a-Rhinoceros’ skin.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have earned fun nicknames such as “A Beautiful Mind” and “Brains with Paper” and feel well-respected as a super organized, uniquely efficient, well-balanced right brain/left brain, high-emotional IQ writer/producer. And while I’m proud of all that, I am diligently going back to school to sharpen “2nd decade of the Millennium” skills to rebrand myself to get off script pages, spreadsheets, social media marketing and business plans to visually and cinematically executing all of that on screens.
I love comedies and thrillers, mysteries and action-adventure, magical realism, satire, romance, true-life stories and animation.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
So many.
I think we took for granted that zoom could eliminate a lot of commuting and international professional travel for meetings, markets, virtual auditions and screenings but forgot the value of breaking bread together, handshakes and hugs and smiles IRL. There is a physical proximity energy that is different when there’s no virtual screen between you. There is something very visceral about sharing a meal or having a drink together to appease our Reptilian brains’ fight or flight instincts. What a precious gift to be able to take our masks off and share TIME, smiles and warmth together again and to rediscover one another in real life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://HeatherHale.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/HeatherHaleWriterDirector
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeatherJaneHale
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeatherJHale
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeatherHale
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=J43UCwvqdY_d0OPIWvQ52Q
- Other: https://vimeo.com/user7096601
https://www.facebook.com/HeatherJHale
