Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Maggio.
Hi Daniel, 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.
I grew up in Hemet, CA (about 90 miles inland from Los Angeles), and there wasn’t much to do, so I entertained myself by playing with stuffed animals, noodling on guitar, and writing short stories. I knew I wanted to be an artist but wasn’t sure what to pursue. Then I had the good fortune of taking a video production class in 8th grade and my teacher, Jimbo Marshall, introduced me to the art of filmmaking. My fate was sealed! Filmmaking combined all of the artforms into one: design, performance, music, photography, choreography, and then the packaging and marketing of the film once it was all done. I was hooked and started making films immediately.
I spent the summer between 8th and 9th grade on the family computer, writing a 148-page screenplay on Microsoft Word. The movie was called “The Neighborhood Mafia” and was about a group of teenagers who start their own organized crime syndicate. I grew up in an Italian American family, so the gangster picture was near and dear to my heart. I went back to Acacia Middle School and took Mr. Marshall’s class again. On the first day of school, I handed him the massive screenplay and asked for his feedback. God bless him; he read the entire thing and took notes! We met up after school, and he told me he was impressed that I had written such a gargantuan script, but that it wasn’t any good. I was initially heartbroken, but he took the opportunity to teach me WHY it wasn’t good and what I could do to make it better. We went through every page, and he asked me great questions (most of which I responded with, “Because I saw it in another movie.”)
He then taught me the greatest lesson in independent filmmaking and that has to do with “using your resources.” He suggested we start an elective period, and any student who was interested in making a movie or acting in one could sign up for the class. He tasked me with writing a script for us to shoot. He said to base the script around our resources and what was available to us. We can film on campus, we have access to students, and the story should be family-friendly so the school will get behind it. The film was called “The Unknown Superhero,” and it was about a comic book-obsessed student who gets superpowers from eating the school’s mystery meat. The 23-minute short film premiered at a local film festival, and hearing the audience’s reaction in a packed movie theater made me want to pursue that feeling for the rest of my life. Making movies was one thing, but playing them for an audience was the real test if you had made a good one or not.
I’ve implemented this lesson of “use your resources” for every film I’ve made since. I’m now 34 years old and have directed 3 features (2 narrative and 1 documentary), 11 short films, and 2 web series. All of which were inspired by something personal to me, something I had access to or someone I met along the journey.
EXAMPLES OF THIS CONCEPT IN RECENT SHORT FILMS:
THE GLORY HOLE (2014)
While I was in college at San Jose State University, I met an actor named Cosgrove Norstadt. We had done a couple film projects together, and he just had the most interesting life. He and his husband, Jeff, were gifted oral storytellers and unafraid to share personal details. They had actually met and fallen in love at a San Francisco glory hole in the early 90’s. In 2014, we adapted that story for the screen and submitted it to Dan Savage’s HUMP! Film Festival up in Seattle. THE GLORY HOLE, a heartwarming story of love at first sight, ended up winning Best in Show, but the real joy was hearing the audience’s reaction to the film. So many people came up to Jeff and Cosgrove afterward and said they had met their partner in a similar way but were scared to share their story. So, instead of making up a piece of fiction, I found a much more powerful story right under my nose.
KESI (2020)
In early 2018, my mother passed away from complications due to alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. She was a daily drinker and one of the biggest supporters of my filmmaking from an early age. It seemed like the only way to honor her memory and process my grief was to make a film about it. I was interested in capturing her spirit and being honest about the experience as opposed to seeking pity or understanding. The film is about Kesi, a 20-year-old who travels back home for her mother’s funeral. Kesi (which was my mom’s childhood nickname) is accompanied by her band of stuffed animals (each with a unique voice supplied by the titular character). This was something I did after my mom passed, using my stuffed animals to explore these new and difficult feelings. In this film, the deceased Mother character IS my mother. We used her name, likeness, cause of death, hobbies, impressive number of ex-husbands, possessions, and even her real ashes. The final 24-minute film, KESI, is one that I am most proud of and feels most like me.
THE BIG BOOK (2023)
After my mom passed, I got honest about my own drinking and realized I was an alcoholic. I was slowly drifting off course and losing sight of my passion to make films. I’m now over 5 years sober, and the only reason I’m still making movies today is because I stopped drinking. I found an amazing community through Alcoholic Anonymous in Pasadena and was so touched by the principles of service and personal responsibility. I felt like I hadn’t seen many accurate depictions of AA in film that showed these 2 particular principles in action, but I wasn’t sure what story to tell. A close personal friend, who has acted in many of my past films, works as a fraud surveillance investigator. I was fascinated by his job, spying on those with workers’ comp claims to see if they are fraudulent or not. I thought, “Wow! That needs to be a movie!” He said that a lot of the job was actually sitting around and sweating his ass off in the car. It’s always good to give a detective character a code of conduct, so why not have him be an active member of AA? Making phone calls to sponsees while he is staked out on a target? There ended up being a ton of thematic overlap between the two worlds and that became our most recent short film, THE BIG BOOK. It will premiere at the Pasadena International Film Festival in April.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I moved to LA in 2015, and I’m sure, like many, I was quickly overwhelmed with the sheer amount of artists I was meeting. I unfortunately gave in to feelings of competitiveness as opposed to collaboration. I had such a prolific track record of making films, and now that I was in LA, at the altar of the entertainment industry, I gave in to my base fears and panicked. Drinking became a huge comfort and helped me justify not moving forward with my dreams. The irony was that I was watching myself become stagnant and bitter and hating myself for it. I had big ambitions of making films and I knew that took hard work and dedication. But when I would start drinking at 2 pm on a Wednesday, all my motivation and mental sharpness disappeared. I would wake up hungover and vow to quit, get healthy, and get back on track. This happened over and over again, never learning the lesson and kicking the can on my next film project. I was betraying that 12-year-old boy who found his calling to be a film director. I was aware I had a problem, that I would say one thing and then do another, but I didn’t have the courage to quit.
Then in early 2018, my mother passed away from complications due to alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Ironically, that was not the wake-up call to look in the mirror and come to terms with my own drinking. I spent that whole year DRINKING EVEN MORE and avoiding the reality of the pain I was in. It wasn’t until I started working for someone who had 25 years of sobriety that I started to get curious. I was impressed with the way they lived their life; they didn’t need alcohol to be social or have honest conversations. They had a successful business, a New York Times best-selling book, and gave back to their community. I wanted my own version of those things, and I was in enough pain to try the experiment: no alcohol for 90 days. 90 Days!? How was I going to survive? I had never gone a week without the stuff since turning 18. I knew that would be enough time to give my body and mind a real break and experience the results of sobriety firsthand. After day 66 and attending some AA meetings with a very open mind, I realized I was an alcoholic. I needed to say goodbye to my best friend and get back to who I really was. The biggest reason for quitting was that I knew there was more to life. I was short changing myself and my lifelong passion for filmmaking. I was done with alcohol for good.
It’s now been over 5 years without alcohol, and my filmmaking is back with a vengeance! In the first year, I completed 3 projects that I was tinkering with for years. And ever since I’ve directed at least one big film project every year. I own a production company, directing and editing videos for clients, and I am always saving money and accumulating gear for that next film project. Every film needs to be a step up from the previous one. That’s the underlying motivation behind every job that I take, so I can get back on set as soon as possible and keep my skills sharp in the meantime. I remind myself of those dark times, what I thought were lost years, but they taught me so much about myself and gave me unique stories to tell. I’m grateful every day for the life that I have, a working artist living in LA, the greatest place to live if you’re a filmmaker or movie lover. I think my 12-year-old self would be so stoked at how I am living my life now.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Whenever I make a film, I try to separate all three stages as if I am different artisans. I try to explore every angle while writing the script. I’m the interpreter of the script when directing, and editing is all about making the best film out of what was shot. If I am too attached to any of the roles, I could get caught up in ego as opposed to trying to make the best film possible.
I am probably best known as the “Hemet Guy.” I still shoot most of my movies in my hometown of Hemet, CA. The place has been endlessly inspiring to me, and we’ve had amazing luck filming in a variety of locations FOR FREE. For our most recent film, THE BIG BOOK, we got to film in a hardware store and a favorite local diner, adding so much production value to the piece. That’s the beauty of making an independent film in a small town. Most of my family and many of my friends still live there, so it’s like a reunion every time we make a movie there. We keep finding new ways to film the city and keep discovering new talent to work with.
I recently co-founded The Hemet Film Festival with my best friends. We had our inaugural event last year on November 11th, 2023. The festival is hosted at the Historic Hemet Theatre, a 100-year-old movie palace located in the middle of downtown Hemet. The theater holds over 300 people and still maintains its original Art Deco charm. We screened 49 short films and hosted over 150 people at the festival last year. We are now expanding the festival to 2 and a half days and submissions are now open! Check out our website or FilmFreeway page if you would like to submit to our quirky film festival in the desert. The theme of the festival is, “Necessity breeds Creativity.” So, we try to look for movies that were creatively produced on a very low budget. It’s more about the heart and creative spirit of the piece rather than the technical prowess, that’s what our audiences love to come see.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
What a great question! I love using Evernote because it helps me organize all of my ideas. Going through life, you accumulate so many ideas for characters, dialogue, or scenes. I keep track of them in my Evernote. I also have a document called “Film Diary,” where I keep track of every movie I see and on what date. So many friends have suggested Letterbox, but ya know… Once you get a system, it’s hard to give it up!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.DanielMaggio.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/dpmaggio
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@MartyFishman
- Other: www.HemetFilmFest.com
Image Credits
Nathan San Filippo
Jimbo Marshall
Chris Millon
Wesley Houdyshell
Stephen Siemens
Hunter Hawkins
Jessica Lim
