Meet Chris von Hoffmann

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris von Hoffmann.

Chris, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I had a relatively cliche beginning to my story in that my parents bought me a hi-8 camera when I was 7 or 8 years old and I just never stopped filming. I mean literally never stopped. Horror is the genre that essentially introduced me to cinema in general however, as I went through my teenage years, I became far more explorative. I was analyzing slapstick comedies, action movies, low concept dramas, French new wave, experimental films, silent films, etc. It was all nutritious to me. Even though directing and writing was my first love, I was always keen to entertain people with my own personality. So naturally, I caught the acting bug and really started doing something with it starting as a Freshman in high school. I began acting in all the plays and musicals throughout high school. Even had a couple of duets.

After high school, I refused to go to a proper college so instead, I attended The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York for seven months. It was a highly rigorous and intense conservatory covering everything from theater history to acting to dance to singing. It was incredibly educational yet also very political. Once I left the Academy, I hit the ground running in New York City. Auditioning for countless plays and short films while working as an Usher at a Broadway theater. I ended up acting in several Off-Off-Broadway plays which some were mildly successful, some not at all. I even borrowed a VX-1000 camera from a reality TV company I used to intern at and made a few short films that I also acted in. One of which was a 40-minute mockumentary in the vein of Christopher Guest.

At a certain point, however I felt that acting just wasn’t working out for me and perhaps I should go back to my first love of directing. I reached out to a fellow high school classmate of mine who was a Princeton graduate and was now working steadily as a production coordinator for features. She managed to get me an internship as a PA on a feature film. It was one of the best experiences I ever had. Learning everything about how real films are made. Logistics, the hours, the time constraints, all of it. Eventually I hooked up with a fellow PA who had some gear and wanted to help produce a short film script of mine called Vodka 7. We ended up raising some money and went off and made it. It was the first time I didn’t act in the film and strictly focused on being behind the camera. I showed it to a 70 person crowd and after getting a positive response, literally a week later, I packed up my car and drove out to LA by myself. I had absolutely no plan.

When I reached LA, I once again hit the ground running. Working on countless sets, meeting as many people as possible, making as much stuff as I could conjure up, unashamedly shoving my short films into the hands of potentially connected insiders. Just showing my work to as many people as I possibly could. I wanted to be on the radar of everyone. Now even though the short films were getting positive responses, they weren’t moving me to the next lily pad. I was 27 and extremely frustrated and bitter about the world and my bad luck. So I took the ultimate gamble, purged my life savings and finally made a feature film. The film was called Drifter and was an experiment in aesthetic and intensity rather than a traditional narrative piece. Thankfully Drifter managed to lock in worldwide distribution including Netflix.

While Drifter was making the rounds, I was writing and developing my second feature called Monster Party with a small production company. Drifter and the script for Monster Party ended up hooking me up with representation. Drifter premiered at the Freak Show Horror Film Festival and was released all over in spring 2017. Monster Party premiered at Beyond Fest and was released domestically in November 2018 and on Shudder in April earlier this year. I’m currently working with the writers of the recent Paramount creature feature Crawl on a new film that I’ll be directing.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
To say it’s been a smooth road would be quite the overstatement. Nothing has ever come easy to me ever since I started pursuing this business. I’ve dealt with quite possibly every obstacle you can possibly face and I know I’ll continue facing them for the rest of my life as long I remain in this industry. However, I’m by no means complaining because THAT’S THE JOB. Hollywood is 99.99 percent rejection, extremely volatile and more or less without rules so it can be very complicated to navigate through. What keeps me pushing through is because I believe in myself more than anything and I know deep in my soul that there’s a void in film that I need to fill. I love films so much that I’m willing to plow through what feels like shark-infested waters at night in the middle of the ocean during a thunderstorm to get to the finish line so that I can have that five percent gratification.

The biggest struggle however, that I feel every indie filmmaker can relate to on some level is the difficulties of scraping by financially especially in between films. Movie piracy is more or less causing indie Hollywood to implode. Art has become worthless. No one wants to pay for anything anymore. Technology has caused people’s attention spans to intensify so it’s very hard to get anyone to go the theater to pay for a movie. I have this horrible recurring image in my head that resembles the original poster of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York where the head of the statue of liberty is lying in the middle of the street and its total anarchy surrounding. Only in my head, it’s the Hollywood sign instead of the statue and there’s nothing but tumbleweeds. I hate to be so cynical about the future but it’s been looking quite grim and I’m not quite sure what the solution is because eventually if piracy keeps taking over then indie budgets will just dry up and there won’t be any funds for anything more. So I’m just trying to make as many films as possible if and when that happens.

Tell us about your work – what should we know?
I’m a writer/director. I’ve currently made two feature films that have been released as well as a closet of short films of all different lengths. Perhaps right now I’m being labeled as a horror director which is completely fine for people to call me that. Horror was my first love and I have a genuine passion for the genre. David Gordon Green is one of those directors I admire enormously. Someone who makes several films in one genre then shifts and makes several films in another genre, etc. That’s the kind of filmography I would love to emulate.

My favorite aspect about making a film is casting and working with dedicated actors. I literally don’t watch anything but the actor’s faces when I watch a film so I put an enormous amount of attention on them. Some people are more skilled at the technical elements like visual effects or shots, others are more focused on the production design and costumes… I consider myself to be an actor’s director above anything else.

Over the years looking back at all the films I’ve made, I’m quite proud that despite what the genre has been in the past… Whether it be dark comedies, horrors, crime films, etc… I always managed to maintain the same kind of tone going into it. I feel like I’m a master of my own tone. At this point in my life, I’m very confident in the kind of feeling I’m trying to evoke so it just becomes a matter of execution and communication with the team supporting me.

I feel what separates me from others is maybe because I spent quite a bit of time making short films consistently and analyzing my work, understanding what it is I offer to movies. Whereas a lot of up and coming directors just jump right into making feature films therefore they’re cracking their teeth in front of audiences until eventually, they get it right. I feel like perhaps I’m slightly ahead of the game aesthetically and earned my stripes making A LOT of short films treating them as an unofficial film school.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
The amount of people who have supported me and encouraged me is hard to put into a brief breakdown. But needless to say, there have been quite a few. My parents were always very much in line with what I wanted to do and always supported me through and through. My father used to be a professional photographer so he completely understands the artistic pursuit of it all. My mother is incredible at just being very practical and realistic without undermining who I am as a filmmaker. She’s been there for me in some of the darkest times during my journey as a filmmaker in LA and continues to remind me to always be humble no matter what.

All the other filmmakers I’ve collaborated with in the past… My manager, sales agents, distributors, friends, family, they’ve all been very important in keeping me going through this dark paradise that we all reside in. A cinematographer that I worked with in the past had introduced me to a domestic sales agent who introduced me to a producer who introduced me to my management. It all became a positive domino effect.

In this business you question yourself almost every single day of what exactly you’re doing in this life. It can get extremely demoralizing, very painful and almost always depressing. You need people around you that help keep you going because being a filmmaker is highly emotionally destructive and scarring so it’s always good to surround yourself with good people to keep what little of your sanity you have left.