OVERVIEW
In this episode of the Musicbed Podcast, we welcome film producer and festival programmer Drea Clark. With nearly two decades in the festival circuit, Drea has been a key player at Sundance Film Festival, LA Film Festival, and Slamdance, among others. She’s also produced features, music videos, and a TV pilot.
Join us for a captivating talk with Drea Clark as she offers a behind-the-scenes look at Sundance from a programming perspective. Learn why original storytelling stands out, how art’s subjectivity affects film selection, and why good sound quality can make or break your submission.
Show Notes:
- Slamdance Film Festival – https://slamdance.com/festival/
- Sundance Film Festival – https://festival.sundance.org/
- LA Film Festival – https://www.filmindependent.org/la-film-festival/
- Bentonville Film Festival – https://bentonvillefilm.org/
- Napoleon Dynamite (2004) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374900/
- Damien Chazelle – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3227090/
- Whiplash (2014) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2582802/
- Chanshi – https://festival.sundance.org/program/films/indie-episodic
- IndieGoGo – https://www.indiegogo.com/
- Kickstarter – https://www.kickstarter.com/
- Catalyst Films – https://www.catalyst-films.com/
- Directors Lab – https://directorslab.com/home/
- Ann Arbor Film Festival – https://www.aafilmfest.org/
- Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2388637/
- David Lowery – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1108007/
- Ben Foster – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3244731/
- Strawberry Mansion (2021) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11398346/
- Kentucker Audley – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2310589/
- The Killing of Two Lovers (2020) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10702148/
- Film Independent Spirit Awards – https://www.filmindependent.org/spirit-awards/
- Aftersun (2022) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19770238/
- Stan Brakhage – https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0104132/
Drea Clark’s Playlist on Musicbed
Listen to Drea’s handpicked playlist. With a mix of indie tunes, cinematic music, and hip-hop beats, her playlist is a storytelling toolkit. Elevate your filmmaking experience with the sounds that inspire Drea’s work.
Hear the full playlist on Musicbed:
Episode #012 Transcript
Christian Schultz:
We’re sitting here today with Drea Clark. Drea, thank you for being here.
Drea Clark:
Thanks for having me.
Christian Schultz:
I do want to get sort of a background of who you are. But first, I just want to say I feel like I know you really well already. Because I feel like I’ve gotten so many rejection emails from your time at Sundance. But tell us a little bit about what you do, where you come from, and what you’re currently doing.
Drea Clark:
I come from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Go Bears. My background is slightly unique for filmmaking because I’m kind of split between festival production and festival programming.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
I sort of started them concurrently. I moved here after graduating from the University of Wisconsin. Go Badgers. I started interning at Slamdance Film Festival and then literally stayed there for 19 years, working my way up. And I ended up running feature programming there for 13 years, and was festival director for a couple of years. And then I moved to Sundance six or seven years ago. And then I was also senior program at LA Film Fest. I was there for like 11 years, until we closed, and I’m currently at Sundance. And I run programming for Gina Davis’ Bentonville Film Festival, which has probably not rejected your work because you’re not our target filmmaker. And then along with all of that, I started in production in music video. And so I worked the production side of it, coordinator, all of those things, and then ended up running the music video nonprofit, the MVPA, for years. And then just got into feature
indie producing about seven or eight years ago, and every filmmaker that I’ve worked with as a producer is a filmmaker whose work I either programmed at a festival, or discovered through a festival. So they blend in interesting ways, but not a lot of programmers do both to that extent.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
I’ve also been rejected by the Sundance Film Festival.
Christian Schultz:
Really?
Drea Clark:
So we share that.
Christian Schultz:
Do you still work with Sundance?
Drea Clark:
I do.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. So I mean, that was just like last week, right?
Drea Clark:
Yeah. I didn’t go. I haven’t gone. I’m a COVID-adverse kind of gal.
Christian Schultz:
Yep.
Drea Clark:
So I haven’t gone. Well, it hasn’t existed again until this year. So I did some online Q&A intro things because we did have a virtual component.
Christian Schultz:
Gotcha. So you have been rejected. But I do imagine that there’s some conflict of interest there.
Drea Clark:
I have not submitted anything to Sundance since I’ve worked there.
Christian Schultz:
Okay.
Drea Clark:
I was rejected prior to my employment. Yeah.
Christian Schultz:
That’s funny. Good point. Yeah. Now that we clarified that, What was this year like? Do you have any interesting stories of the films that you saw or things that happened this year?
Drea Clark:
Well, the section that I’m most involved with at Sundance is Indie Episodic, and then our Premieres. And Indie Episodic is great. That’s actually why I moved over to Sundance is when they started doing those. And so we’ve had sort of recognizable documentaries, like we showed jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. And We Need To Talk About Cosby was a big title last year, and Wu-Tang: An American Saga. We’ve had a lot of great, non-scripted episodics. And then we had a great title called Work In Progress, that ended up selling to Showtime. So the idea was, there’s more and more filmmakers making either pilots or working in the episodic space. And we’ve been trying to build that as a marketplace in the same way that films are. So this year was the first year where all of the titles that we had in Indie Episodic were genuinely independently made, and none of them were bought yet by the time they got to the festival. Like there’s, like I mentioned, Cosby, I think had already sold to Showtime. But the titles we had this year are all on the table and ready to go. And they’re by like, one of them’s by Xavier Dolan, who’s one of my favorite filmmakers. He’s from Quebec. He did Mommy.
Christian Schultz:
Mommy is so good.
Drea Clark:
It’s so good. And so watching a filmmaker that I love that I think is like this baby, sort of queer auteur get into the Indie Episodic space. You get more time to stretch your wings.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
There’s plenty of filmmakers that you’re like, every film you make needs to lose 12 to 15 minutes.
Christian Schultz:
Sure.
Drea Clark:
But some of them you’re like, it’d be so great if they could extend this world and and that’s what episodic storytelling does. So that was a very cool trend at Sundance this year, of oh, there’s people making really great stuff, both here and internationally in the episodic space.
Christian Schultz:
So you brought up jeen-yuhs. I don’t know how it would be pronounced, but it’s up there. I’ve always
wanted to ask this in regards to premieres, but also just like, the independent spirit of Sundance versus sort of films that would be considered more mainstream because of the talent that is in them. Because I think from an outsider’s perspective, there’s a lot of films there that you’re like, yeah, I’m sure if my film had you know, this a-tier talent, or it had, you know what I’m saying?
Drea Clark:
Oh, 100%.
Christian Schultz:
So I wonder from the inside, how do you guys manage that? And how do you balance things?
Drea Clark:
I think one thing that would be really eye opening that people will never get the opportunity to know, is there are an enormous amount of titles that have equally big or bigger names that do not get programmed.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
And I think if people understood the full breadth of what people are making in the indie sphere, that certainly it looks like, oh, and we do have a lot of titles that have recognizable names.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
Oh, what a great, shiny, interesting new performance from you know, X. But it was just that it would be even more, we could have even more titles that were just celebrity. But with a festival like Sundance, there’s only a handful that are true discovery festivals where you have enough credibility that you can program unknowns that people are going to trust the programmer, rather than ‘I need to recognize someone before I want to buy a ticket.’
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
And a discovery festival, you can do that. But it’s also a marketplace festival. So you’re kind of balancing those two, you know, ruling. And they can be in opposition at times. But we do have our different sections, it’s a whole section for first or second-time filmmakers, people doing more experimental work, or interesting or narrative twerks or whatever. Narrative twerks—that’s what we call it in the industry. Not quirks, we try to have those. And then that’s why again, like the premiere section, these are things that are sold, these are things that are going to be a cultural impact.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
Because that’s also part of what we’re doing is establishing a tone of like, this is what we see in American cinema, especially there’s a beautiful world cinema programming. But yeah, I don’t think it’s necessary for it. And I also when I’m talking to filmmakers, because of course, like every filmmaker, I have 15 jobs. And one of my other jobs is I’m Producer-In-Residence for Film Independent, so I get to meet with a lot of filmmakers at different stages when they’re just getting started. And that is a question that comes up all the time—do I need to have name talent to either get into a festival or to sell? And certainly it helps more with sales than with festivals.
Christian Schultz:
For sure.
Drea Clark:
But it’s the level that you’re going to get, especially at a low budget. Unless you’re best friends with, you know, Ryan Gosling and he’ll do it for scale.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
Like, that’s the level of talent that really helps. You’re better off having mostly unknowns, maybe one person in there in a smaller role so that a future distributor can be like, great. People will recognize that person if they’re at least part of it.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
But you’re so much better off having like good performances. Because again, for the discovery side, a festival is looking for, oh, this is a career we can say we helped launch. This is our filmmaker. And that’s going to be someone who can get like, really interesting performances. Not oh, we got the guy who’s
like the boyfriend on a big teen show.
Christian Schultz:
Right. So any kind of stories that you might have from over the years of something that took you by surprise, whether it was a film, or how it was received or anything like that?
Drea Clark:
One of my very first memories of like—there are very few things that Slamdance truly lost Sundance. But we showed the short for Napoleon Dynamite at Slamdance. And then they made the feature in the year between and so we had looked at it. And when I looked at it, because I was still at Slamdance, I was like, yeah, we’re gonna we’re gonna lose this. This is gonna go to Sundance, but that one I felt so strongly was like, oh, this is going to speak to the festival programmers, right? Because comedies are really hard to program. You know, a drama, you can get everyone on board in terms of like, this is a great performance and whatever. If the comedy doesn’t land and hit someone’s own sensibility, then they can just say like, oh, the humor fails. It’s just much harder to program in general. Napoleon Dynamite, I was like, no. Programmers are gonna love this. It’s so unique or whatever. But the audience reaction to it was actually really encouraging because it is so its own thing. It’s a distinctive film and so weird. And like, I really thought it was just going to be like a fun niche thing that me and the other indie- film dorks will be like, did you guys ever see this? But no, it went, it was the fact that it was like a cultural moment. That was a big surprise.
Christian Schultz:
Why do you think you see so many shorts that get into Sundance come into features? Why is that?
Drea Clark:
Well, I think a lot of people make a short as a sort of almost proof of concept. And when they do that, I always encourage like, you’re better off making a short than an actual proof of concept. Like a short has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s finite entity—you can have it programmed and have its own world. But if you’re making a short that either is a piece of a feature, or is giving you the same tonal or character beats as your hopeful feature, then you have a direct record both of your ability to capture that kind of performance to set that sort of tone, to give the mood to give whatever. The other thing that’s so key, and it’s just part of the programming and production process is film festivals are vetting. Everybody wants something that someone else has given a thumbs up to. Nobody wants to be the first thumbs up, and programmers have to be the first thumbs up. So shorts that have gone through that, you’re able to say, well, I made the short here you can see my skills and what I can bring to the table. But also, it played this festival and this festival. It won this Jury Prize, this audience liked it. Because those are all things when you’re looking for: investors and collaborators. Everybody just wants at every stage, like how vetted are you. How vetted is your work, that kind of thing.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. I was thinking of Damien Chazelle’s short for Whiplash was such a good example of that, where it was sort of plucked out of the movie.
Drea Clark:
Yeah.
Christian Schultz:
But it was also, like you said, had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Drea Clark:
Sure. Yeah. He could have just done that as a scene, right? Just, oh, this is my proof of concept. This is you can see how I can build this musical moment, the physicality of the drumming, and all of that. But to make it as a short, so you can have a life of its own.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
Yeah. It’s such a different thing. And it’s also you know, even though most people who are working in indie film or financing, you read a ton of scripts. You look at a ton of look books. But it’s really hard to know exactly what’s in a director’s head. And especially if it’s a little unique, if it’s a little like, you’re gonna have to trust me—that what seems like the cerebral internal process of someone having an emotional response to drumming or being tired. Yeah, that sounds so engrossing—sign me up for that cinematic journey. But then seeing it and you’re like, oh, yeah, it’s visceral. There’s energy to it. That’s a great example.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. So I heard at some point, maybe the last couple of years, that you guys still have around 9,000 films. Is it more?
Drea Clark:
It’s way more. Yeah. In those I will say, because that’s both shorts and features. Sure, shorts is probably around 9,000. There’s probably 2,00-3,000 features.
Christian Schultz:
It’s hard to believe that many things are getting made in the U.S.
Drea Clark:
I mean, it’s not just the U.S. It’s also international. Yeah.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. You kind of feel like you’re on an island sometimes. Like there’s not a lot of communicating, there’s not like a filmmaker social media other than like your own personal Instagram echo chamber, you know?
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. So the numbers are staggering. Like, what is the process to even begin to get through that?
Drea Clark:
So generally, like for Sundance and many of the bigger festivals, like LA Film Festival is also structured this way, we would have thousands of submissions. You typically have a mixture of what we call blind submissions, which are the bulk of them are the ones that come in, they don’t know anyone they’ve just submitted. And those are honestly the ones that I get psyched to troll through because those are like my personal discovery. One of the indies that’s in Indie Episodic this year, I was like, oh, I found that— Chanshi. That’s my film.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
It’s so good. And it’s me and I should get all the credit for it. But that’s not actually how it works.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
It’s a team thing. But so for the blind submissions you typically have in-house screeners that watch those. We like to have two people see everything because everyone’s taste is different. And if it’s something like, I don’t like horror, like those are you’re not going to sign them to them. As things sort of aggregate higher and higher scores, they move up to like, the associate programmers and programmers. And then the other side of it is for like people like myself who are year-round programmers. If it’s at different festivals or just at one place, we have tracking lists. So I’m tracking things all year, I track things as they’re announced in the trades. I’ll go through IndieGoGo and Kickstarter has those things. I’m like, oh this is interesting, especially since so much of what we’re doing particularly at the festivals Both at Bentonville and at Sundance it’s a mission statement to find either underrepresented voices or unique perspectives or people who are making things in the Midwest and seem self-taught. These people are like throwing themselves down like, chasms or something to get a shot. And there’s a skateboarder 2000’s mentality, whatever it is, those are things so they’ll just go on my tracking list. I’ll keep an eye out for them throughout the year. And then if they submit, I’ll pull those and get an eye on them. So it’s a mixture of things. And that’s why I think that there’s a kind of mercenary side angle of like, sales reps are people who go after filmmakers and are like, if you pay me $5,000, I can make sure someone sees your film, which is sort of disingenuous because any festival worth its salt, someone will see your film.
Christian Schultz:
Those things exist?
Drea Clark:
Yeah. Like, there’s plenty of sales reps who are authentic, they’ll get in touch with me. And the stuff they recommend to me, I’m like, oh good, you have a good caliber. Or you know, what I respond to or whatever. So I will put that on my tracking list. But I think filmmakers are often served just as well. If you’re like, do you know an alumni filmmaker who can put in a good word with you?The whole idea is just, are you making the best effort to do whatever you can to give someone in that sphere, a ping just to get eyes on it? They may or may not respond to it. There’s plenty of studio things we don’t show.
There’s plenty of bigger name pitches that don’t make it past the muster of the team or like Kim Yutani, the Director of Programming. And I’d also add for Sundance, that people may not be aware of this, but we have a real separation of church and state when it comes to the labs and programming because they do so much beautiful work year round of finding filmmakers and refining the projects they’re working on. And some of them help with funding and they don’t put a word in and it doesn’t say like we don’t note when we’re programming like, oh, well, this came through Catalyst or they were part of the Directors Lab. You can be cognizant of those things, but it doesn’t give you like a leg up.
Christian Schultz:
Right. I wonder if you could decipher like, what is the psychology of the laurel?
Drea Clark:
Ooh, the psychology of the laurel.
Christian Schultz:
It sounds like a weird children’s book.
Drea Clark:
No, it’s great. I would read that. Like, it’d be like an Irish animated.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
It’s all back to that same thing of vetting of, oh okay, I’m looking at something. So even your tertiary public that’s like eight steps removed will look at something like that and be like, I have no idea. If the Ann Arbor Film Festival is any good—it is—but this thing played at like 18 laurels. So it might be worth me seeing and if you think if you know us getting that many thousands of shorts and features and whatever else to like, the rest of the public, especially if it’s a self-release stage, or a short. People aren’t seeking out a ton of those anyway, but if it’s recommended somewhere and it has the splash of the laurels on it…
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
It gives that like, this has come through. It’s been tested in the fire, and it made it through.
Christian Schultz:
Do you feel like those are always the best films that get into the festival?
Drea Clark:
Well, ‘best film’ is tricky. I’m actually glad you phrased it that way because especially in LA Film Fest, which I was much more in the like smaller group and overseeing all the features and everything with our team. We would spend months and months programming and crafting this lineup, and then the first people who had access to see it was the rest of the staff. And then I would get to hear exciting grumblings of like ‘competition’s not great.’ You’re like, okay, we aren’t always looking forward to discovery. Your market festival isn’t like, oh, is this the easiest watch. Is this the most enjoyable, rather than like, these are the best films that we saw. Certainly I feel passionately about the films that I program, but I’m also more interested rather than, this is the most competently made film, or it’s the most audience friendly. I would rather find something that is flawed, but like, promises massive talent.
Christian Schultz:
Do you have an example for that?
Drea Clark:
No, because I don’t want to call anybody’s films flawed.
Christian Schultz:
I think some of my favorite films are. Whether it’s the visual quality or some kind of weird writing to it, it has the spirit to it. Those are my favorite movies.
Drea Clark:
Okay, so like, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which is David Lowery.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
So that’s a film that anyone who looks at it, they’re like, well no, I kind of wanted it to be more of a thriller. Or it harkens back to these very 70’s films, but then it doesn’t fulfill in the same way. But for me, that film is consistent and its own thing.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
There’s Ben Foster. It’s one of my favorite performances of his like, there’s something really unique to it. So a film like that. I mean, I’d much rather push for that than, oh yeah, there’s this great, super generic film.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
Like Strawberry Mansion by Kentucker Audley was at last year’s festival. Weird and not everyone’s going to respond to that. But Kentucker does such interesting work. And he is the only one that can make those films and that’s something you want to celebrate at a festival.
Christian Schultz:
When I think of Sundance, and not even just Sundance, but just festivals in general. Like those are the movies that I feel like I want to see like, The Killing of Two Lovers or something. Made for nothing—it’s such a simple movie, but like incredibly powerful in the platform of Sundance. You know what I mean? I feel like, sometimes when I see—and I wonder if you have an opinion on this—but if a festival kind of becomes more commercialized in a way, does it begin to lose some of that sort of beginning impetus that maybe it started with?
Drea Clark:
Oh, I mean, well, Sundance has literally become an institution. There’s nothing else that has really dug out the cultural imprint that it has and grown to the extent it has. It started so small and so genuine, but it also feeds into a much bigger ecosystem of independent film and what is celebrated and what is shown to people and what has the chance and potential of getting out in the world. And so there’s a sort of burden on the festival for that. They have to satisfy everything from a general audience and industry, audience, press and critical audience, and the commercial reactions after the fact. So there are so many things being navigated. I’ll say, the thing that I can speak for, both for there and then that I also find true. I oversee nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards.
Those are all determined by secret committees. It’s a very similar process to programming because it’s all of these people watching films, arguing them out, and determining the nominees based on that—similar to Programming slate. Both the Spirit Awards and Sundance, which have both also grown in big ways, there’s such genuine intent by the people who do it. So like the programmers at Sundance, they care a lot like it’s not, you’re not talking at any given moment of, well, this one would be this little sell quicker or whatever. Like those may be factors, but you don’t even get your film on the discussion table unless someone has responded to it artistically. And then you can factor in the other things. And that’s why I say when I brought it before, especially with LA Film Festival. These aren’t the best films and you’re like, well right, but we have a competition slate of 10-15 films. We’re also looking at a range of films and a million filters that go into every decision-making process. Which I also think is good for filmmakers to keep in mind because it means if your film didn’t get there, it really just might be there was one other film very similar to yours that had a slight leg up in some way. It was either a first-time filmmaker or from a part of the country we hadn’t seen before, whatever.
So there’s an arbitrary quality to it. I’ve sort of derailed here. But it really does come back to that same thing of, you’re serving so many different gods when you’re programming. And so even a festival like Sundance, which has become a revered institution and kind of necessary step, so many people build their production schedule and their post-production schedule around, when do I get my submission in? And they’re always actively trying to fulfill all of those things. Adding the NEXT section in the last 10 years or whatever was to directly address it. More and more people who are making indies have more and more access to big stars than they used to. How do we keep supporting and finding the smaller works? We built a whole other section to do that. And the same thing, like with Indie, Episodic, which has been in more recent years. So I think that there’s good faith attempts to try and balance all of those things.
Christian Schultz:
There’s a lot of filmmakers that would probably assume that people in your position, not you specifically, but all the programmers, all the curators, are kind of like gatekeepers in a way. Do you get bombarded by filmmakers? Do you anticipate that growing in some way?
Drea Clark:
It’s absolutely gatekeeping. I mean, I think that’s part of the responsibility you sign up for is acknowledging that you’re literally keeping a gate because there’s thousands of films that you are not letting onto your festival. How I always try and reconcile that is, I’m trying to think of how many people can we help, which filmmakers can we help launch. Who can we give a leg up for their work and an audience for what they’re doing. Especially because I mean, I live in Los Angeles, there’s a couple of filmmakers here. And also, I’ve been doing this for so long. So I’ve had to personally reject so many people that I’m friends with. Most filmmakers, especially the ones that are respectful, understand it’s a group thing. It’s not personal to me.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
And also if I can explain the reasoning, I will. But again, the reasoning is often so nebulous, and it’s things that they won’t know about. Like, oh were there actually three other films that were also sort of preteen coming of age stories? Some of it is like, but why wasn’t mine the best? Because it’s a subjective art form.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah, right. Right.
Drea Clark:
And so thankfully I don’t feel like I campaigned or anything. Maybe if I had more power at Sundance, I would.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
I keep going back, but to LA Film Fest or to Bentonville, I’m more of a key voice there. There is a different element of like, hey, checking in or whatever. But I because I’m also a filmmaker, I get it. It’s your baby. You’re trying to do the best thing you can for your kid.
Christian Schultz:
And you have to probably compartmentalize. I’d love to ask you: what is the probably the biggest thing but also the most frequent thing that you see in films in the craft element that you’re like, hmm, this didn’t make it?
Drea Clark:
Bad sound kills me. I mean, I know everyone says that and I’m literally hearing impaired so I don’t mean that like, oh, I can’t hear it. But I’m not a great hearer. I’m not someone who, if the score resonated, I’m like, there was a score? I’m not that person. But bad sound immediately makes you seem like bargain basement. Like, oh I shot this on my phone.
Christian Schultz:
So funny you say that. I went to a friend of mine’s pilot premiere and everything. Beautiful story, beautifully shot. And as soon as it comes on, the audio is just—it’s not even that it was bad. It’s just subpar. You’re just out of it.
Drea Clark:
You can make a lot of artistic excuses or like reasoning for why something looks low par. Like oh, we want this to feel very immediate. You want to feel like you’re in there with them. But the sound. As soon as you hear it you’re like, oh, home video.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
I’m a filmmaker, I’m sensitive to this. But for indies you have limited budget, which means you have limited time, which means so many people just shoot for coverage. And I’ve been guilty of this. The first film I produced, I would give an eye to go back and have more B-roll and inserts alone, let alone different performance takes. But you shoot for coverage of like, I have this much amount of time for day. And that comes across in your film because then you’re no longer crafting a whole film. You are serving a script.
Christian Schultz:
Right. You lose a lot of the tone.
Drea Clark:
Yeah. That’s why when you see things and you like, oh my god, like Aftersun, which is one of my favorite films this year. There’s a film that lives up to all of its hype. And then some.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
And it’s a directorial debut and it is filmmaking at every level. It’s a simplistic story. It is a small story. And yet every single department is necessary and explored, like how it’s every framing every single camera. So those are the difference of oh, did I shoot the scene for coverage? Yeah, they said every line. But did I take extra time in preparation to think about like, there’s a small delivery in that where the daughter is like laying across the bed on her back, and she’s staring at her dad. And when you cut to the dad, you’re looking at him upside down and it makes all the sense in the world. And if you don’t think all of those things through in your prep, then you’re not exhibiting, ‘I’m a filmmaker. My format has multiple departments of artistic range that I could be flexing.’
But I’d add to that, that as much as you know, putting the time and effort in every department again, it’s a prep thing. I taught music video production at USC for like 13 years. I was always like, number one thing: put more work into the free stuff you can do, like refining your script as much as possible. Work with every department head. But there’s so many films that are like, oh, we only have this amount of days. They don’t think about like small things like color stories. Like, your character—what do we see on their person that changes? Every department should be crafted in that way.
Christian Schultz:
What is the process of curating your section of festivals? Like, are you sitting at your house just all day long for 12 hours watching films? What does it actually look like?
Drea Clark:
I had a conversation with my civilian friends, as I call non-filmmakers. But my friends this year have just recently started asking, oh, what’s your top 10? And I’m like, well I’ve multiple top ten. So I sent like my favorite 60 movies or whatever. Like, here’s international, here’s documentary. And then was like, yeah, well, I watched over 330 films. And if you think of that for like, a regular human with an actual job, that’s a lot. That’s every paycheck. Well, my job during the day is to watch things. So for me in terms of shaping a slate, it’s that balance. I have plenty of time to vet dream slates before things have come in. And I’m like, this sounds really promising. Or this is an actress who’s like, this is the first thing she’s directing? Is this going to be perfect? And then I’ll get it and be like, it’s not quite there. And so you’re readjusting all the time. Almost all programming is done as a group. So you’re also responding to like, how the other people on your programming team felt about a film.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
I could be like, this is a slam dunk, what at you talking about? We need this. This is a key cornerstone of the competition lineup, and other people would be like, nah, I thought it was derivative. So there’s a lot of arguments that go into it. Respectful arguments.
Christian Schultz:
What do those arguments sound like?
Drea Clark:
It’s more of the things that are moving up, like as the cream rises or whatever. And then you have this like, oh, well, here’s the sort of master list. I’m just making up numbers, but like, let’s say for LA Film Fest, where we had 12 films in narrative competition, well, then we would have like 60-70 films that all of the narrative programmers would need to see. And then we’d argue those out to get to the 10-12. And so that you’re all coming from a base understanding of like, because you don’t want to be in a programming meeting where I’m like, well no, her movie is wonderful. And you’re like, well no, this one’s wonderful, but we haven’t seen the other film. You have to have everyone seeing everything so that they can be making the same comparisons. Often what I would be arguing about in those is like, I don’t think you’re understanding their intent. I feel I see their intent and therefore think it’s more successful.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
Whereas you think they were trying to do this and fell short. It’s arbitrary. It’s absolute guesswork of what my own vision is telling me. And then how I think an audience will respond, how I think other people like, again, the many filters, but so you’ll have those discussions. Or like I said, like with comedies, there’s definitely been times that I’m like, you guys are crazy. This is funny. I’m funnier than all of you.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
So why should you get to vote here? But you become very tied to like the films that you really like. It’s like you’re part of their filmmaking team. And if they do get programmed, those filmmakers are like, who are you? And you’re like, I’m basically one of you. I’m almost a producer. Like, I fought for this. But like a phrase that I used at LA Film Fest all the time was, do you have a knife for this film? Meaning like, every film that kind of rises the ranks needs at least one solid champion in that room. Because you need someone. People wax and wane, and there’s something that’s like, oh, yeah, no brainer, no brainer. And then, eh, you know, I liked it at first, but now I’ve seen more things.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
So there’s generally the ones that make the list or because someone consistently was like, no, that film was fantastic. That filmmaker has a voice that needs to be heard. And, again, like you never know, if someone’s going to respond, like there’s nothing you can do other than make the best thing that fits you as an artist.
Christian Schultz:
It’s so cool to hear that you guys are like fighting for the filmmakers. Like, it’s not about necessarily even the festival at that point. I know it is in general, but you get attached to a certain project, you get attached to the intention that somebody was trying to buy a project, and you like, f*cking fight for that sh*t.
Drea Clark:
You shouldn’t be in programming unless you’re looking for the best thing in every film. You need to start every film that you’re about to view with the hope it’s good. Because if you’re just hoping it’s crap, you can be like, I watched half of it and it was enough. Like you’re not giving it its fair shake like that. And so the people that I work with, they approach it that way of like, please be good, please be good. And then you get psyched. And then you want the films that you’re going to champion. And it really is like, because we all have that filter. And sometimes we will go back to sort of, what are our mission statements. It’s the economy of means, it’s innovative storytelling. What are the filters of this particular festival? That’s our good divining rod of like, what’s gonna lead me in the right direction. But truly, like independent programmer passion for projects is what? Because once it gets into a mix, and you’re like, alright, we’re only talking about narrative competition right now, then I’m gonna be like, no, we do not have anything like this. No one else is making this film. We should be showing this film.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. So when you’re watching films all day—and be honest here—are there certain films that you start and get 10-15 minutes in and can’t continue?
Drea Clark:
The very true reality is I know within two minutes if I’m going to like a movie.
Christian Schultz:
That’s what I’m asking.
Drea Clark:
Yeah, I never stop at that point. I don’t watch everything all the way through. But I give everything at least the first act. And a lot of times, I’ll go to the end just to see like, is this going to twist something? Is it supporting? But you have it in the first 30-40 minutes.
Christian Schultz:
Because that’s something very good for filmmakers to know.
Drea Clark:
Oh, for sure. And honestly, I think a lot of it again because it’s Sundance, it’s different. I’m doing episodic. Those are shorter, so it’s easier. If they’re only 20-40 minutes, yeah, watching those all the way through, that’s easy. But on the feature side, it’s that thing of like, if you haven’t proved yourself to me in 30 minutes, I don’t know why you think your third act is gonna save you. Because you need this whole piece and even if you’re like, oh, but the narrative twists around, I’m like, well, no, because what those 30 minutes also were showing me is if you had the fundamentals, like the craft of it. Because I’m very sensitive and I think of those rejection letters, the day that rejection letters go out, it physically pains me. I’m like, oh, I can’t. And I have to concentrate on like, oh, I’ve been able to give the good news. Like, I’ve been able to invite this many filmmakers, and we divvy those up so that different people get the glow of calling someone. But the idea of so many people’s dreams are gonna be crushed today. And they gave us this thing and they paid to have us judge their art. There are a lot of things that I feel like philosophically opposed to. Don’t let me judge your art. Make your art. But that’s literally what we have to do. It’s like we’re all in this together.
Christian Schultz:
That’s an agreement that everybody’s going into, for sure.
Drea Clark:
But I do recognize it’s a leap of faith. Like you’re handing in something with me, so I’m not going to be like, I know in two minutes. I’m not an asshole.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
I mean, I probably am, but less of one.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah, I also feel like Sundance specific. I’m assuming Bentonville and LA Film Fest are kind of different ethos. But Sundance specifically, moreso on the feature side, it’s a lot of character studies. Whether it’s, you know, Honey Boy or Whiplash or something. I wonder if is that something that you guys communicate about in general? Or is that just because it’s like, oh, this is kind of feeling like a Sundance movie?
Drea Clark:
No, I think it’s actually more a reflection of the trends are in American Indie cinema. I think that a lot of first-time filmmakers are making things that are character-driven because that’s what’s really interesting to them. Or it’s based on their own life or they’ve been ruminating for however long. But if you look at the world cinema section, it’s a completely different bag. You’ll get so much more that’s just atmospheric or whatever. We have a mix of things. But I do think it’s a genuine reflection of the kind of percentages of each band of storytelling that we’re getting. And so you’re seeing more in American indie that’s character-driven, because that’s what American indie filmmakers are making.
Christian Schultz:
I wonder why this is, though. Or what’s your opinion?
Drea Clark:
I’m sure there’s definitely people more educated than me that can speak to this, but like a lot of countries have just more national arts funding. They’ll have Scandinavian films that are gorgeous, moody, and tempered. And sort of pastoral. Like, there’s something there. And it’s part of, yeah, they’re given the funding from their government. Whereas we’re like, okay, well, I have a nice camera for five days. It’s the coverage thing all over again. I’m gonna concentrate on verbal storytelling and like a character piece and performance storytelling. Because also, those are the films that sell. Something like if I have an actor, I can do something.
Christian Schultz:
It feels like such a luxurious way to make movies.
Drea Clark:
There’s a budget difference in that, like, if I want to make something really beautiful, and sumptuous and outside, great. What lenses am I getting to do that? Or am I going to like have a busted-down Arri from three generations ago, which is what I can afford? Or the DP that has his own gear? That’s why we have option two. So it’s a budgetary difference. It’s where are you spending your time and money? And you’re like, well I want it to look good. But I don’t have the funding to make something beautiful.
Christian Schultz:
So you end up focusing more on the character kind of stuff. I can see how that would work.
Drea Clark:
Like, I mean, Denmark is a good example. But there’s a lot of countries that have a lot more funding than than we do in terms of art support from an early age.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah. So when you’re when you are curating and you’re going through films, how do you pace yourself? Do you stack all of your narrative stuff on top of each other? Or do you like have to kind of break it up— maybe you do a comedy and then a narrative? How do you actually schedule out your day to see those things?
Drea Clark:
It’s different for different festivals. So Sundance has specific teams. The Doc team is only watching doc. World Cinema is only watching world cinema. So there’s less chance to mix it up. If I’m lucky, because I do watch a couple of sections, I’m primarily watching the episodic. But then I’ll look at some features. I’ll look at a lot of shorts. And I will balance out, like okay, I can only do X amount of international in a day. So I don’t have a hang up. I know some people, it grates their eyes.
Christian Schultz:
I only watch with subtitles.
Drea Clark:
I was gonna say, I do have friends that watch English language with subtitles as well. But for me, it’s more. It’s also even in shorts. The range of budgets is so different that I’m like, if I only watch world shorts for a bit, and then I switch to America, I’m like, our poor country. Because those are like your lowest budget.
Christian Schultz:
Right.
Drea Clark:
Like, American narrative short, like those are the ones that have like the smallest budgets most of the time. And it’s unfair. You can’t compare that with someone who’s had like this big art wandering. So that’s one part of it. But for the festivals, like for LA Film Fest, when that still existed and certainly for Bentonville where I do all of the feature programming: Doc, International and American Narrative. Like I have to pace out mostly the docs, because documentaries make me cry. Like if I’m in a heavy, okay, this is the week I got to get caught up on the documentary, I cry every day. Because even the ones that are about something joyful, the grace in them makes me cry. There’s no veneer of fiction. There’s no like, oh, people sort of are terrible. Or like, no, the people are terrible or the world is terrible, or you know, the environment is terrible. So I do like to mix those up. I will absolutely look at what the last film I’m gonna watch for the day is ahead of time, so I can plan something lighter or something that I think will be goo, so I can end on a positive note. Because you need to keep well replenished. So I can continue to be optimistic starting in the mix.
Christian Schultz:
That’s one of my other questions. I feel like a one film would kind of infer the next film that you watch in some degree, how you reset.
Drea Clark:
It’s interesting because if you watch something that’s really good, you’re in this great mood. You’re like, that was so good, filmmaking’s awesome, indie filmmaker are the best. And then you start the next one and it wasn’t good, you’re like, well I can only go up. Like it’s pretty fine, like an optimistic way in. Like I said, you really do need to want the best for them. But it’s also those moments of volume viewing, when we would get into—like I said, like with LA Film Fest—when we had our shortlist. We all have to watch our 60 narratives, and then the 60 docs or whatever. Those are the things where you’re like, oh I’m grinding and I’m trying to pace it out. Maybe I’ll go in the other room and play with my cat for a minute. Or like, I like just to do something to break things up. Because the other thing is, no one wants you to complain about your job if your job is watching horror movies all day. Like, I’m not like a factory worker, you know. No part of me is pretending. But there’s an emotional grate to it. Because other than the subject matter, a lot of things have really heavy, dark, or just depressing, bleak angles to them. Even if they’re well crafted, you’re like, cool, a cool story of abuse or whatever. And so you need to have a good frame of mind for that. It’s an emotional balance of wanting to be in the right frame for all of these films. And some of these films are going to get me more emotional than others.
Christian Schultz:
Because you watch so many movies and so much material, I would love to know—and we kind of talked about it before when we’re talking about the first act—your opinion on storytelling. Do you feel like filmmakers kind of fail a lot of the time?
Drea Clark:
I think it’s a couple things. One, I think because a lot of what I do is discovery, first-time filmmakers who just have a strong voice from the start—even if it’s messy—but it’s there and it’s unique and it’s only theirs. But I think even with them, there can be something. A lot of people, their first work is crafted about around something that happened to them in real life. And therefore, there’s plenty in there that I’m like, I’m sure if I asked you, you would explain that this is in here, because that’s how it happened. But that’s not the best film for whole characters or moments or why there’s this whole thing in here. So I think it’s really learning how to kill your darlings, how to look very shrewdly even before you begin. And then the other part of it is—it sounds like I don’t want competent filmmaking, because I certainly do. I want someone who’s firing on all cylinders. But I think a lot of film—indie film—is either derivative or picking up on someone else’s voice because they love it as a fan or like, just as someone who loves film. They’re like, yes, I’d like to do something in the style of Tarantino. No, do it in the style of you.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
Because if it’s derivative then it doesn’t feel original. And what we’re looking for is that originality, it’s innovation. But it’s also a consistency. If you’re making something that just feels wrote. And it’s back to the coverage of like, it’s competent. They’re there. They’re getting it done. But it’s also could be like a TBS-syndicated show. I mean, no discredit to them—good for all of you making those. But you know, you want something if you’re making an indie film. Hopefully from here, it’s just going to be people throwing money and deals at you. And with money and deals, you have more and more people to weigh in on what you’re making. Indie film is just what you like, so make something that’s just you. Don’t try and make something that’s reminiscent of something you like.
Christian Schultz:
I would love to know, such a stock question. But for someone like yourself, I’m curious. What was can you remember a film that you had to fight for the most?
Drea Clark:
God, I feel like I’ve fought for so many things. And most of them I’ve been very smug about. I love pointing out one we lost that to Tribeca. Here’s a film years and years and years ago, I fought for a film called Murder Party. And the director Jeremy Saulnier went on to do amazing work and is one of my favorite people and one of my favorite filmmakers.
Christian Schultz:
Was this before Blue Ruin?
Drea Clark:
Oh, yeah. It’s his first film.
Christian Schultz:
Really?
Drea Clark:
Yeah. We showed it at Slamdance. It’s totally different from his other work. And we had shown a short of his previously, called Crabwalk, which is also great. But yeah, I remember being like, no, this is great.
Trust me when I tell you like this is a filmmaker we want to have in the mix.
Christian Schultz:
Yeah.
Drea Clark:
And we did. Now, like I said, I’m so bad. Remember, I should have looked. That’s such a good example.
Christian Schultz:
Because I think even going back to what we were saying earlier, Jeremy made Blue Ruin, almost by himself, you know. And you watch that, and it feels like a Jeremy movie, you know. And then you see him go into like, Green Room. And it’s like, this is even more, you know, there’s there’s, yeah, just on that point. I think that’s a great example. Do you have any films that you are maybe fighting against that proved you wrong?
Drea Clark:
No, because I have impeccable taste. But I will tell you what has proven me wrong. There’s been films that I was not psyched about and thought that, had like, actively been championing a different film was like fine. And then at the end of the day, like, we always tell the programmers and I use the same rhetoric with the Spirit Awards committees in terms of determining the nominees of, you are going, you should hopefully at the end of this process of the films we program, you should love 40% of them. And then another 30%, you should be like, okay, not my thing, but I get it. And then there will be two films that you hate, and you do not understand why they’re there. And that’s great. Because our lineup should be reflective of this committee and this programming team as a group. And if it’s just one person’s, how are you serving a community? How are you gatekeeping if it’s just your singular voice? But for me, the films that I’m always like, meh, least psyched about, I haven’t been proven wrong with them doing really well. But I have been proven wrong often are the filmmakers I like the best. Those are the ones that I’ve certainly never telling you.
Christian Schultz:
I do want to ask one last thing, and then we’ll wrap up. As a person who loves cinema, how do you develop good taste?
Drea Clark:
Well, I’m sure many people will be like, your taste is terrible, so you don’t get to weigh in on this. But I think part of it is the outliers thing. It’s 10,000 hours. Like, if you put in the number of films that I’ve seen.
If I hadn’t honed some sort of voice, then I don’t know what I’ve been doing for 20 years. Like, if you watch this many films for this long and not just watch them passively, but like actively looking for the talent behind the story, who is this stepping stone for a larger career? They are going to do more I want to see, and I want to help them get there. All of that shapes your voice and all of those conversations.
Having something and learning from other programmers who started before you that have really great takes or have a wider breadth of knowledge in areas that you are less. I know Stan Brakhage, but that’s kind of the end of my experimental knowledge. So if I’m working with people who can reference things, you’re sort of learning all the time and you need to be as open to that as anything else. But yeah, I think caring a lot is part of it and genuinely loving it. If you don’t want to see and be finding things to champion, then you’re just smug. Go be a critic or go be just someone who watches a lot of movies. But if you are looking to be a really strange in particular part of the cog of the indie film machine, programming is a is a great way to do that.
Christian Schultz:
It was an honor to speak with you today. Thank you for being here and can’t wait to have you back at some point.
