Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Siegelstein.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I had always been a fan of movies, but it wasn’t until my junior year of high school when I joined an after-school film club that I started entertaining the notion of pursuing film as a career. It was when filming a goofy short film about a hitman for the mob – very much a “boys with toys” kind of experience – that I realized directing movies was my dream. Even if it was on a very elementary, high school short film shot on a mini-DV camera, I loved the camaraderie of working with the crew, talking with actors, working with a cameraman and realizing how camera angles and framing can impact the story, and the adrenaline rush of working against elements like weather to get the perfect take…and then when we began editing the movie and learning the language of cinema, how holding on to a shot for either too long or too short can make an impact…I was hooked.
I enrolled in the film school at the University of Texas in Austin, where I met a fellow film major named Jeff Storms, with whom I instantly became very close friends. After college I began working as a grip/lighting technician on movies and TV shows shot throughout all of Texas. The job was a way to pay the bills, but more than that it was a way to learn how films are produced from the inside out. I was forging relationships with camera and light vendors, becoming friends with fellow film crew workers, and learning the dos and don’ts of film productions. Concurrently with this, I was writing screenplays. One such screenplay, “People with Issues,” that I collaborated on with Jeff really struck a nerve with me.
If I am going to invest my time, energy on a film that has my name credited as director it will be the sort of movie that I want to see. It would be the sort of movie that is representative of the sort of the films I like. It would be the sort of movie that I am proud to say I was the director of.
If I am going to direct only one movie…only one passion project…then the story told will be a personal one. The act of organizing multiple crews during three batches of filming over three years to yield a 21-day shoot that gave way for a nearly 98-minute film – never have I felt as alive as I did when making this movie. The story and characters of People with Issues, they stirred something inside me. I fell in love with these characters, and they inspired me to go through with following my dream – to direct a feature film.
Please tell us about your art.
With my writing partner Jeff, we founded Keymaster Productions, LLC to make the feature under. I contacted a line producer friend of mine in the Austin film industry named James Boisvenue to help in drafting potential budgets. In February 2013, Jeff and I produced a 13-minute proof-of-concept piece for the feature film that took two days to film. We were all set to raise funds and make this movie! …until we couldn’t raise the funds by the necessary time, and we didn’t make the movie.
Though feeling somewhat defeated, I couldn’t help but continue re-reading that People with Issues script and loving the characters. Thinking the material was too good to go to waste (and also feeling a bit obsessive), Jeff and I re-tooled the first act of the script to be a web-series that was financed through a successful crowdfunding campaign. In May 2014, “season 1” of People with Issues was filmed in seven days. Once post-production was complete, what was yielded was 48 minutes of narrative.
It had become clear that my time spent working on sets as a grip and script supervisor had imparted upon me the savvy to run a film set with proper prioritization. The production got the maximum bang for its buck by choosing locations that can double as other locations, thus eliminating the need for company moves, along with the knowledge of proper on-set order of operations to run with efficiency.
In early 2015, the project received another blessing when its star, Tanner Kalina, was cast as one of the main performers in Richard Linklater’s ensemble comedy Everybody Wants Some!! When that movie began being referred to as a spiritual sequel to Linklater’s famed Dazed and Confused, I was handed a very interesting bargaining chip for future meetings with film investors. Everybody Wants Some, Linklater’s follow-up to his Academy Award-winning Boyhood, is the spiritual sequel to the movie that took a bunch of unknown actors who would eventually become movie stars like Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Milla Jovovich…
When pitching for money in the financing stage, one would first ask if it’s an easy sell like a horror or action movie. If it’s a comedy or drama, they then ask who is in the movie. As in, what famous person will make me want to watch this comedy? Unless there’s a star, comedies and dramas are tough sells. But with an actor who is now connected to a director who has a proven eye for casting people before they become famous, People with Issues now had a potential future movie star attached.
I took the remaining acts of the movie (completely re-wrote the ending) and adapted them to be “season 2” of People with Issues, the production title of what was really the necessary batch of filming to expand on what was already shot to complete the project as a feature film. In February and March of 2016, the cast and crew reunited for 12 additional days of filming, thus marking the completion of a movie that took three chunks of filming over the course of three years to make.
It then took a few years to find a home for it and get the movie distributed. On June 5, 2018 the movie was made available on VOD/DVD from Nandar Pictures.
Stay true to yourself and stick to your guns. Aim high, follow your dreams, and believe in yourself. It might not happen overnight. It might not happen over a week. Dreams do come true, but it only will if you make it happen. It takes a lot of work, but if you are relentless in your belief in yourself they will come true. And it might not happen in the way you originally intended, but if you are flexible and can think outside of the box – and your own box – you can and will find the needed path.
What do you think about conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
With digital filmmaking and high-end cameras available on phones there is no shortage of methods to find your voice as a filmmaker and create your own content. On the negative side of the spectrum, because of this there is a much greater volume of content available and the bar has been raised higher than ever by distributors. It’s almost as if making a feature film is not as great an accomplishment as it was 10 years ago, because of how much “easier” it is to make films. Distributors and exhibitors are now pickier than ever. Because the crowd has gotten much bigger, it is now even harder to stick out in the crowd.
All cities need to encourage and nurture these artists. Networking meet-ups, evenings and opportunities to display and exhibit your art need to be put on. Putting your work on the internet is great, but you also need to get it out there in front of people that might not be aware of your web-sites where your art is shown.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
The movie is available to rent or purchase through VOD on Amazon Prime. Fans of solid media can purchase DVDs on Amazon, walmart.com, or flix merchandise.com. It has also been picked up by TBD TV, a USA nationwide broadcast TV channel owned by Sinclair Broadcast, as well as the Nadar Pictures roku channel
Contact Info:
- Website: www.keymasterfilms.com
- Phone: 2812226097
- Email: keymasterfilms@gmail.com
- Instagram: @peoplewithissuesfilms
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pplwithissues/?ref=bookmarks
- Twitter: @PplWithIssues
Image Credit:
Photos taken by Richard Porter, Kelly Patton, Patrick Rusk.
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
