Interview with Guernslye Honorés
Critical feedback is part of the job, but don’t believe all of it. During years I’ve spent showing rough cuts of films to various audiences, I’ve heard some off -the-wall criticisms. Usually, it’s coming from a place of thoughtfulness, but there are also people who are telling you how they would’ve made the film, as well as revealing their political ideology. Don’t listen to them.
As a part of our series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Filmmaker”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Mat Hames.
Mat Hames is an Emmy winning director, known for his two feature length Independent Lens documentaries “What Was Ours” and “When I Rise” which premiered at SXSW, Hot Docs, and the Big Sky Documentary Festival and are now streaming on Prime Video and Apple TV. Mat’s directorial debut was “Last Best Hope,” a nationally broadcast PBS film about the Belgian Resistance and escape lines during WWII, for which he was knighted by Belgian King Albert II. He made the award-winning documentary series “Power Trip: The Story of Energy” and “A State of Mind” on PBS. Additional films include the Robert Redford-narrated “Fighting Goliath” for SundanceTV, “Art of Home” (PBS Living Channel), a series of 10 documentaries with Rooster Teeth called RTDocs, and Emmy award winning film, “Fossil Country.” He is co-founder of Austin based production company Alpheus Media.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit of the ‘backstory’ of how you grew up?
Thanks for having me. I grew up in Texas, a 1980’s metroplex kid. As a child, my dad and mom owned and operated a campground near Six Flags over Texas and the Texas Rangers Stadium. Today that area is paved over but back then it was prairie land. When I was little, I saw my parents working really hard to make the campground work, and they hired some really colorful characters, mostly hippies. My parents sold the campground when I was around 9 or 10 years old, and then we moved to Arlington. I struggled to care about school and had some unfortunately harsh teachers. My parents realized how much I loved movies, TV shows, and dressing up as characters. I was definitely the ’creative type’ focused on writing short stories and poetry, performing in plays, and trying to make little movies on my dad’s home video camera with friends. I only focused on what interested me; my grades suffered. Luckily, my parents discovered a children’s theater school for performing arts and enrolled me there at age eight. At that time the theater school had really supportive but rigorous teachers. I took classes in theater but also playwriting, video, dialect. I did a lot of acting in my early days. I was in a commercial and then got an agent, auditioned for a lot of films, got small parts in a few TV movies that filmed in the Dallas area, and was randomly in an Aerosmith music video. I knew by age 15 that I had no desire to make acting a career. At age 16, my parents went through a bad separation and divorce. It took a long time for me to realize that all my support systems were gone, and it was time to fend for myself. I struggled from to find a viable path and had no idea how to do basic things, like pay for college. I was on my own.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
After a year of time-wasting minimum wage jobs, I went to the University of North Texas in Denton and enrolled in their film program, but was frustrated because the graduate students were the only people allowed to make films. Also, I was experiencing poverty. Paying for college and rent was such a huge challenge for me ages 18–20 with no parental support, so at the suggestion of my two closest friends, I went to the UNT computer lab and learned Macintosh programs like Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and AfterEffects. Through a temp agency I began to get contract jobs which paid a lot more than the minimum wage jobs I’d been scraping by on.
In the early 1990’s the desktop video revolution was changing everything about film and video production. If I could buy a computer and the software, I could make my own film projects and, make money. There was a huge demand in the early 90’s for people who knew the software. I got an internship at a TV production company. I worked for free for three months, hoping and praying that I could get hired on staff, and eventually they offered me a full-time job, which solved my money problems and put me in an environment that I could improve my filmmaking skills. After three years, I moved to Austin where I enrolled in a filmmaking workshop taught by Steve Mims, a UT Professor. I also collaborated with some friends on short films and started to build my own freelance business. I started a production company with a friend, was hired to edit a documentary, and eventually became the director (because there really wasn’t enough money to pay a real director). I directed that documentary for very little money, but I was absorbed in the story and felt the whole project was meaningful. It was about a WW2 pilot who crashed and escaped the Nazis with the help of the Belgian Resistance. It was called ‘Last Best Hope’. It was a prime-time special on PBS nationally, shown at many film festivals, and won national awards. It put me firmly on the filmmaking path.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your filmmaking career?
My first documentary, ‘Last Best Hope’, was screened in Belgium for the Crown Prince (now the King of Belgium), and surviving members of the Belgian Resistance who fought the Nazis. The Prince was apparently moved by the film and I was knighted in Belgium with the title of ‘Knight of the Order of the Crown’. I’m really grateful to Belgian producer Walter Verstraeten who advocated for the screening and who helped make it happen.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
I’ve interviewed hundreds of interesting people. I once interviewed former President Bill Clinton, which was really unpleasant; he was in a foul mood when he arrived and almost walked out of the interview. Luckily he did a great interview once the cameras rolled.
Some of my favorites: Princess Dina of Jordan in Amman, she was an interesting character focused on building cancer hospitals. People in Rwanda and Zambia. Fossil hunters who dig out ancient fossils from quarries in the deserts of Wyoming; some climbing and mountaineering pioneers. Christian ministers who were part of the civil rights movement. A farmer in Israel who irrigates land using ancient techniques. I loved interviewing authors like Bryan Burrough, who wrote ‘The Big Rich’. He’s a fascinating guy whose office was stuffed with interesting research to fill a hundred books. I’ve enjoyed working with author Michael Webber, who wrote the book Power Trip: the Story of Energy, which I adapted into a documentary series of the same name. Michael is an exuberant, optimistic professor who has taught me a lot.
I was fortunate to work with Robert Redford on a documentary that he commissioned through his non-profit, and he was one of the nicest and most humble people I’ve ever met. He taught me some things during the editing process. I also learned a lot working with director James Moll who produced my film, “When I Rise’. James won an Oscar for his excellent film ‘The Last Days’ which was an influence on me. Another favorite interview was Harry Belafonte, who was intelligent and really funny.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Definitely my wife, and producing partner, Beth Hames. She is a great thinker and writer, and she never seeks the limelight. We’ve been working together and in a relationship since my early 20’s. She is my biggest motivator and the person I’m most grateful for.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There is a quote by C.S. Lewis that has always been relevant to me, “In art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
I am very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?
In my lifetime, it has become easier to only be surrounded by people who agree with me, think like me, and echo my same attitudes. Diversity to me means not to surround myself with a monoculture in the entertainment and filmmaking industry. As I’ve been exposed to other perspectives and diverse opinions, I’ve become more empathetic, creative, and passionate about having cohesion with people based on values and not just on appearances or socio-economic similarities.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I’ve just launched “Power Trip: the Story of Energy” season 2, which is a 12-part, 12-hour long PBS documentary in the style of NOVA or the BBC. The series traces the history of energy and how it has impacted culture, entertainment, space travel, globalization, work, you name it. For this project I’ve interviewed over 50 of the brightest minds covering energy. The book by Michael Webber inspired the series. It’s on PBS, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV. I’ve also started the next film project, it’s either a feature doc or a limited series about the history of climbing, hiking, mountaineering and Alpinism in North America. I’m really excited about it, and I’ve started filming interviews this fall so I don’t know when it will be finished. I’m directing a few television commercials which I’m excited about.
Which aspect of your work makes you most proud? Can you explain or give a story?
I’m most proud of tackling complex historical topics without injecting politics. In the past decade, we’ve become very polarized, and I feel proud that I haven’t contributed to that.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why.
- Take a course on reading and understanding contracts. Or make friends with an attorney who handles film and entertainment law. With all of my films, at the very end of the process — just when I’m the most exhausted — I have to make decisions that include reading the fine print. At that point, the process needs a whole different level of attention.
- Creative energy has value, don’t waste it. Over the years I’ve worked on hundreds of short form projects for clients, and I’ve decided they take just as much energy as documentaries. There have been so many that I’ve been grateful to do because they’ve been for good causes working with nice people. But — to be frank — not every client is worth giving away your energy and passion. Be discerning. Only work for nice clients who respect you.
- Not every creative idea is going to pan out. Sometimes film projects went nowhere but I was too stubborn to let it go until I’d spent a ton of creative energy on it. Make sure you don’t spend too much time on something if you’re uncertain. For example, I once started a documentary project about a pretty famous incident in history. But after a lot of work, I realized that the entire topic was too complex for me to coherently ask good questions or make sense of, and there was nobody I could trust to tell the truth of what happened. I abandoned it, but only after I’d spent a year on the project.
- Critical feedback is part of the job, but don’t believe all of it. During years I’ve spent showing rough cuts of films to various audiences, I’ve heard some off -the-wall criticisms. Usually, it’s coming from a place of thoughtfulness, but there are also people who are telling you how they would’ve made the film, as well as revealing their political ideology. Don’t listen to them.
- Do more things that force me to be present in the moment. Read more, hike more, climb mountains, spend time outside. Activities all of which have nothing to do with filmmaking. These things can make you feel ‘more present’, whereas, the internet and only reading about topics related to work can cause information overload. For me, the feeling of being present comes from reading books that have nothing to do with my work or from hiking in the mountains, and spending time with other people.
When you create a film, which stakeholders have the greatest impact on the artistic and cinematic choices you make? Is it the viewers, the critics, the financiers, or your own personal artistic vision? Can you share a story with us or give an example about what you mean?
A little of each? A film for me goes through stages. When I start, it’s all about the detective work. Questions drive the whole thing. Then, usually after I’ve interviewed a few people, the theme is my focus. During editing, I imagine convincing a skeptical audience that they should care. I explore subjects that I think other people need to know more about, and then I try to prove why.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’d like to see a movement to de-emphasize personal politics. Politics is the opposite of empathy. I’d like to see a back-to-basics return to telling ‘human condition’ stories. Of course, in the past there have been wonderful films that are political, like ‘The Conversation’, ‘All the President’s Men’, or ‘Eyes on the Prize’ all of which were political and great. But here’s an analogy — if documentaries are a meal, today’s politics have become the sweet dessert of empty calories, and I prefer to focus on the protein and vegetables, even if those are the boring part. There are certain subjects, like history, energy, the meaning of life, human condition type questions that I’d like to see de-politicized because they’re important to everyone.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂
That’s a tough one, and it probably should be a documentarian like Errol Morris, who I respect. But at the end of the day, a private meal with Peter Gabriel is what I’d chose. Gabriel is a guy whose always done things his own way.
How can our readers further follow you online?
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Thanks so much!
About the interviewer: Guernslye Honoré, affectionately known as “Gee-Gee”, is an amalgamation of creativity, vision, and endless enthusiasm. She has elegantly twined the worlds of writing, acting, and digital marketing into an inspiring tapestry of achievement. As the creative genius at the heart of Esma Marketing & Publishing, she leads her team to unprecedented heights with her comprehensive understanding of the industry and her innate flair for innovation. Her boundless passion and sense of purpose radiate from every endeavor she undertakes, turning ideas into reality and creating a realm of infinite possibilities. A true dynamo, Gee-Gee’s name has become synonymous with inspirational leadership and the art of creating success.
Mat Hames Of Alpheus Media: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Filmmaker was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.