Christian Elder, Screenwriter: That does not negate the fact that the current era we’re in is not looking for a new voice.
Film Courage: Do you feel movies today are less entertaining than they used to be?
Christian: Yes, that’s absolutely. Reason why is because I think we’re in a fallow period for movie making and I think people are afraid of taking risks and I think that a lot of movies are cookie cutter and because of the way that the business is structured right now it’s not allowing for a lot of new talent to emerge and receive the kind of attention that it should. I think that there’s periods where the pendulum swings on that and that the opposite is the case. But right now we’re in one of those fallow periods and hopefully it will swing in the other direction. In the 90’s we had a very great amazing era. I think it lasted a little bit into the odds but after that it just went back to mostly studio fair. I have nothing against studio films by the way. I think they’re fine and they’re fun but you need to have other stuff too and we don’t have enough of the other stuff. In the 70’s we had a lot of that other stuff and now it’s just another one of those periods where we just don’t have a lot of that other stuff.
Film Courage: Why do you think this is?
Christian: It’s just kind of the way the business has been structured and it’s kind of like we had a new influx of people into the system in the 90’s, from new kinds of producers, new kinds of executives. There is a legitimacy that independent filmmaking received in which it was actually (if not prestige) it was given consideration as far as having money making possibilities and some of those films did make money but now the party is over. The movies that they acquire at places like Cannes and Sundance are already set up. You don’t get in there on a lark like you used to. You can’t be a Wes Anderson, you can’t be a Kevin Smith out of the blue. You’re already fully funded and backed by some kind of corporate arm that allows you those kind of opportunities and…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Christian Elder is a screenwriter, playwright and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. He has been a finalist for Tribeca All Access, a semi-finalist for the International Thomas Wolfe Playwriting Award, a quarterfinalist for the ScreenCraft Play contest and a quarterfinalist for the Academy Awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. His work written for the stage has been recently developed at the Billie Holiday Theatre through the Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop and Urban Stages, both in New York. He has written and directed two short films and is the creator and executive producer of the new crime fiction anthology podcast Hell, California. Elder’s Hell, California, is a hardboiled crime fiction podcast anthology series (co-produced by Jeremy Foley). It takes place in a mysterious, mythical California border town called Hell. Each episode is an original standalone noir story, often about greed, lust and murder. In March 2020, Elder, Foley and a team of six writers formed an online TV writers’ room during the pandemic, resulting in this series.
CONNECT WITH CHRISTIAN ELDER
CONNECT WITH ‘HELL, CALIFORNIA – An Anthology Crime Show’
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